Today was a volunteer pleasure for me.  On the third Wednesday of every month as many as a thousand people who have met all the requirements for United States citizenship stand and take an oath of allegiance to the U.S.A. and become citizens with certificates... they are naturalized citizens... strange word, naturalized... someone not born to citizenship in a country but who is admitted by meeting requirements.  I am there to offer voter registration, and one of the great regular pleasures for me is to see how much it means to families and individuals to become citizens of the country in which I was born to citizenship.  Several other volunteers and I greet and congratulate the new citizens when they come out from their ceremony proudly showing their certificates.  A line always forms for pictures at the cardboard cut-outs of President and Mrs. Obama.  I am often asked if I will use a family member's phone or camera to take a picture.  I feel privileged to be part of the celebration.  I ask if I can take a picture using my iPhone, and invariably I am told I may do it.  These are some of the pictures I got today.  In the first picture the barefoot boys and their father are natural-born citizens.  The boys' mother became a citizen today.

The second picture of three people in one family was made very special for me by the way one of the men held proudly the small American flag in one hand and his citizenship certificate in the other.  I love these people and am glad to be citizen in the same country with them.

...and the third picture:  the woman's smile says it all.