Our 4th of July

Yesterday we headed down to our favorite little town, Franklin, for their 4th of July festival.

We entered the kids in their Main Street walking parade. We only found out about it this morning so I had limited resources with which to dress up the kids and decorate their bikes. I scrounged around Alison’s house for some streamers, balloons and, ribbon and managed to make our kids some homemade (and not the good kind) decorations.

We found their most red, white, and blue clothing and put them in the parade. We were running a little late so I was still trying to tape on an American flag picture to the fronts of their bikes when almost everyone else there was lined up with the most elaborate and beautifully decorated wagons, tricycles, and bikes. the other kids had on perfect little patriotic outfits. I just kept laughing at how sad our little motley crew looked next to them. It was really funny.

The kids didn’t care (nor did we) so we proudly walked down Main Street. There wasn’t much smiling or waving though. Naomi, who was born to be in a parade, was ironically in a bad mood. So she sulked in the wagon the whole time in a red, sequined dress I found in the Osenga’s dress up box. Jude, who has only been riding a bike without training wheels for a week had a bit of a hard time driving slowly and keeping his balance. Sam was very, very concerned with picking up every single jolly rancher thrown from the wagon near us. The parade was interesting to say the least.

We spent the rest of the day downtown, eating street vendor food, our favorite being the giant turkey legs and sno-cones. We heard some really great bands and the kids danced on the lawn.

turkey leg/barbaric weapon

"mommy made us share the ice cream"

"pink" sno-cone

ben & jerry's vanilla bean

  no inhibitions whatsoever (i love jude's robot arms)

  

We had promised the kids that we would watch fireworks. But Ross and I are a bit crowd-aphobic so we never want to go to the place where the fireworks are actually at. We much prefer to find an out of the way spot where it’s not too loud and not too crowded and from which we can make a quick get-away. Since, here in Nashville, we don’t have the home court advantage of knowing where those places might be, we asked a local at the festival and were so pleased to learn that the very parking garage we parked was the best kept secret in town. Ross drove up and got us a perfect spot on the roof and we sat on the roof of the suburban and could see everything. 

the boys love to sit on the roof of the suburban



HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!