A Picnic in the Cemetery

We had a super busy Friday. It was a gorgeous day (that means no air conditioning needed!) so I wanted to do something outside. I decided to take Archie on a picnic at a cemetery here in Cincinnati. A nice field trip (history and math!). I picked Spring Grove, which has been in operation for about 150 years. There are many people who originally settled Cincinnati (then Lousantiville) buried there, as well as Cincinnatians of historical significance. The monuments and mausoleums are very interesting (some quite big and extravagant) and the landscaping there is beautiful. There are large full oak trees, among other kinds of big trees, that are all over the place. We walked around for a bit after we arrived in the older section of the cemetery. Archie was very interested in who was there, and when they had lived and how old they were when they died. We would've seen a lot more, but we kept on having to stop and read tombstones.

I saw a few monuments which were for children of some particular families...The childrens' birth and death dates were listed. There was more than one monument which listed the deaths of three and four children in the same family. Not all babies (although there were some) but little kids. I was wondering how the parents survived the death of so many children. I don't know if I could survive the death of one child let alone 3 or 4. Perhaps they were made of stronger stuff than I am. Archie said he was glad the kids had special monuments. Because they were little when they died and didn't get to be as big as their Daddies. However, his philosophy on death was a bit strange...he told me that if there were children whose parents died, then they could just get new parents to take care of them. And the parents whose children had died could just get some new children and they would feel better. Weird. But I guess we hadn't had much discussion about death and dying previous to our cemetery visit.

We had a picnic underneath the biggest gnarliest old oak tree. The limbs reached out all the way to the ground. It was just so peaceful and nice there.

After we picked Morgan up from school, we got our blankets and snacks ready and went to the Drive In Movies. We went to a different one than the one Phillip and I visited in July. This one was okay, but they didn't play all the ads from the 1950's that I enjoyed so much. Also, the guy didn't get on the loud speaker and go into a spiel about not being late and not complaining to the management about various things. I found that particularly humorous. Also, this drive in had assigned parking spots based on the size of your vehicle. Not that our Saturn is particularly big, but we still had to park in Row 7, even though we got there right when the ticket office opened, about an hour before the movie.

Since we got there so early, we got our quilts and things arranged in the back of the Vue and went to the front area to play Frisbee (or 'Crisbee' as Archie calls it). We had a lot of fun, and I think even Morgan was having fun! We almost clobbered only a few people with our game of Crisbee and all even caught a few throws.

The movies that were playing were Underdog and Stardust. Archie loved Underdog. He'd already seen it (Reemie took him while we were in Mobile) but is always game to see a movie he likes more than once. He really enjoyed that one. I liked Stardust a lot. I'd not heard of it previously, but it turned out to be a really good movie. We had to snuggle in during the last movie (Stardust) because it was getting quite cool out and I was glad I brought all the quilts! I brought Archie's jammies for him to change in to before the second movie started.

We made it home around 1:00 am. Archie didn't make it all the way home awake, so he had to be carried in and put to bed. All in all, it was a great day. I still just love the drive in. Who needs all that Dolby Surround Sound crap when you can go to the drive in? A drive in movie would make a much better date than going to the regular movies. And they're cheaper. We paid 6 dollars per ticket for Morgan and I, and Archie got in for 3 dollars. For TWO movies! You can't beat that!