Happy Memorial Day!
Memorial Day happens to be one of my favorite holidays for many reasons… The pool opens, I get to have my husband home for an extra day over the weekend, it’s the perfect excuse for a cookout, it feels like the start of summer, AND it’s a celebration of something so important.
I guess these things also pretty much apply to the Fourth of July (another one of my favorites), but I like that today specifically calls out the men and women who serve/served our country. I think it requires an INSANE amount of bravery, and each and every one of them should be incredibly proud of what they do/have done. I’d also like to give a shoutout to the parents of these men and women because now that I have kids, I realize that, along with the huge amount of pride they have for their child, they must also be scared beyond belief.
Even as one of my favorites, this Memorial Day weekend ended up being hard to get motivated to do anything. In our old neighborhood, we were one block away from one of the best Memorial Day parades, and it was something we all looked forward to. It’s hard not knowing what’s going on and where to go, but my sister is really good at pushing me to check things out. We decided to check out the parade in Annapolis. What could be better than spending the morning so close to the city that houses the Naval Academy? I was so glad we went!
I can’t lie, in my opinion, the Worthington one is still slightly better, BUT this one was still awesome to see! We loved getting the chance to see and clap for all these people we’re celebrating, and no joke, even Johnny was enthralled the entire time. All those cars, trucks, music… a little boy’s dream! But it was shorter than I expected, and there wasn’t a huge presence from the Naval Academy, which I was looking forward to. Sidenote… I watched Live with Kelly and Ryan later that day and saw a huge group of people from the Navy Academy there which may have solved the mystery;)
One of my favorite parts of the morning was shortly after the parade ended. A gentleman came over and told us how good the kids were during the parade. We quickly took note of the polo he was wearing that called out the fact that he was a veteran. How had we been next to a veteran the entire parade and not noticed?? Oh right, that’s toddler life.
I hate how unaware I can be about my surroundings when I’m out with the kids, but with toddlers so close to the street, there’s not much of a choice. (Johnny attempted to run into the street multiple times) Anyways, since he was nice enough to start chatting with us, we were able to thank him for his service, and we were able to then teach the kids to do the same.
I believe it’s important for them to know that the parade is not about fancy cars and candy (this parade actually didn’t have any candy which I was fine with, but man, the kids weren’t thrilled). It’s about something so much bigger. It’s about standing up to show appreciation for the people who defend our country and keep us safe, past and present. For our family specifically, that’s remembering both of my grandpas who fought in WWII… Cheers to them<3 And cheers to all of the people we don’t personally know, but who mean more to us than we can ever express… Thank you!!