4th of July Events...

Here in our town, I've discovered that the 4th isn't a day for fireworks, it's a week for celebration. And I love it. Again, I've never lived anywhere that's taken so much time for the community. There's always something to do, always some sort of event going on, and you see the same people everywhere, and that's ok. I'm really learning the meaning of community.

So this week is the town festival and parade. I took Emily and a pal to the carnival, but the friend wasn't tall enough to ride all of the rides, so I took Emily back the next day. We made a quick detour to the animal presentation, where she held a tarantula and pet (petted?) an alligator. Neat stuff, but quickly tiresome, so it was off to the carnival to ride some serious rides with Mommy. Again, that quickly grew tiresome, and she was gone and away with two older neighbor boys while I rode the Zipper with yet another neighbor boy. What fun. This was the same kids that rode the thrill rides with me at 6 Flags. My sign language is definitely improving with him, because when I signed "I want to go see Emily" he yelled "she's right there!!!" At least he didn't respond with "the wolf is at the library?" or some other nonsense that I tried to sign to him.

Today was Parade Day. Emily and her gal pal chose to walk in the parade with our church and stir up some VBS recruits. They had fun, from what I could tell. They were 69th in line, but 68 entries and one train delay later, here comes the kids.

I was told that they marched almost all the way, but petered out the last 1/4 mile and rode in the back of the convertible. What a couple of hot shots!! Here they are, after the parade.

Of course the festivities aren't over yet. After a post-parade party tonight, we have a pre-fireworks party on the 3rd, a fun run and festival on the 4th, a fireworks party and then of course fireworks. Here we take our 4th very seriously!