Like so many other things in our life this past year, our 4th of July traditions are in flux. Last year we finally ditched a 10 year long tradition of huge picnic and watching overhead fireworks because it simply wasn’t working for our family anymore. Last year’s celebration was kind of small, so this year I wanted to make sure that the kids got to do something memorable. I took them to the local parade.
Most of the impetus for the Parade attendance came from Kiki. She really wanted to go. Howard really didn’t. He hates parades. Kiki agreed to help me watch the littler kids and so I packed them all into the car and we trundled off to the parade. The Provo Freedom Festival Parade is a fairly large one I think. This year it had over 100 entries. This means that it is extremely crowded. We had to park about 6 blocks away and walk in. We found ourselves a little spot that had been left bare because it was concrete instead of grass. For us this turned out to be a good thing because when Patches got a little bored he had a place to drive the toy cars I brought for him. I think we were also fortunate in our choice of neighbors. The three groups surrounding us were all extremely tolerant of my kids. The young couple next to us were particularly entertained by their antics.
The group in front of us not only allowed my kids to have space on the curb, but they also fed my kids from their copious supply of donuts. Gleek was the first one to score a donut. She did it by walking up, looking cute and asking for one. I couldn’t have her return it because she’d already taken bites, but I did require her to share with Patches, Link, and Kiki. She shared and then she showed them where she’d gotten it. The grandparently people noticed the longing looks and started handing out donuts like water. I tried to appologize, but the assured me that they couldn’t think of a better use for unwanted donuts. I’m really not sure how many donuts my kids consumed, but every so often Gleek or Patches would wander up with a half-eaten donut and hand it to me. Then a few minutes later I’d see them with a fresh donut. When I packed up to leave I found that I’d collected 6 half-eaten donuts. Add to that the licorice whip that Patches acquired from somewhere and the powerade I bought to keep kids hydrated and the dirt from the street and grass: they were all sticky and dirty in layers before the parade was over.
Kiki and Gleek loved every minute of the parade. They watched every entry, waved at every person who waved, and cheered for all they were worth. They loved the huge floats with beautiful girls in them. They loved seeing the huge balloons carefully limboed under the street banner. The loved seeing all the horses, and bands, and dancing. Gleek especially loved the entries with music. She began dancing around anytime there was music nearby. I’ve got some adorable video of her doing a little jig-like dance to marching bagpipers. The longer the parade went on, the more energetic Gleek became. All the sugar might have been a causative effect there. Link got tired and bored after awhile. He doesn’t like loud noises much and the parade kept being very loud. He was hot and sweaty and kept trying to crawl into my lap. Since I was hot and sweaty too, this wasn’t comfortable. Besides Link is 7 and not really lap-sized anymore. Fortunately getting his hair all wet helped and he perked right up when he was given a donut. Patches loved all the machines. There were cars and tractors and no less than three fly-overs by military aircraft. Hours after we came home Patches expressed an interest in going back to the parade to see more cars. That was the consensus from all the kids. They loved the parade and want to go back again. Even Link said he liked it even though he got hot and occasionally bored.
Predictably, the rest of the day the kids were really cranky and hard to manage. Then in the evening we went out into our cul de sac and lit off a dazzling array of fireworks. It was subsidized by one neighbor who’d spent pantloads of money on huge boxes of fireworks. His teenage son, another neighbor’s teenage daughter, and Howard were the firelighters. The rest of us all got to sit on my neighbor’s lawn and watch the show. The show was made even more impressive by illegal fireworks shot into the sky from a street or two over. I loved getting to sit with my neighbors and visit. The kids loved getting to run around in the dark and see all the fireworks. Howard enjoyed lighting off the fireworks. It was a happy hour or two. Then we herded the children inside and tumbled them all into bed.
Today is going to be a deliberately calm day. We had enough excitement yesterday to last for a week.