Today is ANZAC Day. It is a public holiday for all of those non-Australians out there reading this. Yes, you two or three people!! Ninety-seven years ago on this day began one of the bloodiest and most futile campaigns ever fought by our troops. It was fought almost exclusively by colonial troops and is the day most Australians and Kiwis go and celebrate our military; living and dead. There is a somber parade in most towns and big ones in each capitol city. There are services held at war memorials all day, with the most important of those being the dawn services. The landing at Gallipoli started just predawn and that is why we remember the fallen at that time. 
.Levi marched this year. He marched as a part of his soccer team, because you can see by his face during the march, he was a little nervous about marching without his mother! He was going to help lay the wreath at the memorial but at the last minute, they had the bigger kids do it instead. I think he was just grateful to not have to do anything more than just march. As his Great-Grandfather fought in World War 1, he could have marched at the front (as could I) but he preferred to march with his friends. Lindsay Wilson fought mainly in France but was on one of the last boats supposed to be going to land on Gallipoli peninsula, but was turned back because they had ordered the retreat. He was an ambulance officer. He held his brother Harry in his arms as he died far from his home in an army hospital on the battlefields of France at the age of 24. He was different when he came home. After the war he became a dentist. Other than that I know little of the man who provides a quarter of my genetics. He died on my second birthday. I can only hope that I can show Levi how to be as proud as I am about a man that I know so little!
It is a beautiful thing to watch the numbers of people grow at these services every year. In three years it will be big indeed, I suspect. It will be a big year to be in Turkey too, I suspect!
The rest of the day was about play. Levi played with a mate for most of the day and then we had soccer practice at four. It was a quiet fairly relaxed day for me. Levi's mate was a wild one, so I am not sure how relaxed his day was, but at least he had fun. They played like mad things on the trampoline and regularly wanted me to video them. I think it is funny how media oriented this generation is. They are growing up expecting to be videoed and photographed. Both at some point said to me; "Can you video me and put it up on Facebook." They have knowledge of chat rooms and social networking as a part of the very language they use. They are used to parents watching them, taping them. They are very happy here to be told to go outside, but it isn't a common occurrence.
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