Happy Birthday, America! Love, Ashland

We have lived in our little town for more than 10 years and have never attended the Fourth of July Parade.  Shame on us!  We decided this year we would be apart of things.  We packed a picnic lunch and headed down.  The crowd was small and friendly and full of families.  Right up my alley!  The parade was cute and short and the boys liked it a lot.

I wished I'd gotten a picture of the lawn chair brigade.  They were my favorite.  They did a little choreography with their lawn chairs in the street.  Very fun.

We followed everyone over to the Cultural Arts Center and picked out a shady spot under some trees to spread our blanket out for lunch.  We enjoyed a local band playing some patriotic tunes and lots of people watching over PB&Js, fruit and pretzels. 

We chatted with some friends from church and then found the snow cone line.  Rainbow snow cones for all!  Of course Tyler said he didn't want rainbow, he wanted "ALL the colors, Mommy."

There were dogs dressed in red, white and blue, food vendor stands and lots of trees to find shade in the 90+ heat.

We stayed for about 2 hours and then headed home for naps and quiet time before heading up to Montpelier to my Aunt's Judy's house for supper.  The boys and I made star cookies with red, white and blue icing for our dessert.  I learned this time to use masking tape on the wax paper sheet on the counter so the flour and cookie dough stay put while little hands mush it.

Ty learned a few new fun words for his ever growing vocab.  "Pedarade" (parade) and "lennenade" (lemonade).

And Mommy learned that we shouldn't use pine cones for the bases in kickball if little boys are going to slide into home.  Ouch!  I didn't know pine cones could tear a little leg like that!

We had a fun day with very little prep required.  Also right up my (new) alley!