Vacation Day 7--Still More Family

My paternal grandfather died while I was in college.  He is buried in a Veteran's cemetary in Utah.  I promised my father that every time I go to Utah, I would go and see Grandpa.  He doesn't get a lot of visitors and so it is a nice thing that Mack and I like to do and it was an important lesson to teach our children.
On our way to the cemetary I explained to the kids that we were going to go visit Grandpa's grave.  They don't have much of a concept of death but I tried to explain to them that Grandpa was dead and we were going to go visit where his body was buried.  I got a lot of blank looks and nodding.  Then we grilled into their heads that there would be no running and no stepping on grave markers.  (I may have threated with immediate placement in a car seat.)

 This was the best picture I got (sorry Dad).  The sun was really bright and the kids were a bit squirmy.
The kids were exceptionally well behaved.  They mostly wanted to visit the grave of the man who had a pinwheel next to his marker.  Then they wanted to go see all of the ones that had flowers.  Then they wanted to know why there were some that were flat in the grass and some standing up.  Then we had a little history lesson about what the symbols on the top of the markers mean (religions) and what all of the words mean. 
I hope that some day my kids appreciate their ancestors and those who have served in the Armed Forces as much as I do. 
I miss my Grandpa a lot and it is always nice to go visit.  Of course I was crying, because that's what I do.  Reese asked, "Mommy, why are you crying?"  "Because I miss my Grandpa."  "I'm sorry Mommy.  That's ok.  I will share my Grandpa with you."  Oh my goodness.  It was the most precious thing in the world and still makes me tear up.  I love my sweet little boy and his pure goodness.

Then we dropped Mack off at the sealing of our niece, Rachel.  The kids and I drove around looking for a park with no luck and so found a bit of grass and had a picnic lunch.  That night we went to the wedding reception and we were off.
And by 'off' I mean headed back home.  It sure was nice to visit with so much family.  We see some of them more than others but we love them all.  The kids fit right in (maybe not in appearance) and had a great time. 
It was a fun trip but we were anxious to get home.  We knew our kids couldn't make the twelve (fourteen for us) hour drive in one day and so we drove to Kanab that night.  Brisbane was not happy that he was not in a bed at ten o'clock at night.  It was a good thing Barbara gave the kids mini flashlights and my mom bought them glowsticks (because both of those are a good time in a car at night).

I won't make a seperate post about driving home the next day.  We were just so glad to get home.  It was a great trip, but long.  We learned a lot about vacationing with small children that will serve us well on our next adventure. 
And you know what our kids asked about every single day that we were driving (all four of them)?  They wanted to know if we were going to go pick up Zippy.  That's right, they were worried about their partner in crime the whole trip.  Don't worry, we went and got her first thing Monday morning.