Monday, July 6, 2015

Red, White and Blue Weekend Recap

Good day, blog friends.
Ahhhhh...three day weekends are the best. We had such a great time celebrating Independence Day with friends and family. Come on in, I'll show you...

Mmhm. I drew mandalas here and there throughout the weekend. 


Doug's dad served two tours in Vietnam and he has a really cool collection of slides - and some pretty amazing stories to go with them. Friday evening we gathered at his house for dinner and a slide show. For the most part, my father-in-law speaks candidly when he recalls events during his time at war. Only when he speaks of people he knew who didn't come home does he choke up. His patriotism and heroism are an example to us all.

After the slide show we had some flags to retire. These are flags that we've flown long enough that they are either faded from the sun or tattered from flapping in the wind. Retiring flags by burning them in a respectful ceremony is the proper way to do it. My father-in-law retired a Marine Corps flag first and sang an emotional rendition of the Marine Corps hymn. Then we retired two US flags after paying respect to their colors and what they stand for. We sang "God Bless America" as they expired. Times like these are a so special for us - to be with family and to honor our country like this is such a privilege.

On Saturday, the 4th of July, we attended a baseball game! We went downtown early in the day to beat the crowd, and I loved being there before all the hustle and bustle. The Diamondback's game was sold out that night (14,000+) so this place really filled up later in the day.


We had really great seats for the game (thanks to a raffle that Doug won a few months ago) and enjoyed our time with Carrie and her beau, Andrew. So much fun!

It was such a great game! The Diamondbacks won!!! And after the game the rooftop of the stadium slid open to reveal a 15-minute fireworks display. Awesome!!! After 10-minutes we decided to get a head start to our car which was a really good call (parking issues down there are not for the impatient kind!). Here's a shot of fireworks outside the stadium as we were headed toward the parking garage...



We wrapped up our weekend yesterday with house hunting - saw a couple of houses with one being a good possibility. We'll see...
 
And I did a little more of this...  :o)
 

I love a three-day weekend, but it is weird to have had the day off on Friday instead of Monday this time around. Makes for a kind of weird transition back to work today. ~sigh~

Anyway. That's life in the big city. I hope your weekends were as fun as ours was! I'm off to work my way toward the next one.

Wishing you all a great week ahead!
xoxox

8 comments:

debs14 said...

I've never heard of that flag tradition before, but can imagine how emotional it must have been. Sounds like you had an action packed weekend. Wouldn't it be great if every weekend was 3 days not 2 ;-)

Ruth said...

I didn't know about the flag tradition, either. I really like the look of the mandalas when they are just black ink ~ very cool. And doesn't Doug look like his dad!

scrappyjacky said...

Sounds like a great weekend.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a great weekend and I hadn't heard of the flag tradition either!

Becky said...

That anonymous post above is me! My finger slipped when I was posting!

Audrey said...

Wow, the slide show looks and sounds awesome ~ I'd love to see that and hear the stories. I still can't get over how much Doug looks like his Dad. I loved your baseball game IG posts ~ I'm glad you guys had so much fun!!! And, of course, I love all of your mandalas!!! The girls are back home now but I'd love to make more mandalas, if I can ever find some time. Is it time for school to start yet??? Ha ha.

Alison said...

Another. One who hadn't heard. Of the glad tradition....and I'm crossing everything for your house hunting! Xx

Maria Ontiveros said...

Doing some catching up. Thanks so much for the mandala circle template! It went right into my drawing kit.
Rinda

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