Freedom Festival

As you all know, last weekend was the 10-year anniverary of 9-11. Which also means that it's 10 years since Jeremy and I first met each other, considering that all happened early in my sophomore (his freshman) year at EAC. A little crazy. We watched some of the documentaries on tv, and I realized how much I didn't know about what was going on when it actually happened. I was at an early morning Institute Council meeting that Tuesday morning when I found out about it, and listened to more radio coverage during the day (I was at school all day, and I don't remember the live feed being up anywhere that I was) than saw tv coverage. I caught some of the (constant) replays during the next few days, but a lot of what we watched in the documentaries was new to me. A little crazy.
Anyway, I saw signs up around town for Chesapeake's "Freedom Festival," and since it was held at the city park (think about half the size of the Graham County fairgrounds, Gila Valley people, but covered with grass and trees and stuff) that's about a mile from our house, we figured we might like to check it out. Satruday (the 10th) was a nice evening, even almost cool when the sun went behind the clouds, and the breeze kicked up. The Navy was there with all kinds of cool things to check out: A helicopter, a boat, lots of big trucks, some artillery demonstrations. Reilly was his usual self, and ended up leading a soldier or two around by the hand, getting them to let him climb up in their regular trucks, (that they had used to haul some of this stuff in) too. He surprised more than one person by managing to hug them during the evening... He was charming the firefighters a bit too, and got to climb up onto BOTH sides of the pink fire engine (for breast cancer awareness). Jaina thought the pink fire engine was pretty awesome. There was a 9-11 memorial there, with pieces of concrete and steel from the Twin Towers, as well as a banner with all of the names of the victims of that day. There were lots of vendors, a stage with bands performing (apparently, Phil Vassar was going on at 7:30, but that's about when we needed to leave to get home at a decent time), and a carnival. We were slightly mean parents, walking the kids all the way through all the rides without actually springing the $3-4 a piece it would have been to actually ride any of them. We told them we're saving our ride money for Disneyland in a year or two...  They got balloons and paraphernalia from some different vendors, then we decided to go somewhere and get ice cream somewhere we could sit down, since ice cream was all that Jaina's heart desired, according to her constant (cheerful, mostly-non-whiny) requests. It was a fun night, and I'm really glad we took the time and effort to check it out. I was able to see some of the fireworks colors (through some trees) from the front stairwell at our apartment about 9 that night. :)