Old Soldiers Day Parade

The first Saturday in August is our favorite parade--the Old Soldier's Day Parade.

I was trying to figure out what made this parade so great and I came up with 3 reasons:

1. There is lots of candy. My kids love it. The more candy the better. Carter even got picky this year--he doesn't like mints so he refused to pick any up. One person walking along the parade was passing out candy and tried to put a mint in Carter's hand and he closed up his hand so she couldn't do it.....that is when you know you have enough candy.

There is usually someone handing out water also--this is almost more popular than the candy

2. It is close. It only takes us about 10-15 minutes to drive to the parade, and there is a lot of close parking so we only have to walk 50 feet or so from where we park our car to the parade (important when you have lots of kids and lots of chairs to sit in)

3. It is not on a holiday. There is no worry about all the things going on that day and staying up late and getting up early--no competing celebrations or activities--just a parade on a normally uneventful Saturday in August--what a great idea.

The Hopes have been coming with us the last few yearsAlyssa and Lexie were able to come with us this year.

Grandma held Aaron and stayed in the shade with Lisa and Ellie

I LOVE this picture of Alex--if you look close at the Frisbee you can see his face--he is sticking out his tongue at daddy trying to take his picture.

We really did have a great time--unfortunately just about every picture we have looks like the people are miserable.
Abigail and Kydon look very happy though!