Let's Celebrate Life!

It's time to CELEBRATE This Week with Ruth Ayres from Discover. Play. Build.  Every week Ruth invites us to share our celebrations from the week and link up at her blog. What a fun way to reflect on everything there is to be thankful for. 

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This week I'm celebrating life!

*throws confetti*

Yesterday I shared my trip to the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston with Jennifer Reed. It really was so beautiful to be there. It wasn't sad to me at all, it was relaxing. Obviously, I'm happy to be alive and hope to live for a long time still, but it's nice to know that someday when I do die, I might be in such a quiet and serene place such as Forest Hills. 

Today we packed up the kids and headed about twenty minutes east to Lake Forest where I grew up. We were headed to the Wildlife Discovery Center where we love to visit the animals and play at the park except both kids fell asleep. I suggested we take the long way into town and then circle back to the discovery center. We ended up down near the lake and zig zagged around to the elementary school I attended and then I remembered the Lake Forest Cemetery. It has a wonderful archway as the entrance and remembering my trip last weekend, I turned to head in. I'm not sure when I had last visited if ever but it was as lovely as Forest Hills although definitely not as expansive. I stopped to hop out and take a picture and the kids stirred. As they woke up, I explained where we were and pointed out some of the more unique grave markers. I saw a large stone that read "Hughes" and asked my husband to look up and see if it was John Hughes the director of movies like Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It was so when we pulled back around, I stopped to take a picture as well. By this time my husband was ready to go, commenting that it was freaking him out to be there. This took me by surprise. 

I know death is sad but it's part of life and it's comforting to me to know that there are places like cemeteries where people can go and visit and celebrate life. Here are a few pictures. The first one is looking out onto Lake Michigan. It's hard to see the water because it was overcast and a bit foggy but the waves gently crashing were relaxing.

 

And then we did make our way to the Wildlife Discover Center where I held a chameleon and a box turtle and celebrated a whole different kind of life.  

 

What do you think of cemeteries? And what do you think about reptiles?

What are you celebrating this week?