In Search of Normal Rockwell...

Last weekend we took our annual trek to The Brockway Olde Fashion 4th of July festivities. We will have you know it is the region's largest non-carnival family event with all day activities, or so says the brochure about town. You can find further explanation of Michael's love of July 4th in last years' post: July 4, 2009

Being as Brockway is a God-fearing town, all the drunken debauchery was scheduled to happen on Saturday. Before we could begin the patriotic fun though, we had a date at my step-brother, Zach's, graduation party. So, we hit the party a little early and tried to grab some lunch before heading back for a nap.

Grandpa Greg and Colin were thrilled to see each other!


GraGra tried to get Colin to eat some lunch. See all that food on his plate? He ate about two bites. And some chips and pretzels. He did not eat well all weekend.


Bean ate a smidge more than Colin, but not much.


Oh, but she ate a cookie with BLACK icing.


The kids had fun running around the picnic pavilion and I had fun eating some AWESOME cake. Soon, though, we headed back to Grammy's house for nap before another picnic and parade!!

As with lunch, neither kiddo ate much dinner. I did get them to eat a small bowl of Cheerios though. Desperate times, right? After dinner and visiting with lots of friends and family at Grammy and Grandpa's house, Daddy and I took the kids "downtown" for the parade.

We met Matthew and Rachel under some shade trees, and soon the kiddos had lured Uncle Willis, Leah, Aunt Emily, and Uncle Stevie from the street to sit with us!

Since both C&G are really digging vehicles right now, we were pretty sure they would love the Firetruck Parade that Brockway throws. We were a little concerned about the noise factor though. Gillian wasn't bothered at all; Colin was nervous, but he braved it out! No crying!

He did stick pretty close to Daddy though!


Gillian was content to explore the grass around us, visiting her uncles and aunts, and finding a snack.


The local garbage company was in the parade and they handed out push up Popsicles to the crowd as they went down the street. This was Colin and Gillian's fist Popsicle experience!

Uncle Willis lends G a hand:


Colin had Daddy's help (we think that he was concerned about a loud noise in this picture; he DID like the Popsicle):


We stayed until nearly the end of the parade, and were up considerably past our bedtime! The kiddos did really well though and got a pretty good night's sleep. Good thing, they had a busy Sunday too! That's up next!