Dressed in white and shish kabobs

Preston and I had a eventful weekend for our two year anniversary (of our first date!).

Friday, my siblings and spouses all met together at the Salt Lake Temple where we surprised my mom for her birthday. My dad brought her to the temple (out of her surprise) and told her to wait in the waiting room just before entering in. There she sat as the first of us started trickling in. She immediately fell into tears as she saw each of us gather in and get ready for the upcoming endowment session.

All dressed in white and all together, we were able to come together as a family and show our love and appreciation for my mom and all that she does for us. It was so neat to all end up in the Celestial room and see one another there and know that this was our ultimate goal. How grateful I am for such a loving family who is worthy to be within the temple walls and share in such an experience with one another.

Saturday, Preston and I worked on the yard quite a bit and started the rest of our garden. Even though it doesn't look like much work here, I'll have you know that we planted several seeds under that dirt and one day it is going to be a beautiful garden.

Look I even identified all the things that we planted with little shish kabob sticks and labels. Ingenious!And look at our other garden that we started just a few months ago. We made our first spinach salad out of that spinach on Saturday and it barely even made a dent.

Also, I had to post this picture, because all the flowers are starting to come out and this is my favorite part, walking through this archway. We are going to make another one at the end of those bricks because we like this one so much.

Then, Preston and I decided we needed a break from all the yardwork...and so we went kayaking! Yep, we drove about two miles away and put the kayak in and went for a spin.

A little house of some critter.

These birds were everywhere in this swampland area. I've never seen them before but I think they are beautiful with their yellow heads. And they weren't too scared of us either so we got really close.

This picture cracked me up, because if you look hard, you can actually see our house from where we were kayaking. Crazy eh?

And then we loaded it back up again and went home to finish our gardening.

Then, to finish off the evening, we had a little bbq with my friend, Hali! (Sorry for those that couldn't make it. You missed out!) Hali we forgot to get a picture so...just imagine our faces next to this food. That's where we normally pose anyways.

Mmmm...mmm. I love BBQ in the summer!

Today, Sunday, Preston and I celebrated our two-month anniversary of when we went on our first date. Two years ago! Crazy huh? It seems like just yesterday. We did the usual by going to church and Preston had to work for awhile, but we had a nice dinner and then we decided to go for a walk.

We took the scooter down to the cemetary (which I wish I got pictures of). There were flowers EVERYWHERE and it was packed. We parked the scooter and started walking around the graves. I was so impressed with all the people there. There was a family that had everyone there sitting around a grave and it looked like they were remembering days gone by and looked genuinely happy. We saw lots of people that were writing notes to loved ones and leaving them at gravesides, and we saw people meditating next to graves.

It really was a neat experience. Even though neither of us had graves to go see, we stopped by several and looked upon the names, when they were born, when they died, what was imprinted on the grave. I couldn't help but wonder about the lives that these people lived and the hardships that they faced.

We came upon four graves right next to eachother where a mother had buried four of her children in their youth. Can you imagine? It almost made my trials and hardships seem miniscule.

I'm grateful for this Memorial Day weekend and the time that we have to remember the people that came before us. I'm grateful for sacrifices made and good lives lived, so that I can be free and live amongst so many blessings.

What a wonderful, jam packed weekend.p