September 11, 2001 was the day the World Trade Center towers were attacked by terrorists. Natalee was almost 5 weeks old. We were living in our first house in Lancaster on Thornwood Ave. Natalee and I were asleep still and Daren had left for work. He called me and woke me up to tell me to turn on the news. I was confused at first and didn't understand what he was doing waking me up for anything. But when I saw what was happening, I completely woke up and just cried. The towers hadn't fallen yet. They kept replaying footage of the planes crashing into them. When they fell, it was horrible. All those people trapped inside still. A plane crashed into the Pentagon also, and one crashed in a field in Pennsylvania where the terrorists were overtaken by passengers.
Yesterday, we were busy with a primary activity-extra busy because I'm primary president and Daren was helping with the activity also. After the activity we went to Freedom Park over behind the Kerr McGee Center. That morning was the city's Parade of 1000 flags. We missed the parade due to the activity, but all the flags were displayed at the park and it was an amazing sight to see.
Between the activity and the park, we stopped by the Maturango Museum. It's a shame that we live so close and never go to it. But it was family day and admission was free so we thought we'd check it out. It was actually pretty cool. It was very tiny, but it had some neat displays that the kids really enjoyed. And they even had some interactive things for the kids to do. The man brought out some dead snakes to look at so the Cannons could find the snake that was at their house. He let the kids touch the dead snakes carefully. I was a little worried by the tenderness on Kelsey's face as she gently pet the dead Mojave Green rattlesnake. Hopefully she will never see one in the wild. But if she does, hopefully she doesn't try to pet it!
Primary activity pictures:
For the primary activity, we pretended to get on an airplane and travel to different countries around the world. Erin Loughmiller and her husband Stan helped us out on the plane. Erin was the stewardess and Stan was the pilot. They were both hilarious and really hammed it up. As you can see, Erin showed safety procedures. Stan announced the weather as we 'landed' and thanked the kids for flying 'LDS air.'
The different countries the kids went to were Argentina, presented by Tom Arp; Brazil, presented by Jonathan Duncan; Germany, presented by Judy Dutcher; and Taiwan, presented by Daren Hardy.
During the activity, Thomas helped by watching Kelsey and Nathan for me in the nursery. Kelsey was just as content as could be playing blocks with Thomas. :)
Here are some pictures of the flags at Freedom Park:
At first we wondered if these were people from Ridgecrest who had lost their lives serving their country. But then we found our friend Kent Dickey on there. He is not dead, thankfully. His picture is circled in red.
The kids started to say the pledge of allegiance. I am so grateful that they go to a school where the plege of allegiance is still taught.
Kelsey was the only one who had a really patriotic outfit on so I thought she needed a picture of just her with the flag.
Natalee was really tired yesterday and was avoiding pictures at first. But I think she panicked and knew that she would regret not being in any pictures so she begged me to take one more of just her.
Haylee and Grace found this statue and saw that it said 'Auld' on it. Their teacher this year is Amy Auld so they came over and asked me about it. I'm pretty sure the statue is in honor of her grandparents so they wanted to take a picture with the statue to show to her.
Mackenzie and Joey wanted a picture with the statue too. They were just so cute that I had to zoom in on their faces.
This time I got them with the statue. And Kelsey too. Kelsey was very interested in the people...
...and she decided to give the grandpa a kiss, much to the delight of her sisters.
