Remembrance Day Canada

Today is Remembrance Day.  Click the image to check out the post I put together last year in the spirit of gratitude and remembrance.

Thank you to all those who sacrificed so much for our freedom.

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Happy Thanksgiving Canada

We're celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend, and I have a busy few days ahead of me.  We'll be hosting the turkey sit-down at our house, making a couple of trips to the rink, and hopefully enjoying some beautiful fall weather.  A to-do list is running circles around my head and I don't have it in me to write anything inspirational today, so I'm recycling last years Thanksgiving post.  This weekend is all about family, gratitude, and turkey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(Canada)

The long Thanksgiving weekend is here!  As excited as I am about enjoying three days off with my family and sitting down to an all-the-trimmings turkey dinner, I'm also reflecting on the many things we have to be thankful for.  Traditionally, Thanksgiving celebrated the harvest and all the blessings of the past year.  It was a holiday created to express gratitude.  I've been thinking about gratitude a lot lately.  I've watched people I love and care about struggle with various crisis in their lives and I am reminded again and again of all that we have to be thankful for.  

Gratitude is about taking notice of what's around you and being aware of all the good things in your life.  Often we are so busy thinking about the future, or dwelling on the past, that we don't see the present and all the things we should be grateful for on a daily basis.  Sometimes we get caught up in comparing our lives to the lives of others and wishing for better or more.  Gratitude is the act of looking to our own lives - the roads that we've travelled, the experiences we've been through, the gifts that we've been given - and appreciating all that this life is teaching us.  Life may not be perfect and our paths may need adjusting, but gratitude requires that we look to the good in our lives and be thankful for it.  Often the very things we take for granted are the things that some people only wish for.  Despite hardships and challenges, when you stop and really take a look around you, life is pretty good.

So this Thanksgiving weekend I am thankful for my family, healthy kids, our imperfect home, the turkey that's in the oven, and the beautiful autumn weather.  I'm also grateful for teachers that do great crafts in their classrooms.  A Thanksgiving table setting can be a beautiful thing, but it's decorations like this that make them great:

Easy, peasy... a potato, some toothpicks and construction paper 'feathers', and a turkey face from a colouring page... love it!

Thank you for the feature!

  

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A Day of Remembrance

In remembrance of all those who have sacrificed so much for our freedom.  

Thank you.

The Country the World Forgot, again - The Telegraph UK Article 

National War Memorial Ottawa - photo gallery

Remembrance Day: Lest we Forget - CBC Canada Article

Remembrance Vignette - Veterans Affairs Canada

Remembrance Day 2010 Victory Square Cenotaph, Vancouver, BC

Canada's Highway of Heroes - Article

To You With Failing Hands we Throw - In Flanders Fields

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Turkey and Gratitude

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(Canada)

The long Thanksgiving weekend is here!  As excited as I am about enjoying three days off with my family and sitting down to an all-the-trimmings turkey dinner, I'm also reflecting on the many things we have to be thankful for.  Traditionally, Thanksgiving celebrated the harvest and all the blessings of the past year.  It was a holiday created to express gratitude.  I've been thinking about gratitude a lot lately.  I've watched people I love and care about struggle with various crisis in their lives and I am reminded again and again of all that we have to be thankful for.  

Gratitude is about taking notice of what's around you and being aware of all the good things in your life.  Often we are so busy thinking about the future, or dwelling on the past, that we don't see the present and all the things we should be grateful for on a daily basis.  Sometimes we get caught up in comparing our lives to the lives of others and wishing for better or more.  Gratitude is the act of looking to our own lives - the roads that we've travelled, the experiences we've been through, the gifts that we've been given - and appreciating all that this life is teaching us.  Life may not be perfect and our paths may need adjusting, but gratitude requires that we look to the good in our lives and be thankful for it.  Often the very things we take for granted are the things that some people only wish for.  Despite hardships and challenges, when you stop and really take a look around you, life is pretty good.

So this Thanksgiving weekend I am thankful for my family, healthy kids, our imperfect home, the turkey that's in the oven, and the beautiful autumn weather.  I'm also grateful for teachers that do great crafts in their classrooms.  A Thanksgiving table setting can be a beautiful thing, but it's decorations like this that make them great:

Easy, peasy... a potato, some toothpicks and construction paper 'feathers', and a turkey face from a colouring page... love it!

Thank you for featuring me:




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Remembering

In my travels across the world wide web this week, searching for Remembrance Day related material for various kids' school assignments, I came across this picture. Loved it, had to share it. I also received an email that led me to this article in a 2002 edition of the UK's Telegraph. Six years later, it's still relevant - and a good read:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3575633/The-country-the-world-forgot-again.html

I hope everyone took the opportunity to reflect yesterday - we have much to be thankful for.
According to Ben "we beyembered all the soldiers that died for us to be free and go shopping."
In a funny, almost-six-year-old way, he's got it right. Today I went to the grocery store, thankful for the freedom to do so.

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