Memorial Day

Today was a fun day full of new experiences for Yikealo. We started out the morning by meeting Grandpa, Grandma, Jana, Jason, and James and Susan's family for breakfast and then we watched a Memorial Day parade. After the parade, we attended the special service held at the Wooster Cemetery. Yikealo got to see his first parade, learn about saluting the flag and spend lots of time with his cousins - all very exciting things. Our favorite quote of the day, however, came as a result of our attempts to explain our plans for the morning:

Me: "Yikealo, you need to hurry up and get dressed, because we need to leave soon."
Y: "Menden we're going?"
Me: "Well, we're going to go have breakfast with Grandpa and Grandma, and then we're going to go to a parade."
Y: "Menden a parade is?"
Me: "It's kind of hard to explain, but you'll get to see some police cars and some fire trucks and then we'll go to the cemetery and you'll get to hear some guns being fired and hear a band playing some music. Doesn't that sound like fun?"
Y: "Yeah! Mom, can I please shoot the band?"

Okay, so he totally missed the point of that explanation! Not to mention - what a violent way to commemorate Grandpa's service as a NON-combatant army medic in Vietnam! Once we got to the cemetery, he wanted to know if he could pull the flags off of the soldier's graves and play with them. We told him that he couldn't, and David attempted to explain:

David: "Yikealo, do you know what a soldier is?"
Y: "No. Menden a soldier is?"
David: "A soldier is a person who fights a war - as part of an army."
Me: "So that other people can be free."
Y: "Oh! Okay! I'm free too!" (He meant "three" - he still can't get the "th" sound down.)
David: (grinning at me) "So, how's it going for you this morning?"

Anyway, he was pretty fascinated with everything, even if he didn't get to "shoot the band." Here are a few photos for everyone...

He got to ride on Grandpa's shoulders for quite a bit of the time - what a spoiled little boy! In the first photo, he was insisting that Jana hold his hand so that she wouldn't fall.