When Paul and I left the house at 9:28 on Saturday morning to take Brady to our neighborhood's 4th of July parade, we had no idea what to expect. Maybe a few kids on decorated bikes?
Instead, we saw this coming down the block...
A LOT of people! There was unabashed, blatant cuteness everywhere.
I don't think I appreciated just how many kids there are in our neighborhood. Brady will never lack for a playmate.
The parade wound around to the retirement home a few blocks away, where all the residents were outside and waiting.
The kids all paraded in front of them, and there were smiles and high-fives all around. It was downright heart-warming. We said the pledge of allegiance, a little girl sang the national anthem, and the kids had popsicles. My little neighborhood makes me happy.
We hung out and ran errands for awhile after the parade, and then Brady had spaghetti for lunch (at least it's red-- that's kind of festive, right?). As is usually the case now, he insisted on feeding himself with his hands, one noodle at a time.
He ate until he was ALL...
...DONE!
Our evening was spent at a bar-b-que at a neighbor's house, where I got to know several neighbors who I'd never even met before. We ended up having a really good time (despite the rain! on the 4th of July!), and staying a lot longer than I thought we would. Brady got to stay up past his bedtime watching the neighbor kids set off fireworks, but by about 8:45 he was passing out. We took him home and put him to bed, and then hung out in the front yard with yet more neighbors watching the fireworks. And folks, there were a lot of fireworks. Apparently, Nebraskans really like to blow things up.
It was a good day.
When you only get one day a year to blow things up. . . why not!? LOL I love the fireworks, and if it wern't for the kids begging for them we wouldn't need to buy them. Everyone around us shoots them off as well!
Posted by: Amanda | July 07, 2009 at 07:42 AM