~Memorial Day~

It has been a tradition, ever since I can remember to go up to Huntsville cemetery on Memorial Day to see the program they do up there. My sisters are buried at that cemetery, as well as several ancestors. I think the kids enjoyed going up and seeing them shoot the guns, and Mckell loved seeing all the "beautiful flowers".This is the grave of my sister's Jennifer and Jacqueline. The were stillborn and would have been a year older than me. Back then they didn't do ultrasounds, so my mom didn't know that she was having twins. One night, towards the end of her pregnancy, she started having really bad back pain. Being her first pregnancy, she didn't think anything of it because it went away. Several people told her that she needed to see her doctor, so she went in for a checkup. He had asked her if she could still feel the baby move and she replied, "yes". The doctor checked the heartbeat and it seemed fine (he had only ever heard 1 heartbeat). So she went on her way. About a week later, she went into labor. It was then that they found out she was pregnant with twins. They were both stillborn. They figured that a week earlier, one of the babies died (that is why she was having such bad back pain) and then poisoned the other baby. After having kids of my own, I can't imagine the heartache my mom must have felt at loosing her first 2 children. But I know she is so grateful to know that she will have a chance to raise them in heaven.

Lexi loved climbing on all of the graves (I only let her do that to the graves that belonged to our ancestors).

I remember, as a kid, running to collect the empty gun shells after the program (they don't let the kids do that anymore).

Then after the Huntsville cemetery, we hit all the other cemeteries that we have relative buried. As we drove to the different graves, I told my kids stories about some of their ancestors (I hope they will remember the stories I've told them one day).

This is the grave of my Grandma and Grandpa Smeding. My Grandpa Smeding and I were really close, I'd go clean his house weekly and then we'd go to lunch. I loved the time that I got to spend with him, and cherish the stories he'd tell me. One story was about when he was fighting in World War 2. He was in a foxhole with his platoon, when a grenade was thown in and exploded. Everyone in the foxhole died except for my grandpa and one other man. My grandpa had passed out from shock, so they thought he was dead. He was toe tagged and taken to where ever they took the bodies. When he came to, he was really cold so he sat up and asked a nurse if he could have a blanket. He scared her to death, because she thought she was in a room full of dead bodies :) He was severly injured though, and spent the next 8 years in and out of the hospital trying to remove shrapnel. They never did get it all out.