Posted in My Kids

It may seem odd to visit a cemetery while on vacation, but my husbands Grandparents are buried at Forest Lawn in Hollywood Hills. So whenever we make a trip to Los Angeles we try to stop by Forest Lawn. 

My kids never met their Great Grandparents, but my 2 oldest kids are both got their middles names from them.  So they feel a special connection to them. 

In never rains in Sunny Southern California?  HA!!!

These 2 didn't care much that they were in a cemetery, they were just happy to be let loose in the rain! 
There is just nothing cuter than little ones playing with an umbrella!

After visiting the graves we headed over to see the display they have on the Revolutionary War.  One of the cool things about the Forest Lawns in Los Angeles is that they are really designed to be a place for the living.  The Hollywood Hills location is dedicated to the Revolutionary & Civil Wars.  Since we have been studying "Felicity's time" I wanted my daughter to see the world's largest historical mosaic, The Birth of Liberty.  This thing is AMAZING.  I don't know if I have ever seen 10 million of anything at one place before,  but this mosaic is made from 10 million pieces of tile.

This is the whole mural. It tells the story of our nation from the Mayflower to the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

This is carved in the stone on the left hand side.

The Mayflower

Signing the Mayflower Compact

ContinentalCongress
The Old North Church

Betsy Ross presenting the flag to Washington.  This was my daughters favorite because of the little girls holding the flag.

Washington

Surrender of General Cornwall

I somehow managed to not take a picture of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  I'll blame the rain!  LOL

They also have a reproduction of  Boston's Old North Church
My daughter was so excited about going into the church, but then there was a funeral going on and we didn't get to go inside.

Usually we walk around and look for famous graves when we go to Forest Lawn.  This time we didn't because it was raining we were all soaking wet.  (One umbrella for 5 people is NOT enough!) We did see this one since it is right by the Old North Church.  The kids wanted to go see Lucille Ball's.  They are really into I Love Lucy right now.  But, I vetoed them because I was sooo cold.

So there you have it, the weirdest part of our vacation!  LOL  Actually we left this cemetery and went to the Forest Lawn in Glendale so the kids could see The Hall of The Crucifixion-Resurrection.  These are two HUGE paintings.  The Crucifixion is the largest framed painting in the world, standing 195' long by 45' high. (The length of the painting it 35 feet longer than the width of a football field!)  The Resurrection is presented along with The Crucifixion in an amazing Cathedral like building. It is all very impressive but at this point I had given up taking pictures and was just focusing on trying to not get any wetter!  LOL 

So there you have it.  The weird things homeschool families do on vacation!  LOL