Memorial Day fun - Lehi

After visiting my grandparents graves in Provo, we went to Lehi and visited my Grandpa Hardy's grave in the Lehi Cemetery.  My grandfather died last August and I was living in another state and was unable to go to his funeral.  I was very excited to go see his grave for the first time since he passed.

Here is a photo of my grandmother, mom, and two of my siblings.  I have one other brother that was also there but for some reason he wasn't in the photo.  My guess is that he was chasing after his little boy, trying to keep him off the grave markers.  I was so glad that my grandmother was able to come with us to visit her husband's grave.

I really love this photo of my brother's family.  The sun finally came out and we took advantage of the moment and took photos.  It was a bit windy and so the weather was still cold, but it's just one of those things you deal with during the Spring.

As I mentioned previously, it was windy...notice, the crazy hair.  But I also like this photo of my husband and myself.

And here is my other brother's family!  Cute, cute!



My sister and her husband were posing for their photo when my nephew decided to run into their photo.  It really shows off his personality.  Fun photo!



Here's my grandmother at the grave of her husband.

This was a grave near my grandpa's grave.  These two little munchkins (my nephews) were drawn to the wind toys.  They loved watching them spin in the wind and then wanted to make them spin themselves.  They are too young to realize why we honor our dead but as they grow up, I hope they enjoy the family tradition of visiting graves.

After we finished visiting the graves, we came home and had a BBQ at my parent's house.  I had to add this photo that I took off their back patio.  Don't my parent's live in paradise?  I loved growing up in this area.  It is so beautiful...but it is a lot of work to keep up.  But love makes it happen.

This is from a side flower garden at my parent's house.  The tulips are almost all gone but I had to share this photo.

Memorial Day fun - Provo

This year we participated in my family's tradition of visiting the graves of our relatives.  Here is my Grandmother and Grandfather's grave.  When I was little I came to this same spot, just up one grave, to visit my great-grandfather and great-grandmother's graves.  As a teenager, my grandfather died and so we then were able to visit his grave along with his parent's graves.  My grandmother died before I got married so SM has never met these grandparents.  I was very excited for him to be here to visit their graves this year.  This is the first time we've been able to do it since we've been married.

My mom brought pictures from scrapbooks to share information about our relatives so that my nieces and nephews would be able to see whose graves we were visiting.  My sister will probably kill me for posting this photo but I really like it.

Here's my grandfather's name on the wall of all the veterans.  My grandfather served in WWII in the navy.  A family joke about that is that my grandfather got seasick easily and so we used to tease him that he'd turn green just at the mention of a large body of water.  My grandfather actually played baseball for the navy and toward the end of WWII he got on a large ship and headed out to war.  And then the war ended.  I cannot remember if he actually saw any war but if he did, it wasn't for very long.  I am still very proud of my grandfather and his service to this wonderful country.

Here's my brother teaching his oldest daughter how to read the dates on the graves.

Here are all the siblings.  We are just missing my brother that fits right in the middle of the five of us.  As a child every year we would take pictures at the graves and it was fun to see the progression of age as we grew up.  Now we are all grown up and showing this to our children.  I love family traditions.

And here's Mom and Dad...

And the only picture with the grand kids...before they moved.  We are missing one little guy but he was asleep on his mom's shoulder.

I had to add this photo.  Do you see that white stuff on the mountain?  Yep, we had fresh snow fall the night before and it rained during the night.  That is why we are all in coats or jackets.  The weather was only in the 50's and it felt cold.

Provo City Marathon and Relay

Here I am at my first official race, the Provo City Marathon, Half Marathon and Relay, and 5K.  Notice the numbers, SM and I did not get to pick our numbers, they were assigned and I think they were COOL!  Apparently we also did the "matchy" thing with our clothes.  You probably can't see it in this photo but I was very anxious and excited!

Here's SM with his older and younger sisters!  All three of them ran the half marathon!

Here I am with my baby brother who was my relay partner in the Half Marathon.  He's a little bit silly, if you haven't noticed.  My brother had gotten a head cold a few days before the race but he ran anyway...and did great! 

Here's my brother-in-law and brother, getting ready before the race by putting on their sunblock AND being silly.

The Before the race photo...notice we were wearing our jackets and long sleeved shirts.

Here's a photo of SM at the mid-point spot of the race.  My little brother waited here for me to do the relay and took some pictures while he waited for me to get there.

And there's ME!  My little brother wasn't expecting to see me yet and I surprised him.  He fumbled with the camera and started running backwards, trying to get this photo before I handed him the relay baton and he took off to run his leg of the race.

Here's my sister-in-law with her cups of water at the mid-point of the race.

Here's my other sister-in-law almost at the finish line.  Look at how strong she looks.  She finished strong and was excited about the race.

Here's SM cheering on his sister, letting her know that the finish line is just up ahead and that she has just a little bit more to run.

My brother-in-law came in second place for his age group.  He was really excited because at the very end he sprinted ahead past two other runners.  One of them was the third place winner.  I believe he did his run in 1:30...and that my friends, is FAST! 

And here is the AFTER the race photo.  We still look pretty good!  Not to shabby for a half marathon and half marathon relay!  I didn't really enjoy my 6.55 miles because I was running faster than I usually run (I did my part in 1:06 and my brother did his part in 1:04, and we came in 25th of the 50 relay teams) but after I was done I felt great.  The endorphins really kicked in and the excitement of being with a group made the run experience really exciting.  SM ran his half marathon in 1:50:19 and was very pleased with his time.  He came in 9th in his age group.

Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival

About a week ago I got to go to Thanksgiving Point's Tulip Festival with my mom, sister-in-law and nephew.  It was a rare day of sunshine and no rain and the flowers were beautiful.  There were hundred's of people looking at all the flowers and I'm pretty impressed with myself that I got so many pictures without strangers in them.

I love these colors!  I think tulips look really nice if their colors are strong and bold but I have to say that these soft, pastel colors are so wonderful together.   I'm so grateful Heavenly Father gave us so many beautiful things on this earth.  I love the beauty of nature.

Here's my beautiful sister-in-law.  She has season passes to Thanksgiving Point so I was able to get into the event for half price.  Gotta love a good deal.

Here's Mom!  She's holding her new camera that she got for her birthday/anniversary.  She took the camera hoping to learn a little bit more about it and to practice taking pictures.  Honestly, she didn't take as many pictures because she was just enjoying the beauty around her.

I really like this photo.  There were some great places to take photos...as long as you could be patient and wait for people to get out of the shot...and sometimes that never happened.  But I could probably fix this with a photo program if I knew what I was doing.

When I showed up at Mom's house we realized that we had on the same shirt.  I don't mind being "twinners" with my mom.  She's the greatest!

And here's a photo of me and my nephew.  He was just getting over a sickness and spent a lot of his time in the stroller because he was still tired.  But when we was out of the stroller he was enjoying the flowers.

Here's the end of my photos.  I took almost 100 photos of the tulip gardens but thought I'd share a small sampling with you, my fans.

Caramel Apples



My SIL taught SM and myself how to make caramel covered apples this last weekend.  It was a great weekend project.  My sister and her husband joined us in learning how to make these apples.  Yum!  Yum!

First you get some great green apples, then stick a stick into them, or, if you are not giving them away to anyone, you can stick a fork in them.  We ran out of sticks and ended up putting forks in two of the apples.

We then heated up the caramel in the microwave.  Be very careful to not to cook the caramel, just heat it up.  My SIL used a certain kind of caramel that is thick and yummy.

And then the dipping begins.  Here's a picture of my sister with one of the apples she dipped.

And here is SM with one of his apples...and my brother decided to help make the picture more interesting.

More apples, as shown by my brother-in-law.

After the apples have sat in the refrigerator and now are cold, you can  heat up the white chocolate and begin dipping the caramel covered apples in chocolate.

And before the chocolate is hardened, put cinnamon and sugar on the outside of the apple. 

And finally, put the apples back in the refrigerator.   They need to stay cold to look nice.  But more than that, they taste really yummy.



And after eating a piece of caramel-chocolate covered apple, your smile will look just like my nephews' smile!!