Parade! – ToadMama.com

Who doesn’t love a parade?

I mean, really. How can you not love the spectacle of it all? Small or large. Patriotic or cause-related. As long as there’s a band, I’m happy.

I realize this post is a bit late, but it’s been a busy week. Take a normally busy five-day work week, cram it into four days, and see how hectic things become.

I’m not complaining about the short week. I’ll take a three-day weekend any time. Especially when we get to spend it with the family. A couple of the kids were missing, but it was still nice hanging out with Amy, TJ, and the grand kids.

My last post talked all about what we did on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. They left around midday on Monday. But not before we got to see the parade.

I love parades, but usually don’t go out of my way to see them. Until recently, seeing a parade would mean piling into a car, driving, fighting for parking, and then battling the post-parade traffic to get home. But now, since we live in this cute little town, we got to walk to the parade. It was all of about a four-block hike.

I don’t have a whole lot of time here, so I’ll just post my favorite pics and let the images (frantic snapshots) and their captions tell the story.

Waiting for the parade to start, we saw the cutest little bicyclist EVER.

And they're off, with the town police in the lead.

It was quite fitting to have the local ROTC group in the front.

They were followed by a conglomerate of adult veterans and active service members.

Does this shot scream small town or what?

The local chapter of unicyclists. I never knew there was such a thing.

Love the VW! But I REALLY love that canine co-pilot.

Band mascots? The place was crawling with dogs. We even took our girls along.

No surprise that this is my favorite band section. I drummed a mean cadence back in the day.

Or the Boy Scouts. Especially the Boy Scout on stilts.

Bag pipers and the Warrenton Fire Department brought up the rear.

It was short, but awesome.

The bagpipers reminded me of one of MANY funny kid sayings from the weekend.

Upon seeing one of the bagpipers before the parade, Joey said something like, “Why is that man wearing a skirt?”

Gaige, in his infinite eight-year-old wisdom, answered matter-of-factly with, “Because he’s a Leprechaun.”

Oh yeah, and the next funny thing came after I tried to explain how you can be Irish or Scottish, but live in the United States.

Brianna (11) and Gaige (8) were my audience. I said to them both, “Scottish and Irish really just explains their heritage. Their ancestors were from Scotland and Ireland, so they are of Scottish and Irish descent. You know, like how you guys are Italian, but live in America?”

When Brianna exclaimed with a look of confusion and disgust, “We’re Italian!?!”, I about peed my pants. I guess no one remembered to mention to the kids that they are part Italian.

It was the look on Brianna’s face that really got me. I so wish I had captured that image to share.

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