Remembrance

I'm taking a little departure from my usual stamping posts to reflect on a really special trip that I was on this time last year. My Dad and I took a two week Battlefields of Europe tour last November and as Remembrance Day approaches, I've been thinking back on our trip a lot. I know that standing at our Remembrance Day Ceremony in Langford tomorrow morning will remind me of the ceremony we attended in Ieper, Belgium last November 11th. I'll think back on the battlefields and beaches that we walked on, the cemeteries and memorials where we paid our respects, the museums where we learned of the tragedies of the First and Second World Wars... and I will have a whole different understanding of the meaning of "Lest We Forget".

I thought that some of you might like to see some of the photos from our tour. The first one is my Dad and I standing on Juno Beach. This is the beach where our Canadian soldiers landed on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

The next is from our visit to Vimy Ridge, where on April 9, 1917 more than 15,000 Canadians embarked on a successful attack that gained them much respect for their bravery.

I wanted to share this photo of the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. This memorial was one of the most amazing things I saw. If you look closely, you'll see people standing on the memorial and this gives you an idea of the size of this structure. On the walls, there are over 72,000 names of missing French and Commonwealth soldiers who were never found.

As you can probably tell, this was an amazing trip and gave me a whole new appreciation for all that we have, especially the freedoms we enjoy every day.

Lest we forget.