Visiting the graves at Christmas

The day before Christmas Eve we wanted to go and visit the Grandparent's graves. They are all buried local so we wanted to try and get to all of them. Our first stop was to Cypress Forest Lawn, to see Grandpa Jack. Jack Schlarb left us 22 years ago this December. Mr. B remembers him so fondly from his own childhood and it it is him whom we named our own son after. JT likes to read about Grandpa Jack, how he pitched for USC and stormed the waterfront. We got the metal all shiny and left a small Christmas Tree.

We then headed up to Rose Hills to visit Herb Booth, Mr. B's paternal Grandfather. Heabug calls him GranmpaGrampa. It was a little surreal listening to her "talk" to GrampaGrampa as we cleared and cleaned the headstone. The day was cold. We also were able to visit the Jink's who are Gramma GG's parents. Herbs parents are also in the same cemetery.

Lastly we made it to visit my grandparents. HeaBug is named for my tutu Maraea. She passed away in 2001, when Mr. B and I were still dating. I'm so glad he got a chance to meet her and see what a wonderful woman she was. She was full of life and music and laughter. She had the kindest soul and thought of everyone before herself. She loved her family intensely and we all felt it.

This is the Little White Church. It has recently been restored and relocated to the Green Hills Memorial park. Isn't it just beautiful? It's important for us to know who we are and where we come from. It's important to teach our children about the people that came before us. The people who paved the way for us to become who we are and create these lives for ourselves. I remember going with my Grandma to visit my grandpa's grave. We would sit and clean it and play music. Now we take my kids up to visit both of them, sometimes its just us, sometimes more of our family goes. I guess it seems like kind of a weird way to spend a Sunday afternoon but we genuinely had a good time. We wrapped up the evening hitting up a tiny spot called Harry's cafe. They serve the best Saimin, the OG stuff that I remember from my own childhood. Delicious!