Anna Grows

It is hard to believe that 10 years have passed since the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Joe, Theresa & Anna took the opportunity on Labor Day to visit the Pentagon Memorial honoring the victims at both the Pentagon and the crash in Pennsylvania. They did a beautiful job at the memorial with a bench for every one of the victims. Benches facing towards the building were for victims killed on the plane. Benches facing away from the building were for victims killed inside. It was a bit of a challenge to explain to Anna why the people died, so it was left as a bad accident at the building. We didn't even discuss what happened in New York. When she gets older, we'll explain the significance of the events to her. In the meantime, we applaud the work of our national security team and hope that Anna never has to experience such an event first hand.

Anna celebrated her 5th birthday on September 3 with a party at Glyndon park in Vienna, Virginia. Several of her friends from school joined in the festivities along with other family friends. Having a party at the park seemed like a good idea at the time and all week the weather forecast looked great for Saturday morning. When Saturday arrived, thunderstorms were forecasted for the afternoon. Aunt Gayle arrived to help get things ready for the event. Just as we pulled up to the shelter house at the park, it started to thunder. The rest of the morning was spent with the threat of rain with an occasional shower. The kids did not mind at all and enjoyed the playground between showers. Theresa spent the time praying to the rain gods to hold off until 1 PM. On the plus side, at least there was no hurricane for the weekend. The second problem was the directions for the guests. Apparently the invite incorrectly listed the address as north instead of south, resulting in a good portion