In Honor of Those Who Served

Every Memorial Day weekend, the girls have the honor of placing flags on the gravesites of those veterans who have served our country in branches of the military. We have been doing this as a family ever since I became a girl scout leader many years ago, and even though getting up early on Saturday morning isn't always fun, we look forward to doing it every year. The flags fly proudly all weekend, then Monday there is a full military ceremony where the girl scouts serve refreshments (girl scout cookies) to the guests before the ceremony and listen to various emotional stories afterwards. Here are a few pictures of yesterday's flag placing (yes, the girls are in their GS "uniforms")...

Seattle

Today was my first experience chaperoning a middle school field trip! We took the 7th grade band, orchestra and choir members to the Seattle Center for the Folk Life Festival - as well as a trip up into the Space Needle. It was a beautiful sunny day, and not as bad of an experience as I expected. Although I did get "stuck" with a group of 14 kids (that's twice the usual size), the kids were amazingly well behaved and it was really quite fun hanging out with them for the day and enjoying the interesting "sites" of the festival. It was my fourth field trip in three weeks, but I think I'm finally done for the year! Yeah!

A sign of the times ...

Colorado Here We Come!

In preparation for our upcoming roadtrip to Colorado, via Yellowstone, we hit the big REI sale today. Although we would have liked to buy a lot more, we have to "spread the wealth" and space our purchases out a bit. We did treat ourselves tho and go to the Seattle REI instead of the local one - it was great! And these purchases will be handy for a lot of local outings too - hiking up Mt. Rainier, girl scout camping, etc. Oh, and there are some caves just outside Salt Lake City that we may go see while we are there - so the packs may come in real handy for that hike too!