Still raining.....

……. and still postponing yard work.  First of all, to Linda.  Please email me so that I have an email address for you.  Then when the Bee Kind kits are ready I will email you an invoice through Pay Pal.

When our very peasant and informative English speaking guide picked us up at our place of stay the next morning, we set out for a day tour with him.  Our first stop was the Bastogne War Museum.  It is a major W.W.11 site of memory in the Ardennes Forest area in Belgium.  Bruce, enjoyed this experience completely.  The day was cold and rainy.  I mentioned the fact to our guide.  He answered, "it's perfect to help you understand what the soldiers were facing."  Winter was coming on and they had not yet received any of their winter gear or clothing.  They suffered greatly.  I was thoroughly and completely admonished!  I considered that through the day as I shivered off and on in the cold.

Below are a few pictures from the museum.

Depicting the picture taken in Time's Square after the war was over.

This is an reenactment of a sparse Christmas dinner, that was soon interrupted by the need for the generals to be at their duty stations.

The next part of our tour was centered on the Band of Brothers film, which we saw at least a couple of times for the impact it had on us and our family.  I picked up a book in the book store called, 'Searching for Augusta', by Martin King.  She was referred to as the forgotten angel of Bastogne.  In the series of A Band of Brothers,  we were told of the story of what happened to American soldiers and citizens during that arduous winter of 1944-1945.  In the movie there is a passing reference to an African nurse assisting in an aid station in Bastogne.  When a military historian, Martin King watched the episode, he made it his mission to discover who she was.  Her name is Agusta Chiwy.  The book tells how she and a fellow medic  saved countless lives while under siege. Bruce, got access to it first and read it, now it is my turn.  He enjoyed it.

The Band of Brothers.

Our guide took us  along part of the route the Band of Brothers took in the filming of their experiences.  Thinking back on what I new from the film, and being cold, the experience was very moving.  This is a memorial that Tom Hanks had erected in their honor and memory.

These are some of the fox holes that are still in evidence after all of this time.

This is the farm they came across in the movie.  I believe if memory serves me, they took shelter in this barn.

The Cross Roads.

The church from the movie.  This concluded our day, and we took the train the next day back to Amsterdam, and then Home Sweet Home!  However, we are deeply grateful for this amazing experience, and to share most of it with our daughters and husbands.

"I want to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while."

-Carlos Castaneda