Long Live the Queen!

June 16, 2007

Long Live the Queen!

Today we went down to Buckingham Palace and accidentally came upon a huge celebration in honor of the Queen's birthday. We were able to see "Trooping the Colour" - the annual parade. In addition to over a 1000 of her royal highness' bear-fur hat red coat wearing troopy guys, we saw Prince Phillip, Prince William, Camilla and THE QUEEN!!! (She looked lovely in a bright green number, with matching hat of course.)

Waverly was given this lovely flag to wave and she did, until she jabbed too many people with it and we had to take it away from her.

Check out this link for much better photos than I was able to take over the crowds: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6759739.stm

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Welcome to Holland

By Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland.""Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

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Long Live the Queen!

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