Another Memorial Day Weekend!

I should mention that my hope is to print my blog for my own purposes someday - it has my stories and my favorite pictures.

So to show how small the world really is - today in church of course were patriotic hymns. One of them was This is My Song (aka Finlandia) - this caught my eye as we have just returned from Finland. It was composed in 1899 and a covert protest against increasing censorship from the Russian Empire (the tsars!) and part of Finnish history by a famous Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. Apparently it would receive different names at various concerts as a masquerade and to avoid the censors which I thought was quite clever. I have been told in various countries how lucky we are to have the freedom we have had.

On my favorite note, Alex and Lucy had an overnighter with us this weekend. Lucy has a lovely Disney Princess nightgown and she was very proud and said "If I get lotta sweaty I can take it off and then I be naked" - Amy's reply when told "No Way, Jose".

Alex upon pondering whether we should take a paddleboat out on Hyland Lake: "My brain is telling me it might sink" - we talked it over and watched others for a while, talked about the floats and he decided it would be fine - so we did it and it was beautiful. It seems travel makes me appreciate my own country even more - others countries too though!

Alex refused to pose with Lucy in her favorite knitted Christmas doll hat.

What's next? Anxious to get back to my walking in the park and my friend who just returned from France reports she needs to walk off croissants and wine and I need to remove dumplings and cider! I am starting my pile of planning info for Paris and Istanbul in the fall. Determined that I need a visa to enter Turkey but niece Sara says it is a piece of cake and you get it right at the airport! Way different than Russia. She is currently enjoying Macedonia:).

Looking forward to my high school friends weekend this month, my family reunion weekend in August - yaaaa - get to see brother Brian and Andrew again.