Where have all the flowers gone...

Memorial Day 2014

 A Picture Post

Every year or so my mom and Danielle's kids have a lemonade stand. This year they added cotton candy. And flag cookies. (which were actually really cool)- Rumor has it they made 37 dollars. Mostly from grandpa :) 

 Then there was just a lot of running around and not getting much done and it being too dang hot all day.

Then we moved on to the Memorial Day portion of our day. First with a strange barbecue and then each one of the kids pairing up with their 'birth order' partner to learn about the American Wars. 

Jack and Jack had the French and Indian War. Which big Jack used as a platform to talk about his views on the French and their cowardice. Quite amusing :)  

Another oldest child team, my mom and Jr covered what we think was the Revolutionary War. They wore matching shirts, beat boxed, and rapped to something they found on youtube. I asked my dad later if watching this presentation was similar to what it feels like being on an acid trip. I have some of it recorded. It'll be on youtube by tomorrow!! 

Team Civil War (Danielle and James) seemed mostly interested in asserting the superiority of their 'second born' status and rewriting 'guggles' into the civil war. Also, there was talk of shooting baked goods and Gettysburg being the true start of the war. I found it to be historically inaccurate. I did like it when big Jack referred to it as "the war of North Aggression" :)  

Things took a decided turn when the third borns got up. Elly and my dad. In one piece of poster board my dad had chronicled the entire first World War. As you can see. It was epic. We learned about trench warfare, a 2 year battle in one town, and the death of a random 300 Japanese that no one can account for. And a lot of other stuff.

Next was Katy and I, the family babies. I have no pictures of our World War 2 presentation. But it was life changing. Trust me :) 

Then, per tradition, we went to the cemetery to leave flowers at the war memorial. I love this war memorial. It has a lot of meaning for me.

Katy said the prayer at the War Memorial. It was so sweet. She said "Dear Heavenly Father. Thank you so much for the soldiers who died for us so that we could be free. Please bless that there will be no more war".

I'll never forget that prayer. 

Katy standing at the grave of a Revolutionary soldier

This was the oldest grave we found. We're pretty sure it says 1709. I know there are older ones but we left fairly quickly once the church bells started ringing. It freaked the kids out. :) 

We found graves of soldiers from every single American War (up to the last 2) 

Then I found this little one. How sad. 11 days. 

I am so grateful and proud to be American. And never more than on this day.

Lori Ann