I’m standing here on the Fourth of July with my two older kids.
The youngest kids are up the street about 1/2 mile as they are getting ready to participate in the Fourth of July parade, which is the big under taking of the week.
This is not a high class parde. It is a simple local Fourth of July Parade. People drive in their local cars. There are trucks pulling boats with people in them to the crowds. They drive the local ambulance. They drive their red VW bug. And the little kids can ride bikes. Often the kids throw candy.
My two youngest kids are going to throw candy today, and they are so excited they can hardly stand it.
We are good friends with our piano teacher, and she also decides to bring her child to be in the parade. The older kids don’t want to be in the parade, but they are going to be sitting on the side of the road with me. So, here we are waiting.
However, not all has been smooth. Just 1/2 hour ago, once we had first gotten up to parking for the parade, our piano teacher–who came with us–states that her child doesn’t have a helmet, so Nate and I drive round trip 10 miles to get her a helmet. Better safe then dead.
When we get back to the parade place, they’ve gone to the front of the parade. This is about 1 mile from where we park. I have brought a scooter to get to the parade start with the helmet. Now the idea of some 40 year man on a scooter seems funny, well you just haven’t been reading my blog. I’ve already been made fun of about this habit. My son also brought his scooter, only he has a cool three wheeled version. When we are scooting along, we see a girl running toward us in the distance. It my daughter. She came back to find us.
So we walk for a while, but then my stupid quad goes into cramps again, and I tell the kids to take the helmet to the beginning of the line, which they do. So, they are gone for a while, and I look up and I see this coming.
So, here we are waiting. We wait about 15 mintues, and a guy comes walking down saying that they aren’t going to allow candy throwing since a child ran out last year infront of a truck to get a piece of candy and almost got hit. We talk about certain disaster, because our two smaller kids have been thinking about throwing candy for weeks. We’re convinced they are crying right now.
We wait for a why, then the parade comes. However, everbody is throwing candy, so we know we are okay. Before long, we start to see cars, and boy scout troops, and fire engines. Then, here come the kids.
My wife is running like a crazy woman with the kids on their bikes.
The place turns into a madhouse. The kids are throwing waterballons from the truck. My daughter gets hit, and it make us little mad. But everybody is throwing candy, and water balloons, and they have super soakers. My boy gets with his piano teacher’s son and they ride to the end of the parade very quickly. My wife chases after him and catches him.
Our piano teacher friend is baking hot. She says, “I just gotta go, I’m burning up.” So she takes her child and go. I take the older kids back to the house. Mom takes the two younger kids to the fair afterwards. Now, it isn’t a real fair. It is a bunch of small kids games set up, and you have to pay $2 per game. My wife had tickets left over from the previous year, and she felt pretty good, because the ticket were only $1 last year. However, the proceeds went to a good cause. My wife thought a $1 still would have been a good contribution, but they didn’t ask her.
Evidently, it was a miracle to pry my youngest daughter out of the fair ground, but eventually they get her out of there.
It was a good day.
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