Weekend....

My family enjoys day trips to nearby large cities. On Memorial day weekend we like to visit Washington DC. Spending the day walking among the many memorials is a good way to remember the purpose of the Memorial Day holiday.

This trip we visited Jefferson Memorial and Robert Lee's home in Arlington Cemetery for the first time. I have a few photos posted below.

Jefferson Memorial view as we walked around the tidal basin

we walked under the famous cherry blossom trees

unfortunately no longer blooming in May

front of Robert E Lee's House
(sorry there isn't more in the photo-

I was admiring the huge front porch, columns, and the dental trim)

this is the view from Robert Lee's front porch
the building at the end of the bridge is Lincoln's Memorial

A great way to visit the city is to park at Arlington Cemetery and then walk across the bridge to the back of Lincoln's Memorial. Visit the memorial, sit on the front steps and enjoy the view for a little and then continue on-the Washington Mall is directly in front of you and hosts all the war memorials.

graves and flags at Arlington

flowers at the World War II Memorial

Monday we honored Memorial Day with a small town tribute and parade. I live in between 3 small country towns that make up our school district. I think the combined population is 17,000. Each memorial day one of those town takes turns hosting the parade and tribute. This year the town of Richland hosted the event.

It started with our high school band playing at the town's World War II memorial park where a wreath was placed. Then a small parade of veterans lead the band, the boy scouts and some fire trucks up Main Street to the town cemetery.

At the cemetery the crowd was addressed by a local pastor and a current officer in the military just back from Iraq. There was a 21 gun salute and taps and our band closed the ceremony.

here are some photos.

placing the wreath in the memorial park at the start of the parade

Here is our high school band.

They are awesome!!

parading down Main Street to the cemetary

arriving at the cemetary

helmet, gun, boots

tribute at the cemetary

How do you spend your weekend? I hope it was filled with family, friends, fun, good weather and food....and thoughts of appreciation for our military and their families!