I like parades. I always have and I guess I always will. My earliest parade memories are of my Dad and I watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on television Thanksgiving morning at my grandmom's (his mom's) house. She lived about five hours away from us when I was growing up so I only got to see her three or four times a year. We always went to her house for Thanksgiving and it was just always a very special because other family members would gather there at that time too. I remember all the sounds of the ladies of the house putting together the dressing and other dishes for the big lunch and the smell of turkey and ham baking. With initial memories like these it's no wonder I'm a big fan of parades. I look forward to the WTFR parade as much as I do my birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas - kind of silly I know.
Anyway, on to the real topic of this particular post - this year's WTFR parade. I was talking up the parade to some of my friends and I invited them and their families to come join our family for viewing the parade from our perfect spot and so we had two other families enjoy the parade with us this year. They are both in our Friday morning play group and have boys that like to play with our two.
Nathan didn't want to play in the back of Poppo's pick-up to watch the parade. He wanted to sit with Grandma and Poppo in their lawn chairs (they even have two little lawn chairs for the boys to sit in if they want to). Benjamin and I and the two other moms and their sons all had a great place in the back of the truck to watch the parade go by.
I know in that in comparison to most parades this one isn't really all that spectacular. There are no floats that aren't pulled behind a truck, no 1,000 member marching bands (but plenty of small ones), no celebrities (other than the local ones), but it's still enough to impress a small town girl like myself. And my boys always seem to enjoy it. It's so fun to watch them get excited about every fire truck, tractor, band, and horse. There's just nothing like viewing life through the eyes of a child.
Benjamin looks so serious about his parade viewing in this picture. I'm sure he is just trying to figure out what this is all about. He was at the parade last year but of course he doesn't remember it. (There are pictures of that farther down in this entry.)
Nathan is excited to see the next thing coming by.
Later on Benjamin decided he'd rather sit with the grandparents too. I was blessed to have a close relationship with my mom's parents growing up and I'm so glad my boys have the same opportunity. Grandma and Poppo are pretty glad too.
You just never know what might come by. There were these two ladies on a bull and a steer just meandering down the street - only in Texas, right?
Since I wasn't blogging at this time last year I'm going to share a couple of shots right quick of all of us watching the WTFR parade of 2006 and 2005. Benjamin was just 10 months last year old and spent most of his time playing and sleeping though a couple of things did catch his attention along the way.
Ain't he cute.
Last year Nathan had just turned two and was really into watching all the neat stuff go by.
Here's Nathan and Dad checking out the next exciting thing coming down the street.
In 2005 we just had one munchkin with us. Well, Benjamin is obviously there in my big ol' prego belly but Nathan was enjoying his last two months of official only childhood.
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