Memorial Day

Today I found myself thinking about this letter that Abraham Lincoln wrote to Ms. Bixby during the Civil War.  I always love the end of it: "...and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom."  Thank you to all who have served the cause of freedom for our country!


Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.
Dear Madam,--
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,A. Lincoln

We had a great Memorial Day weekend.  For my kids, it can be summed up in one word, their favorite word...swimming!  I'm pretty sure that their feet only touched dry land once or twice all day for the last three days.  Emily is quite literally a fish, while Noah prefers to float his way along the edge of the pool, being a little less sure of himself.  This weekend was Addison's first time in the pool, and she....LOVED it.

    She was very disappointed that I wouldn't let her go explore the water on her own.  

We kicked off the festivities with a bbq at Mike's cousin's house.  As you can see from the pics a good number of his family attended.  Emily and Noah had fun running back and forth from the pool to the hot tub with all of their cousins. 

The rest of the weekend was spent going back and forth from our new neighbors. They have a boy who is Emily's age, and it. is. the. best. thing. ever.  Some days they play so hard they don't even want to come in for lunch.  And, now that their pool is open, we will probably see even less of them.  There is nothing better than two kids who are so tired that they actually want to go to bed by 7:30. I love love love summer!

On Sunday morning Mike decided to take the kids around to various spots and get some photographs highlighting the American flag.  One of the places that we stopped was his father's grave site.  It was nice to share that with our kids for the first time.  

He made this amazing video with some of the pictures.