parade

In honor of July 4th yesterday we took Rachel to the parade downtown (downtown is relative....we live in a suburb, so the downtown is very small). It was her first parade. We told her there would be bands, so instead of calling it a parade she kept saying, "When we going to the band?"

So we finally went to "the band." But before it started we walked around the area called "Creekside." There are fountains and paths along the a creek. Her favorite thing to do is throw pennies in the fountain. Her Daddy told her she's supposed to make a wish so her wish is, "I wish I could fwoh dis coin in da water!"

After "fwohing" her coins in, we posed for a picture.

Then we got set up for the parade. We waited for about 15 or 20 minutes for it to get down to where we were.

The band came first.

She was so excited, but when they were close, she started doing this.

She doesn't like loud noises.

They were the only band, so I guess that was good. The rest of the parade was lots of fire trucks, including these old ones,

lots of politicians, business people, child beauty pageant queens (who Rachel called Princesses because they were wearing tiaras!), and sports teams. They threw candy, but Rachel was never fast enough to go get some. There were two kids next to us who kept getting it all. Their mom kept making them give it to Rachel, though, so she had plenty. She ate Nerds for the rest of the parade (one at a time, so the box lasted a VERY long time--until well after the parade was over!).

It was a fun morning. We were going to take her to the fireworks last night for her first time, but it was raining off and on all evening and we didn't know for sure that they'd do them. We didn't want to keep her up way past her bedtime if we didn't know for sure that they were going to do them. There will be other years for fireworks.....