Honor flight #5

We played on the mall for a few hours. It was such a nice, fall day. 

We decided to meet the Honor Flight over at The Women’s Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, which is one we’d never been to. 

We got there before the Honor busses, so we waited for them on the top level. We all shouted to try to get their attention, and finally they looked up. 

From there we hit the Marine Memorial, another new one for us. 

The teeny group of Marine vets at their memorial. 

After the Vets boarded their busses to head to dinner at the Elks Lodge, we walked over to the Netherlands Carillon and enjoyed the view. 

It would be fun to watch 4th of July fireworks up here. 



We decided since we were so close, to go to the Pentagons 9/11 Memorial. Matt has been there, but none of his girls had. In this picture you can see the rebuilt and older part of the building. 

The memorial is very cool. Personalized benches with each persons name, and then a small metal plate under the bench for family members that also passed away in the attacks. 

Each black square on the small wall stands for the birth year of each victim. 

This was a family of 4 that was heading to Disneyland before moving to Australia. The youngest victim was a 3 years old member of this family. 

Meanwhile, the vets were receiving their mail. 

We watched the Women’s Session of General Conference all together until the girls fell asleep, and then we moved into the bedroom (we had a fun suite!) and watched until the internet died. 

The next morning we enjoyed a family breakfast together.  

Our first stop was Arlington National Cemetery via Ft. Myers walking entrance, which was v cool. The girls were all so interested in all the unknown soldiers. 

And Greek architecture. 

Of course everyone had to sit in the throne chair. 

Hot stuff. 

Little Miss Prim. 

They loved running around the amphitheater. 

We’ve made it to Sunday!

Honor flight - part 4

They took group pictures of the veterans that served in each war in front of their memorial. I was able to fangirl in and grab a few shots of the Vietnam vets. After, everyone gave them a round of applause. It was really special. 

The veterans and guardians had 2 nice busses and a police escort, so they were able to quickly ride over to the Korean Memorial. With our young legs and agility we made it over there in time to see them off the bus and explore it with them. 

They (along with Matt, who spent a lot of time befriending and visiting with all the vets) figured out each of the soldiers and sailors. I love learning about the symbolism behind each detail and how different each Memorial is. 

After this the vets in their snazzy busses headed over to FDR and MLK for their Firehouse sub lunch. We thought that was a good time to split up and feed our littles. 

Still wishing to ride their busses...

The girls love climbing anything, anywhere. We spent a lot of time explaining why they shouldn’t be climbing memorials this weekend. 

We love Lincoln. 

And love living where playing on the national mall and climbing memorials is a (semi) regular thing. These lucky girls. 

Delaney offered to take a picture of us with honest Abe. 😂 She’s learning. “ohhh! I’ll get him in the picture next time!”

Another tourist offered a picture, and I was pretty sure the girls were doing something weird but couldn’t quite see them or get to them. I guess the separation isn’t horrible. 

We walked over to the grassy area between Lincoln and Korea and ate our picnic lunch, and then washed that down with some funnel cakes, because why not. The girls ran around and played on the trees. It’s always been interesting to me that kids legs hurt within 5 minutes of a walk to somewhere, but they can run around and act a fool all day. 

We had wanted to see the dinosaur exhibit at the museum of natural history since it’s been closed forever. I remember thinking when they closed it how weird it would be when it reopened because our kids would all be so big and grown up. And now here we are. Always bittersweet. 

But then we realized we were almost 2 miles away, and see above comment about walking. We had a family council and decided we would come back to dc (hopefully) next month and dinos would be our first stop. We ended up letting the girls play on the mall for awhile until our parking ran out and we decided to hook up with the great honor flight again for more adventures. 

Honor flight - part 3

Addie wore her New Mexico shirt (courtesy of papa) and got loads of attention. Turns out a lot of people have connections with New Mexico. Also, since I got back from El Paso with my snazzy new UTEP shirt, I’ve met several people that are also Miners. Go figure. 

Bubba had texted us that they would have a mail call for each veteran, and Delaney was working hard on completing her picture for papa. She also made one for “grandpa jerry” a cute vet that we met at the airport and offered to be the girls 3rd grandpa. 💕

The guardian and his charge, deep in conversation. 

Playing with the portrait feature on ma phone. 

Frankie feels a connection to Hawaii (don’t we all?) despite having never been there. She made friends with a guardian and her vet and every time we saw them she’d ask if we got our tickets to Hawaii yet. 

😍

Twinning. 

Always time for a picture. 

One of the highlights of the weekend was being able to walk the Vietnam Memorial wall with my dad. 

I am grateful to live in a place where we honor those that have sacrificed and I know their service has been consecrated for them. It gives me a lot of peace. 

It was a quick moving weekend, all of this was before 11!

Honor Flight - part #2

Frankie thought it was a pretty bad deal that she didn’t get to travel with papa all weekend too! She was ready to hop on the bus and head off. 

Chris even wore my grandpa Seagrove’s Pearl Harbor survivors jacket. 💕

Off they go! That night they had a dinner at their hotel. Which, since Chris left his bag in the truck when we went into the airport, we got to drive the hour out to as well. 🙄

The next morning we were on a mission to surprise papa at the WW2 Memorial. We told him we’d see him Sunday afternoon when we picked Christian up at the airport, but we really got a hotel for the weekend. We parked easily and headed to the memorial. It was a perfect fall day!

Frankie assures us that someday she will fall in to the reflection pool. Good to know. 

We were texting Chris to find out exactly where they were. I wasn’t able to video the surprise (dumb phone), but I got a series of pics. 

She kept getting closer and saying “boo! Boo! BOO!”

Until he finally saw her. I think he was surprised. 🤗

She was thrilled to get to be the one to surprise him. We like surprises up in here. 

Success!
It had been awhile since we’d been into dc, and we’ve now got plans for several more trips. So much to do!

Honor Flight - part #1

My Dad got chosen to participate in an Honor Flight for Veterans last weekend. Different organizations sponsor weekend trips for veterans to fly out to dc to tour their memorials and enjoy some camaraderie. Each veteran has to have a guardian the whole time, and Christian was able to be my dads guardian for the weekend. Ironic, right?

Chris came by Friday afternoon and we picked the girls up from school and headed up to dc. We wanted to be to the airport early, so we left ourselves lots of time, and since traffic wasn’t bad, we had time to kill. So we stopped by Andrews Air Force base Exchange for some hilariousness and shopping. . 

While there, Addie and Bubs recorded a single. 

And then Franks got in on that action. 

And times were perilous for Lanes!

We popped over for a gourmet lunch/dinner at the base BK. 

And then it was on to the airport!

The girls made patriotic signs and we were all so excited for our Honor Flight to arrive!

Finally the plane taxied into view and we got to see the water cannon salute from 2 fire trucks. 

We were ready!!!

We cheered and welcomed all the vets, and finally papa made his way out. Yay!

And we were off on our adventure!

And another one

We got back from our Washington DC weekend Sunday evening, tired and happy. But school marches on, and our 1st grader had fun with her reading buddies. 

Monday’s mean an hour and a half of piano, which isn’t terrible (I thought it would be). 

Frankie and I do tutoring and the girls play outside, so it’s often quiet’ish time for me after tutoring. And D bought a chocolate with her piano bucks. 

She’s. Always. Talking. 

Today I had a long presidency meeting and then went shopping, so I didn’t have time to paint. Thankfully Bubba and Sarah came over and killed another 2 gallons of paint in the basement. Little by little. 

This cute 6-year-old started horseback riding, so after school today we headed out to Loveville Leather, an Amish shop, to get her helmet and boots. We met some cute Amish kids that loved d’s pink boots. And then, because I didn’t have enough cash for my purchases, he wrote me out an iou. I ♥️ that in 2018 I was able to buy items on credit. And I’ll be seeing my Amish friends again on Thursday when I’m out that way for tutoring. Anyways, the horseback rider!

Christian wore this dinosaur costume for his 2nd Halloween. Awwwwwe. 😍

I had some milk on it’s way out, so I made up 6 batches of pancakes to use it up and freeze the flapjacks. Chris and Sarah ate with us, and it was a great night.