Memorial Day

Yes, I am alive. I'm sure you were beginning to wonder since it's been several weeks since my last post. We went to Disneyland for a week and a half, and I've been trying to get caught up on life ever since. That means some things, like the blog, have gone on the back burner. I can't wait to blog about Disneyland. It was such a great trip & all of us had a great time. But, before I blog about that, there are several posts from May that I still haven't written yet. So, I'm going to try to get caught up on those over the next few days (or weeks, depending on how life goes) & then blog about the Disneyland trip. I figured I would start with Memorial Day. It seemed like the easiest of all the posts I need to write about, and I need something easy to slowly get me back into the blogging mood.

On Memorial Day morning, Mike got up bright and early and went on a bike ride with my Dad.  This wasn't just any ordinary bike ride.  It was his first "century" or, in other words, 100 mile ride.  Mike is training to do LOTOJA with my dad in the fall.  For those of you that don't know, LOTOJA is a 207 mile ride from Logan to Jackson Hole.  It's basically the Ironman of cycling.  My Dad has done it for the past 10 years.  After getting his 10 year award this year, he decided that he was done doing LOTOJA...but only by himself.  He said that he would continue to do the race as part of a relay team if one of his son-in-laws would do it with him.  So, Mike has become a cyclist.  He has been training for the race since the weather warmed up this past spring.  Their Memorial Day century ride was his first big test of how he may do on the LOTOJA course.  He passed with flying colors.  He completed the 100 mile ride in good time, felt great while doing it, and had a blast.  I am unsure how someone could have a good time riding a bike for 100 miles.  I don't have a good time riding in the car for 100 miles, so I can't even imagine doing it on a bike.  But, regardless, Mike & my Dad had a lot of fun.  They rode from Orem down to Mona Lake and back.  Here are some pictures my Dad snapped of Mike while on their ride...

Now Mike & my Dad will continue to train throughout the summer and then compete in LOTOJA this upcoming September.

After the boys got back from their ride, they still had enough energy to take the three boys--plus Uncle Dan--to see this movie...

And the most impressive part...they didn't even fall asleep!  They all loved the movie & said it was one of their favorites.

While all the boys were at the movie, my mom, Vivvie & I went to the cemetery to visit my grandparents' grave.  These are the same grandparents whose temple work we had done just a few days before.  It had been awhile since I had been up there to visit their grave & after doing all their temple work, I really wanted to go visit it again.  Being that it was Memorial Day, we weren't the only ones trying to make it to the cemetery.  Everyone...and their dog...and their cousin...and their cousin's dog...and cat too...were also trying to go to the cemetery.  Which created quite the little traffic jam.  We're talking I-15-through-the-Utah-County-Core-Project-on-the-Friday-afternoon-before-a-holiday-weekend traffic jam.  Oh my heavens!  It was ridiculous!  We sat & sat and sat some more.  But, eventually (as in probably 45 minutes later), we made it into the cemetery.  We put flowers & a veterans cross on their headstone...

As you can see, Viv had a great time crawling all over their headstone.  She couldn't get enough of it.  She loved feeling the engravings.  Not exactly the most respectful thing to be crawling on a headstone, but I'm pretty sure my grandparents would just laugh & tell her to keep doing it.  I finally got her to sit still for one minute, so I could take a picture--but she absolutely refused to look at the camera.  That little gal is just about as stubborn as they get (more on her in a future post)...

After our visit to the cemetery, and once the boys' movie got over, we all went back to my parents' house for a good ol' fashioned summer barbecue.  We ate burgers, hot dogs, ribs, and brats.  It was heavenly...

And that's the only picture we took the entire evening.  Haha!  Oops.  Thanks to my sister, Kristin, for taking our one & only picture of the barbecue.  But, regardless, it was a fun night.  We ate, we chatted, and we even watched some old home movies of when we were little girls.  It was a lot of fun.

So, that was our Memorial Day in a nutshell.  Look for other catch-up posts to come over the next few days.  --Lindsay