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Grand Ilumination 2012

 
Can the beauty of fireworks make you cry?  Well, yes, it can.

The night after the Christmas Town Dash, we headed to Colonial Williamsburg for Grand Illumination.  It is the celebration of the beginning of the Christmas Season and the highlight of the night is firework displays.  4 to be exact. Throughout the town.  We had gone to Grand Illumination two years ago and watched it by the Governor's Mansion.  This year, we headed to the Capital Building.

The night was beautiful.  The weather was amazing.  I had layered the boys and really, none of us needed coats.  The last time we cam,e we were FREEZING, but this time felt like an early fall night.  We made our way through the throngs of people, from one end of town to the other and staked out a place to the left front of the Capital building.  Fireworks were to be going off on each side of the Capital, so we figured we had a great seat to see both sets go off.  And we were in for a treat!  As the fireworks went of, they went off from the front and both sides of the building.  With each firework, the building was lit by the glow.  The fireworks lasted about 20 minutes and every moment was spectacular.  There was something about the beauty of the fireworks going off, illuminating a building that was so integral to the history of our nation, that made me tear up.  People cheered as the fireworks dazzled the crowds and lit up the sky.  There were fireworks on spinning wheels that looked like white pointsettias.  There were fireworks draped on wires that looked like waterfalls, falling before the Capital building.  Not one firework was a disappointment. 



I got to see the wonder and excitement on my boys' faces.  And, in that moment, immersed in the spectacle and surrounded by the ones I most love, I felt very blessed.  Blessed to experience that moment once again. 

After the fireworks were over, the fife and drum corps began.  There were two corps. One near the Capital building and one you could hear playing in the distance.  As the one closest to us marched down the main street, the crowds followed.  At some point they stopped and continued to perform in the street.  Within minutes, the drums of the other corps grew louder.  They marched down the street toward us and joined the otherr corps.  The Junior and Senior Corps joined together for a couple songs, ending with Yankee Doodle.

After the performance, we began to walk back to our car and ran into a group of Nashville Dominican Sisters.  They are amazing.  They are such a joy-filled order that exudes happiness and God's love.  We spoke to them a bit and then headed "home" for the night.

The night was a prefect ending to a wonderful first day of vacation.

Comments

  1. I am so glad you all had such a nice family vacation, and that display was beautiful!

    ReplyDelete

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