It all started off with an amazing breakfast burrito my mom made for me. Follow this I headed up to work. It was just starting to snow as I pulled in to Larkin Sunset Lawn. I knew we had more to do than usual but I had no idea I'd be working til almost six in the evening. I never work that late! Anyway, Ben pulled up in a vault truck soon after me and we both jumped in "the bug" and headed up onto Sunrise to find the location for the burial. Once there we found where it was we had to find the marker and get the exact measurements of where we were to dig. With the plot outlined in bright orange string and armed with shovels we began to cut back the grass. It's odd to have it snowing quite hard and yet be digging in very hard very dry dirt....Anyway, after the grass was all laid out next to the plot it was off to pick up the back-hoe and dump truck. By this point the snow was really coming down. As I looked back I could see two very different sets of tire tracks through the light layer of snow on the grass. After lining up the dump truck I hoped out to watch, as usual. Bucket after bucket of dirt was transferred from the deepening hole to the ever growing pile in the truck. As we approached the regular depth we both were a bit confused because we should have scraped the top of the vault that was already there by now. (There was a baby buried there last year and the family wanted the baby's vault to be pulled out and then placed on top of the one for today.) We just kept going and we quickly found the vault at double depth. After we finished digging we headed down to Carls for a nice lunch break. By this point there was enough snow on the ground that the grass was no longer visible and it was starting to stick in the parking lot. After lunch we had to pull the blades off the big riding mower and put on the snow blower. The service had started inside at this point so we were feeling a little rushed. Ben took off in the truck and started plowing the parking lot while I jumped on the mower/snow-blower and cleared a path from the service road all the way up to the graveside. It's a little odd snow blowing on the grass...but I guess its just like it was weird the first few times I drove the truck on the grass. It's just something that takes getting used to. Right after all that was done we had to cruise and get everything ready at the gaveside. First we had to lay down the planks and the U bars to set the vault on. Second I got Ben lined up so we could set the vault. Third came the greens around the vault. Fourth was setting up the tent and chairs. All the while the snow kept coming down harder and harder and was really building up on the ground. Once we were all done Ben had to go plow the parking lot again and I had to re-do the path up the to graveside. Before I knew it the service was over and we were back up there to break everything down which went much faster. After lowering both vaults into the hole we began the backfilling. The load of dirt in the truck didn't fill it all the way so Ben set me to work tamping it while he went to get another bucket of dirt in the back-hoe. He got back and found me really struggling with the tamper cause the dirt was a foot or two below the surface at this point and that made things very difficult cause the tamper isn't much taller than that. Just and awkward angle. By this point it was starting to get dark and really cold so he took over for me cause we wanted to get home. So we filled it up the rest of the way, threw down the grass and tamped it a final time. I'm thinking that tomorrow we'll have to go back up and kinda clean up/fix it.
I got home and found that there was about 3 inches of snow that I had to hand shovel. It really wasn't to bad though. Right after that I came in to my house for the first time and almost immediately sat down to dinner. Then it was down for a quick shower before heading over to Mark and Chelsae's house. I'd been looking forward to and dreading this ever since I found out I was to give Mark a blessing. This was my very first blessing I'd ever given and I was terrified. After sitting for a few agonizing minutes and catching up a bit Mark got up to grab a chair. I was terrified as I watched him sit down in that chair. I didn't feel ready. As I put my hands on his head and started the most amazing thing happened. There was this sense of calm and peace that came over me. I'd always heard about similar things but I didn't know if it would happen for me but it did. It was a very short rather jumbled blessing but I did it. It feels so good now that it's over and it's very reassuring to know that I can do it!
After the blessing we had a bowl of ice cream with a brownie and then we headed home. Once there my dad had me consecrate some oil. So I will go to bed having had a very full and eventful day! It feels so good to have gotten some really good things done.
Well I'm off, sorry this whole thing was so rushed, I'm just very tired and need to sleep!
