There's A First Time For Everything

For the 7 1/2 years we've lived here, we've never participated in any part of our city celebration days. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I don't really love crowds. This means that we've never taken our kids to the parade. (I know, I know - bad Mommy) This year that had to change.

Back in April Shaylyn tried out for a cheerleading team. It is the cheer team for the Little League Football teams out this way. We figured there was no harm in her trying out. Shaylyn did her best and practiced really hard to learn the routine and get it down and her hard work paid off. She made the team. Pretty good for a girl who hasn't danced for 6 years or so or who's never had a gymnastics lesson in her life.

Well, the cheer team was going to be in the parade. Eric and I talked about one of us just dropping her off and picking her up, but then we decided we should support our child in the physical sense. So on the morning of the 7th, we got everyone up and out the door by about a quarter after 7. Shaylyn had to meet up with her team by about 7:30.

We got Shaylyn dropped off and then we found a place for us to sit. We didn't know when the parade would start and after seeing that we had a 2 hour wait - we decided we'd quickly walk over to the grocery store to get some sort of breakfast.

By the time we got back to our blankets, spaces were filling up fast. While we were waiting for the parade to start, I took a few snapshots of each of the kiddos.

...Yes, Eric let this kid get a cap gun...

...He had just started standing on his own, so he was still wibbly-wobbly...

The start of the parade was Policemen from around the area. I've always had a fascination with cops on motorcycles (Probably because of CHIPs - not that I understood the show when it was on, I was only a little kid) so I really enjoyed this part of the parade.

Then the parade really started, though there were many moments of nothingness.

...Ailey didn't like the sirens - or any loud noises for that matter...

One of the favorite acts from the parade (for the boys, anyway) was the people who reenact the Wild West. They had a shoot-out right in front of us.

Ironman took a break from saving the world to walk in our parade.

I was a fan of the gorilla who chose to pass out bananas instead of candy! I was even more a fan when we actually got one of the bananas! 

My kids were way more excited by this 'bottle' of shampoo than any normal child should've been.

This poor mascot for a local snow-cone place kept getting mauled by kids. It was funny and sad all at the same time.

Little Ceasar was another favorite for our kids.

Finally we got to see our little Shaylynnie. She looked way more grown up than either Eric or I would like.

...Shaylyn's bestie, Mikayla is marching next to her...

There were a few more mascots after Shaylyn. One of them being the cow from Chick-Fil-A. 

Capt. America and Spiderman couldn't let Ironman out-do them and they decided they'd pay us a visit as well.

As if our morning hadn't been long enough, we had decided we'd go to the zoo afterwards. We had made the decision long before we actually got to the parade and sat through the parade. So even though we were both exhausted already, we kept true to our word and went to the zoo.

Being a Saturday the zoo was packed. It was hard to see the animals because of the crowds, but because we got a membership again this year we weren't too frustrated. It was kind of nice to just be out as a family enjoying the weather.

We had timed an education class just right and got there before it got too crowded. The class discussed some interesting animals - one being a ferret and one was some sort of snake. The kids had the opportunity to 'pet' each after the class was over.

Nate was in an extra good mood and wanted a picture with the big elephant statue, which then meant that everyone had to have one.

Jace tried to keep cool and act older than he is.

The carousel is always a must.

Then it was time to play at the new splash pad!

We decided it was time to call it a day, but not before riding the train. The line was fairly long, so we had a bit of a wait. While we were waiting Jace found a new game to play with Daddy. He's actually quite obsessed with Daddy's hats.

And because it was so crowded they were trying to cram as many people on the train as they could. How many kids can you comfortably fit on one of the seats? Hint, it's not four.

And because it was the zoo, I decided I should get a picture of a couple animals at least...

It really was a great day. Super, super exhausting - but so much fun to just be together without feeling like we had to hurry to be anywhere.