Fort McHenry and other Vacation Stuff

Having grandparents visit is always a treat and this was no different.  Well, maybe a little different this time.  Grandma Smyth couldn't stay as long as grandpa due to a new temple responsibility, but we crammed a lot of fun into the three days she was here.

Adam lost his first tooth!  And the tooth fairy even came on time-a bonus!  Friday, Mom and I got to go shopping.  Saturday was the busiest-Andrew's soccer game in the morning, Jane's baptism after lunch and the general women's broadcast that night. Leo wasn't feeling great and someone had a friend party somewhere in there too.  It was nice to relax on Sunday.

Grandpa got to stay another week after Grandma left and it was so nice just to have him around.  We watched movies and ran errands and went to do sealings at the DC temple.  We also stopped at Fort McHenry, the birthplace of our national anthem, on our way to take grandpa to the airport the morning he went home.  What a neat, suspenseful story!  I wish we had had a bit more time to look all through the fort.  

We loved this short flag tour where we got to unroll a flag that matches the original size of the 'Star Spangled Banner' that flew over Fort McHenry during the famous battle.  The original that now resides in the Smithsonian was cared for by the Armistead family and every time a family whose loved one had died fighting under that flag wrote to them, they would cut a strip of the flag and send it to the soldier's family.  That's why it's tattered around the edges, not because of damage during war.  Some of those pieces are now being found in attics and such and returned to be on display at the Smithsonian as well.  It was so touching to hear that history.