If I'd Known I was Going to Shake Hands with the Governor, I would Have Dressed Up More!

Today is Memorial Day, and Kent and I went to the Fredericksburg National Cemetery, where the Governor of Virginia gave a speech and laid a wreath. Fredericksburg is 15 miles from where we live and was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War in 1862. It wasn't very crowded--there were only about 400 people in attendance. I don't think it was advertised very well. We talked to the head park ranger afterwards, and he said they were pleasantly surprised when Governor McDonnell accepted the invitation to speak at the ceremony, since Fredericksburg is such a small town. I like the above shot because of the Marine bugler standing in the background. He played taps at the end of the ceremony. The shot below shows the entire statue, and the color guard holding the flags throughout the ceremony. Governor McDonnell's speech was great, and I couldn't see him looking at his notes at all. It was a wonderfully patriotic and non-political speech, and it seemed to be extemporaneous.After the speech, Kent and I were among the first to go up and shake hands with Governor McDonnell. Here we are after the crowds had cleared.
Governor McDonnell stayed for almost an hour after the ceremony shaking hands and talking with people. We were very impressed that he did that.

The podium was still up, so Kent took the opportunity to see what it's like to be a politician.

There were flags next to all the 15,000 graves in the cemetery. Last year we went to this same cemetery during the evening when they had each grave lit with luminaries. We blogged about it last May, and put in several pictures.This cemetery is only for Union soldiers. There's a Confederate cemetery in a different part of town. I'm grateful to all the people who have served or are serving in the military, including my dad, Kent's dad, and our two sons.

This is How we Play in May

Our friends the Jeos had extra tickets to a professional baseball game, so on the first of May we drove to Baltimore to watch the Orioles and the Boston Red Sox play. My sister, Jill, is a big Boston Red Sox fan, so she was also in town from Pennsylvania to watch the game. I visited with her and her family before the game but didn't have my camera to get a picture of us together.

The game was much more exciting than we expected. It was a slugfest; there were nine home runs hit between the two teams. The final score was 12 to 9, and the Orioles won.

A few days later, Kent celebrated his birthday.

For a Relief Society activity the sisters were asked to bring cupcakes for a "cupcake competition", and I made a picnic out of cupcakes. In case you can't tell, there are hamburgers, baked beans, corn on the cob, watermelon and cherry pies.

When I posted pictures of my cupcakes on facebook, a few people asked if I won the competition. The answer is no, because when I got to the activity, the RS presidency said they wouldn't judge because we were all winners. I thought they'd at least have labels for prettiest, most creative, or something, but they didn't give out any kind of recognition. The "competition" label was false advertising.

You can see some of the cupcakes other ladies brought to the event if you go to the blog I just added to our blog list. It's Garrisonville Relief Society. (If you look closely you can also see me trying to attack our RS president from behind during the self defense portion of the evening.)

Tyler is here visiting for a few weeks. On Friday we went into DC and went to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Here's Tyler with an original costume from one of the Star Wars movies.

My sister, Jill, was in DC, so we met and had a guided tour of the World War II memorial. It was a very hot and sunny day.

This little guy was carved in the back of the World War II memorial; I put this picture in for you, Garrett.

On Saturday, the 15th, we drove to a ski resort in the Shenandoah Mountains so Kent and Tyler could go zip lining.

They went up on the ski lift.

There were ten stations that they zip lined down the mountain.

It took them just over an hour to get down the mountain. I sat on the deck of the ski lodge and read a book.

On the way home after zip lining, we drove through some small Virginia towns . . . . .

. . . . . and along Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park.

There's always lots to see and do in Virginia!!

BYU Rocks!!

We took LOTS of pictures at Adrianne's graduation from BYU with a degree in early childhood education, so it was hard to choose just a few. My greatest regret is that we never took a picture of all of us in the family together while we were in Provo. Lissa, Jason and Kiera flew up from Houston to attend, and Tyler still lives in Provo. Only Garrett and Krystal were missing from our family reunion. (They're in Mississippi for pilot training.)

The sun was in our eyes for many of the outside shots we took, but it was a good picture with the bell tower and the "Y" in the background.
Can you spot Adrianne amongst the 6,300 graduates??

The banner Adri is holding has been used for six graduations so far--four high school and two college. I should add that Garrett also officially graduated from BYU in April, since there were no ceremonies in December when he finished.

This is one of the few shots we got of Lissa, Jason and Kiera.

Here's the next generation BYU student in the family. Kiera doesn't like to sit still or smile for the camera!

Before we attended Adri's graduation ceremony on Thursday afternoon, we all went into her first grade classroom on Thursday morning to help out with some art projects.

I think we were more of a distraction than a help, but we had a good time!

Lastly are pictures of Adri's quilt that I worked on as we drove across the US. I machine sewed the quilt together before we left, and in the car I did some hand stitching.

I started this quilt top two years ago before we left Germany and gave it to Adri at her bridal shower. I made it using the fabric scraps of all the dresses I'd made her when she was a little girl. I embroidered a feather stitch along the middle seams of the blocks, because on the quilts my grandmother used to make she did the feather stitch. Hopefully you can see the feather stitch in the close-up of the quilt below. (The white square in the middle of the picture has fabric from her wedding dress, blessing dress and the white dress she wore after she was baptized.)

It feels great to have that huge project completed, since I originally planned for it to be a wedding gift.