Memorial Day and Cousins

This Memorial Day we jealously looked at pictures of our families enjoying a camping trip at Big Sur.  We had planned on going when we got reservations in November, but didn't plan on living in UT at the time.  It is our special place (Danny and I met there), but we were glad our families were there enjoying  atmosphere.  To comfort ourselves we decided we had to have a really fun day too.  On Monday morning Danny and Lucy met Julie, Chad and boys at the zoo (the babies were sleeping and I didn't want to pay to get in with two cranky babies so I stayed home.) At noon Bryce and his friend Brooke came over and Danny and Blodgetts returned and we had a picnic at the park. We ate well and played wiffle ball to our hearts content.  Everyone stayed through the afternoon and had a great time.

After the babies' afternoon naps Danny and I decided we would go to the Salt Lake Cemetery and try and find his Pettit Grandparents' graves. I looked up the cemetery online and found a map of the approximate location. It is a HUGE cemetery so I drew a crude little map and felt pretty confident that we could find it.  With Lydia in the bjorn and Joyce in the backpack we started searching. My map felt almost useless as we went up and down rows of headstones looking for five small markers. We had Lucy look out for the letter P-and you would be surprised how many last names start with P in our quadrant of the cemetery:)

 After searching for about an hour and looking on our phones for more information we were almost thinking of giving up. However, we really wanted to find them! Lucy and I were looking together and decided to say a prayer and ask Heavenly Father to help us find it.  Danny was able to decipher a bit of code on the curb and we decided to try one more set of rows (that we had already went through at least once). This time we found them! We were thrilled. While searching on his phone Danny found Grandpa Lynne's obituary, so we read that and talked told Lucy a bit about his grandparents. It was really sweet hearing Danny talk about his Grandpa. He has always felt a special bond with him (and looks a lot like him too).  As we walked back to our car we were able to talk to Lucy about eternal families and what that really means. I couldn't help but wonder who would be visiting my grave someday. Sounds morbid but it was pretty fun too:) 

Lucy exhausted from the searching

On the way home we spotted a hole-in-the-wall charburger place (which is my favorite kind of place). They had no high chairs so we put the babies in the booth up against the windows and hoped they wouldn't fall off the seats. We had so much fun. Their zuccini fries and milk shakes were AMAZING. It was the perfect end to a great day.

 The next Sunday Danny got up in Sacrament meeting and bore his testimony. He mentioned our eperience finding his grandparents graves and mentioned their last name. After the meeting a good friend of ours (her daughter is Lucy's preschool friend) came up and told us that she and Danny are cousins-second cousins to be exact. Her grandma (Grandpa Lynne's sister Phyllis) lives just north of us and we have been meaning to visit her for awhile.  Lucy is thrilled that her best friend is now her cousin too.  She invited us over to meet her family and we were able to got that evening. We have heard a lot about Aunt Phyllis and it was a pleasure to meet her.  She is the last of her generation and it was a pleasure to get to know her better and talk to her about Grandpa. Small world:)