Red, White, and Blue (take two)

Tonight is a perfect example of why I am doing a "how I spent my summer vacation series". I have been grumpy all afternoon and am not feeling inspired to blog. Normally this creates a domino effect of me not posting and then feeling like I can't post the next thing until I get my act together and catch up on everything else.

So before I turn my brain off and watch a chick flick I will post the pictures from the Memorial Day festivities in our old town.

At the cemetery our good friend Ralph shared a shell casing....


At the parade a little girl shared her flags...


The kids spent most of the ceremony following the parade playing with their catapillars. Amazingly the catapillars survived a trip to Target and Home Depot as well. We brought them home and introduced them to their new home - a bug habitat. They were a hit as were the other bugs the kids caught throughout the afternoon. It was HOT out so we started the sprinkler and the kids splashed a little in the pool. I spent the remainder of the afternoon weeding our flower beds and then planting a dozen perrenials. Julia and Sam were big fans of using the gardening tools so I had lots of help during the project.

After a quick dinner of leftover mac and cheese for the kids and a bag of chicken alfredo for the adults I took the kids down to the lake to see if it were possible for all three of us to fit in the kayak. The answer? Yes and no. We fit just fine but it threw off my ability to steer. No matter how hard the wind was blowing or how hard I over compensated on one side we kept turning into the wind. We still had a good time but now we know that the kids will have to take turns until we can scrounge up another kayak. It was a BUSY BUSY day - mostly spent outdoors.....just the way I like it. The only thing missing was a photo of me with the kids in our red, white, and blue.


Unlike after the 2009 parade this is the only photo of me yesterday.












It's always fun to look back at previous year's pics so here's the posts from the 2007 parade
and the 2008 parade


Another comparison since I never got around to posting our traditional Memorial Day photos last year:


2009


2010
aaahhhh red, white, and blue - they sure look good on you two!