october cemetary tour 2009!

While chatting with my BFF Kassi, we discovered that we both have a love for cemeteries and came up with a brilliant idea of a cemetery road trip! We took an over night trip from Mesa up to Snowflake and back, and stopped at 3 cemeteries along the way. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Our first stop was the cemetery in Pine.

My great-grandparents and grandparents from my mom's side of the family are buried there.

Great grandparents' headstone- Clyde and Thelma Hardy.

My grandma Barbara and Grandpa Bob's headstone. I miss them- they were the best grandparents ever! I can't believe that grandma as been gone for almost 10 years now.

On the back of my grandparent's headstone, they have all their kids' names.

I love visiting the cemetery in pine- it's beautiful and peaceful there.

After we left Pine, we drove up to the Show Low cemetery.

This is Kassi's cousin Kyra's grave. She was only 4 years old when she died.

Kassi's grandma's grandparents headstone in the Show Low cemetery.

After our wanderings in Show Low, we headed to our final stop for the night- Kassi's grandparent's house in Taylor, AZ. It was so chilly! I wish I had worn a warmer jacket!

On our way to dinner that night, we drove up to the Snowflake temple, because I had never seen it lit up a night. Our original plan was to also go to the temple and do baptisms while on our cemetery tour, but it was closed for cleaning and maintenance that week. Darn it!

Here is me and Kassi in front of the temple, freezing our butts off!

I love the angel Moroni on the temple, probably because we don't have one on the Mesa temple. It looks so huge- I can only imagine how big it would seem up close!

The temple looks so pretty at night all lit up on the hill.

After visiting the temple grounds, Kassi's grandma was nice enough to take us to a cute little cafe an d get us some dinner. I had a delicious club sandwich and fries and Kassi got chicken fried steak- which looked absolutely delicious! The food at those small town restaurants is usually pretty tasty.

We slept really well that night, it's amazing how tired you can get just driving! We got up the next morning and some homemade biscuits and gravy, got cleaned up, and headed over to the Taylor cemetery.

We helped Kassi's grandma decorate the grave of Ethan and Dylan- Kassi's cousin's twin boys.

I thought this grave was really neat- it's an unknown solider from WWII.

This is the headstone for a little girl that Kassi helped to care for at the Phoenix Children's hospital. She passes away from Leukemia.

Kassi's great grandma and grandpa Hatch are also buried in the Taylor cemetery.

Anne, Oliver, and Alice Sponseller's graves- all siblings that died as children. These are over 100 years old!

Kassi's great grandma Adams....

....and great grandpa Adams.

There were a lot of older graves in the Taylor cemetery, it was really neat to walk through. I recognized a lot of names there too. It was really pretty.

After the cemetery, we went back over to the temple grounds to take a few more pictures, since it was too cold to take a lot the night before.

Angel Moroni during the day- still beautiful!

A view of the temple from the parking lot. Since the temple was closed, the grounds were closed too. It limited our picture options, but we still got some good ones.

Kassi's grandma wanted to take this picture of us because of the flag in the background. They get pretty awesome wind up there, so the flag did look really beautiful flying in the breeze that day.

Kassi and me in front the temple- NOT freezing this time!

And here we are in front of one of the waterfalls outside of the temple. Some of the leaves have changed, and there were pretty red, yellow, and orange leaves in the waterfall. It was so pretty!

Then we said our goodbyes to grandma, and Kassi showed me a few more super cute things in Snowflake before we headed home. I love Snowflake! I want to live there someday!

And I wouldn't mind living in this house! I think it's so cute- it may be my new dream house- I just love it. It's right around the corner from the temple too!

This is a monument in Snowflake- the plaque in front of it tell about the founding of Snowflake. I had always assumed that it was called snowflake because it snowed up there or something- but it was actually named for two people "Snow" and "Flake."

Interesting stuff, huh?

While we were there, we found the cutest little acorns. Kassi and I both decided that we needed one.

Isn't this the cutest little cabin that you've ever seen!? I loved it! There were so many cute things! Kassi showed me a cute little antique shop / soda shop too. It would be nice to go up there and look around when we have a little more time.

After a quick tour of cute Snowflake, we headed down to Holbrook to meet up with more of Kassi's family for lunch. We had some delicious Mexican food at the Wayside. It was fun to get to meet some of my best friend's extended family.

As we left town, and headed home, we ran into these guys:

A trip isn't complete without dinosaurs!

It was super fun to spend a couple days with my best gal pal in nice cool weather- we have decided that we might do a cemetery tour every year! It was good to get home though too- I missed my hubby and my baby puppy. I can't wait for our next Kassi and Tarin adventure!