Day 1.136: Mothers on parade

This year's Memorial Day Parade had an important addition - for us anyway - Exile #2. She was riding on the float with the local MOPS (Mothers Of Pre-Schoolers) group. Their theme this year was 'Mothers through the decades' and Exile #2 was dressed in a lovely 1950's outfit. You can see another picture here.

All this left me to get all three kids to the parade route on my own. After getting them all dressed, sun-creamed and out of the house that is. We chose to shun our motorised transportation and instead my legs carried all four of us. I carried E5N1 in the backpack, and pulled the girls in the wagon. It's about a mile. Amazing how much turns out to be uphill when you're pulling a heavy wagon. In both directions. Here are the girls at our chosen shady spot about two thirds of the way along the parade route ready to see the veterans/sports teams/local businesses/church groups/police/fire departments and all go by (and catch some liberally scattered candy of course).


On the way home we were ensnared by a yard-sale - canny timing! - the girls begged to be allowed to choose something from a large connection of small soft toys. At first I pointed out that they have hundreds of such things and we really don't need any more, but since they were 50 cents each (and I had resisted the call of the ice-cream van earlier) I relented. They duly appeared with their choices and I glanced back at the sign - 50 cents each or three for a dollar. Suddenly my desire for an uncluttered house disappeared and I was determined to get my money's worth - go and choose another one!

The rest of the day was spent at a barbecue with folks from church. As well as the normal cook-out activities, we played some Rock Band, but perhaps I'll tell you about that tomorrow.