Patriot's Day - Busy in Boston

Things are rather busy in our neck of the woods these days! Living in Concord, we are in the midst of the annual Patriot's Day festivities. The "shot heard 'round the world" was fired on April 19, 1775, at the Old North Bridge which is about a ten minute walk from our house.
In case you have forgotten some of your American history, the phrase is in the first verse of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Concord Hymn, written for the dedication of a battle monument.


Above is a photo of this verse on the monument with the famous sculpture by Daniel Chester French, who is best known for the sculpture of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D. C. (in case it is too hard to read from the photo, I have typed it below as well):

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard 'round the world.





On the other side of the bridge is a monument with this inscription (the photo was taken last summer,when Ted, a Cricut Message Board friend from California, visited Concord).

Once again - here are the words typed out for you:

HERE
on the 19th of April
1775
was made
the first forcible resistance
to British aggression
On the opposite Bank
stood the American Militia
Here stood the Invading Army
and on this spot
the first of the Enemy fell
in the War of that Revolution
which gave
Independence
to these United States

In gratitude to GOD
and
in the love of freedom
this Monument
was erected
AD 1836.

A little piece of trivia that you may not know about Daniel Chester French is that he was given art lessons and encouraged to pursue sculpting by Louisa May Alcott's sister, May Alcott ("Amy" in the book Little Women).

Tomorrow there will be re-enactments here and in Lexington and on Monday we have a parade in town.

The other big event of the weekend is the Boston Marathon on Monday. We are hosting my husband's cousin, his wife and her parents for the weekend because she will be running in the marathon. ( I am so impressed - I walk in the mornings but running is beyond me!) Today, we had the extended family that lives in the area over for a cookout (luckily the rain held off) and this group includes a lot of lively youngsters - including a set of twins and their younger brother and our five year old triplet nephews!

So, things are busy here - but it is fun to be in the middle of all these activities and historical events. Tomorrow morning we will wake up to the sounds of cannons(!)

I know that most of you come here for Cricut and craft info, so forgive this digression (I actually have had some blog readers send me messages saying they enjoy the occasional non-crafting posts and the glimpses into another crafter's "real world").



I will leave you with a photo of a design I did a couple of weeks ago that I hope to finish into a card very soon - can you guess the cartridges involved?