Memorial Day

David, Amelia, and I spent Memorial Day in Sanpete County, Utah celebrating the lives and decorating the headstones of my pioneer family. The day was perfect - blue skies and wispy clouds casting shadows on rolling green hills and pastures full of sheep, cows, and horses. (Amelia loved the animals. More about that below...)

We met the Goodmans and, armed with Rachel's fabulous notes and map, marched through the Moroni and Mount Pleasant cemeteries. Memorial Day is a big day there and everyone seems to gather at the cemeteries to visit and reminisce. Everyone knows your family somehow and has stories to share. It is amazing to me how a place where you've never lived can feel so much like home. (Maybe it's because every headstone read Blackham, Anderson, Christensen, or Sorensen!)
Following the cemeteries, we stopped by David and Dianne Blackham's for lunch and more family. I can't tell you how long it's been since I've seen many of these people and how great it was to play catch up. As long as we live in Utah, Memorial day in Sanpete is definitely going to an annual event.

Before I sign off - back to the above-mentioned animals. My cousin David Blackham has ZEBRAS! (Click on the photo to enlarge and look to the very center of the shot.) They are pastured in Wales and we took the short detour on the way home to stop and see them. David is dreaming of creating an African Serengeti-type park for them and other wild animals but keeping wild animals happy (and alive) is proving more difficult than planned. (There were six zebras originally, and now there are only two.) They are a funny sight in the middle of Utah out in a pasture of horses!