The World Is A Carousel of Color

Does anybody (other than me) remember the Disney's Wonderful World of Color TV show from the 1960's? These past few weeks, the theme song, which began with "The world is a carousel of color...," has been floating through my mind at different times as we have driven through the magnificent countryside of the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia to and from our classes. We spend a couple of hours on the road to and from our classes every day, which gives us a lot of time to observe this beautiful part of our country.

We live in an area of rolling green lawns and thick forests. What fun it has been to see the changes in the colors of the leaves on a day to day basis! Every day is different. It has seemed lately that every night as we sleep someone comes along and sets random trees on fire with incredible hues of deep red, rust, gold, burnt orange, and brilliant yellow. They say the rain this year has deepened the colors. Well, I'm glad all that rain has been good for something...! It's been downright soggy around here and we're in for rain again almost every day this week.

Inside the Capitol Rotunda

This afternoon we said good-bye to Janet, Kim, Adam, Matthew, and Rachel. Good-byes are always the hardest part of the visit! What a blessing that all of our daughters and their families have now been able to come and experience the majesty and beauty of our nation's capitol. It's a senior missionary blessing that we didn't even consider when we submitted our papers. Having family visit us occasionally has been the icing on our missionary experience, and it's been a great education for our 'tween and teen grandchildren. Janet and family have been with us for a week or so during their school break. We loved having them here. Most days, we had to drop them off at the Metro in the morning before our classes and pick them up late in the evening after our night classes, but they covered a lot of territory while we were busy teaching.

We did get to spend all day Saturday with them at the Smithsonian and Mt. Vernon. So much to see and do! We particularly love Mt. Vernon. Although we have always looked up to George Washington, the more we learn about him, the more we admire him. The Father of our Country was an amazing, gifted man. There is so much to celebrate about the history of our country!

It was Adam's 15th birthday on Saturday, too, so we celebrated by going out to dinner and embarrassing him early in the morning with our family's scary rendition of the Happy Birthday song.

Monday marks the beginning of a new week of classes - so it's back to work for us. We already have this week's lessons outlined, but it'll take many more hours of study before we feel completely prepared. Ready, set, go!              ~Pat~