A Memorial Day walk to the park...

I did not know this, but Memorial Day is a big, big deal in Brooklyn.  The city has celebrations, storefronts are outfitted with the U.S. flag and other patriotic bunting, and there is a big parade.  One whole street is blocked off and the parade goes from somewhere around Bay Ridge Parkway and 3rd Avenue (I could be wrong about the streets) clear down to the Ft. Hamilton area, a distance of over 30 blocks.  There are bands, floats, civic and fraternal organizations, scouting groups and military groups from the various branches.  All in all, it is a big parade and quite remarkable for this day and age when it seems that displaying patriotism is something that is talked about but not often observed.

Quinn's cub scout troop was going to march in the parade and he had asked me to walk with him.  I was really looking forward to doing this.  We talked and laughed as we made our way to the finishing area.

Once we got to the finishing area, they took a team picture of the scouts.

The rest of the family picked out a nice area with some shade where they could watch the parade and wait for us to pass by.  Of course, the sun tends to move and what once was a shady area is not so much so later on.  It seems that this was as good a place as any for Miss Vivian to take a nap...the heck with grandpa and Quinn.

So, when Pam and I planned our trip to visit D&D and the grandkids, we knew that this would be a busy weekend with lots of traffic and plenty of warm temperatures.  But we had done this many times before.  The kids have plenty of fun in the parks, where they can generally run through the fountains and play on the swings and jungle-gyms.  And, they can always cool off in the pool in the back yard.

After the parade, there was ice cream all around, complete with sprinkles and gummy-bear toppings.

Of course, no trip to NY would be complete without lots of "grandma and grandpa time."  This is the time we get to spend with them as they grow up -- which seems to be way too fast.  This is the fun time for us, getting to hold them, read to them, interact with them, and even get beat in a game or two by them.  We got to watch Miss Vivian drive around in the little red car they were playing with.  At one point, she just sat in it in front of the TV and it looked like she was sitting at a drive-in (old people remember those).

So, here are some of those "G&G" moments I mentioned.

 So, that was pretty much the weekend.  They always go too fast, and there are way too many unseen changes in these youngsters between visits.

So we have to Skype every once in a while, and get in a few words during phone calls.  I came up with a new way to get connected...I wrote a letter to Quinn in Morse Code.  I am doing some refresher stuff for my Ham Radio hobby and I think (I am not sure if they still do this one) Quinn can get a badge for doing something with Morse Code.  We'll see.  I told him that this would be our secret pirate code way of communicating (....   ..  /  --.-   ..-   ..   -.   -.).

We brought our children and they brought theirs into this world because it/we needed the light that only they can bring.

Hooah (....  ---  ---  .-   ....)