Cherry Blossoms

Well, the DC Cherry Blossom festival is over. The blooms came and went real quick this year. The weather was so weird. The coldest weather, hottest weather, sun, rain..... the poor little trees didn't know what to do. Anyway, Aaron was out here for a couple of weeks and Sara went to WI for her spring break. I took the 2 big kids into DC to check out the trees.

The history of the Cherry Blossoms goes like this... (copied from the DC Cherry Blossom Festival Website)

****The National Cherry Blossom Festival® annually commemorates the 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to the city of Washington, honoring the lasting friendship between the United States and Japan and celebrating the continued close relationship between our two cultures.

In a simple ceremony on March 27, 1912, First Lady Helen Herron Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted the first two trees from Japan on the north bank of the Tidal Basin in West Potomac Park. In 1915, the United States Government reciprocated with a gift of flowering dogwood trees to the people of Japan. A group of American school children reenacted the initial planting in 1927 and the first "festival” was held in 1935, sponsored by civic groups in the Nation’s Capital.

First Lady Lady Bird Johnson accepted 3,800 more trees in 1965. In 1981, the cycle of giving came full circle. Japanese horticulturists were given cuttings from our trees to replace some cherry trees in Japan which had been destroyed in a flood.

The Festival was expanded to two weeks in 1994 to accommodate a diverse activity schedule during the trees’ blooming. Today, more than a million people visit Washington, DC each year to admire the blossoming cherry trees and attend events that herald the beginning of spring in the Nation’s Capital.

The Festival looks forward to celebrating the centennial anniversary of the gift of trees in 2012 and is planning spectacular events to mark this historic and special occasion.***

Pretty cool, huh?! Anyway, here are some pics from around the tidal basin.

Here is a bonus picture. Travis and I had to go to a retirement ceremony on Saturday, so we took a quick picture of us while we were both all dressed up. :)