Last Stop on Our Trip....

We left Strasbourg and headed to Belgium. Shawn had wanted to stop by to see the cemetary in Luxembourg. This is the place that General Patton was buried. As we started to drive we came to Moselle France and just by chance we stumbled onto this American Memorial Cemetary. Shawn decided to pull over and go inside to check it out.

He found out that this was The Lorraine Memorial Cemetary. It contains the largest number of graves of our military dead of World War II totalling over 10,489. We decided to check this one out instead of going to Luxembourg. It looked pretty impressive.

This is inside the memorial sight....

I love the sayings imprinted on these walls. I love our military men and women. I love how they so freely give of their time, talents and efforts to give us the freedoms that so many of us take for granted.

This is the outside of the memorial....

The cemetary covers 113 acres of land. When I first walked outside of the memorial building and took a look at these thousand and thousand of white crossed I almost started to cry. It is hard to capture it all on a picture because it is so spread out. It seemed to go on forever.

The view off to the left.....

The view off to the right......

I love our american flag. Each time I see one flying in the wind it always reminds me of a good friend of mine who passed away suddenly. He was my bishop, my neighbor and my friend, Lee Wheelock. I miss him :(

This is the visitor lookout at the far end of the cemetary. Karah and I decided to take a walk and see what was up there. We enjoyed looking at the flowers and spending some alone time just the two of us.

It was such a peaceful evening ......

These were two of the plaques that were up on the look out point...

As we were up there looking out at this beautiful sight and trying to capture it on film, I got the idea to video tape it on my camera. This way I could scan around to show how vast this area truly was. As I turned on my camcorder and began taping some beautiful bells began to chime. I was looking through my eyepiece of my camera and still scanning when I came across April in the midst of these white crosses. I was pretty emotional.

After the bells came the sound of the trumpet playing "TAPS" over the loud speaker ( I think that is the name of the song ) It was pretty overwhelming to be there while this was playing.

It gets pretty up close and personal when you have a loved one who is in the military. Times right now are so scary and unsure in this world of ours. So many young husbands and fathers are losing their lives to defend our freedom.

God Bless the USA!

Karah says the cutest things sometimes. She has really been interested in Jesus especially lately. She told us one day not too long ago about how the "Mean men stuck Jesus up on the STICK in his white shorts" She was talking about when he was crucified.

(I thnk that is the way she said it. Maybe she said he was in his white underwear. I can't remeber. Something is seriously wrong with my memory. Maybe just old age!)

Well today while we were getting ready to leave Karah was just leaning against this headstone and was stretching out her arms just relaxing. Then she announced to everyone......"Look, I'm just like Jesus!" From the mouth of babes.....What a sweet heart!

I love this picture of Shawn at the gravesite of an unknown soldier. He has been in the military for about 10 years (I think). He began as a marine and now he is in the Air Force. He has been to war several times and has experienced first hand the tragedy of war. I am proud to have Shawn as my son-in-law and am very grateful that he has been watched over and protected each time he has been out serving his country. He left today (Wednesday) to go out again to war. Our thoughts and prayers are with him. We love you Shawnster!

Alyssa is bookin' it out of there. She is ready to go home, eat and hit the sack! We had a nice trip. And now it's back to Landstuhl......April and Shawn, Thanks for the great travel memories. Love ya!