I spent the better part of the day with daughter #1 and her hubby and girls as we took in the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC. First, can I just say that nature's beauty beats any manufactured beauty in the world! The blossoms were absolutely gorgeous!!

I love getting out and doing things like this in my new home. Being the people watcher that I am, it only gets better and better to have a huge crowd of blossom-loving people to feast my curious eyes on. One of the best parts of the day was seeing the amateur photographers posing their family members among the blossoms. You wouldn't believe the far out measures some took to record this moment for posterity.

Speaking of poses, what is the appropriate pose one should take when posing in front of DC's more serious and sometimes sad, somber memorials and monuments?

Now I've seen people standing in front of the Vietnam Memorial Wall, just smiling away as they are getting their picture taken. That just seems wierd.

Today, we also took in the FDR memorial and many people would hug the statue of FDR sitting in his wheelchair and smile, or they would stand at the end of the statue with people in the depression era food line, smiling away...they looked really wierd, with their goofy smiles, as the statue figures in that food line looked anything but happy.

Before you think I'm just a totally judgemental snob, I will have to say that I hoisted my granddaughter C up on FDR's knee so that her daddy could take a picture of her, smiling away. Of course, in this case, it didn't seem strange at all! ;-)