Continuing the Journey

Why Do We Celebrate Memorial Day, Anyway?

The week before Memorial Day, I heard a radio report that a group of elementary school kids had been polled on why we celebrate Memorial Day. The #1 answer in that poll? "Memorial Day is the day the pools open." Yikes.

Since Daddy's family has a strong military history, we decided we were NOT going to let Carson think that is why we celebrate Memorial Day. So we sought out a Memorial Day Parade and gave Carson his first parade experience. We invited our friends, Scott and Sarah, and their boys to join us.

Here, Carson and Selleck are getting excited...
...while everybody tolerated my obligatory picture-taking.
Notice anyone missing in those pictures? Oh, yeah, the Megster decided that sleeping in was more important to her than the parade experience. So while we were enjoying ourselves, she was...well, she was probably snoring. (Sorry, Meggie, but it's true...)

We told Carson and Selleck how important it was to salute the flag and the soldiers in the parade. They caught on quickly...
...and the veterans in the parade lineup really enjoyed our Little Men showing them the proper respect. We had a hard time getting Carson to STOP saluting...he saluted the marching bands, the baton twirlers, the Boy Scouts...until they started throwing candy to the crowd.
It was a great morning! The weather was mild, the kids were well-behaved, and the parade itself was just the right length...long enough to be worth the effort, short enough not to bore the boys. When it was finished and the boys had to head out of the street and back to the sidewalk, Carson was NOT ready for the parade to be finished...
...so he marched back and forth with his little flag until we had all the chairs packed up.

Since Meggie missed the parade and was mildly interested in attending one -- and since Carson had such a good time at the morning parade -- we decided to meet up with Grandma and Grandpa B at the parade in our old neighborhood. Carson was thrilled to see his cousin, Peyton, at this parade!
Sadly, this parade was CRAZY short. In fact, Grandma bought Meggie an ice cream cone, handed it to her as the parade began, and she still hadn't eaten half of the ice cream or even gotten to the cone when the parade ended about four minutes later. Carson was SO disappointed!!

When I told Scott and Sarah about the radio report I had heard that prompted our day of parades, Scott had an interesting observation: our kids won't think of pool openings, they will think that Memorial Day is a time to run in the streets and accept candy thrown at you from strangers.

Uh-oh. Where did I go wrong?!