March 25, 2004
Fun Sunday
The 800+ participants of the First Annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade had beautiful weather on Sunday. Just two days earlier we had snow and I wondered whether or not it would be cancelled. Fire trucks and police from all over the state, Westerly, RI and even Brooklyn, NY came. The antique fire trucks were the most fun to see.
We saw Irish setters, a pony with green hooves and a float carrying sheep. There were a couple of dance groups, who stopped to dance every so often for the crowd. The many pipe and drum bands were wonderful to hear and see. My gut reaction to bagpipes playing is to get up and dance. My dad told me I had some Irish and Scot in me, so that must be why. We all enjoyed seeing everyone decked out in traditional garb.
Of course Johann’s absolute favorite part of the parade was the animals! Eric got him a mini Irish flag to wave. There was an old gentleman sitting behind us who commented, “I see you’re waving your flag proudly, young man. Good for you.” Johann smiled and said yes, that he liked the flag Daddy got for him. The parade lasted about two hours. It was nice to only have to come to the end of our sidewalk from the apartment building entrance in order to see the parade. No event parking or traffic to deal with and a very short walk home! It makes it really easy to catch downtown events when we only have to walk down the street.
We also finally met up with Matthew and his parents, our upstairs neighbors. The boys’ naptimes conflict and no one has yet managed to get organized enough to meet in the morning. The boys had fun running up and down the sidewalk and sang the alphabet song together. After a long, but exciting, afternoon, naptime was easy duty!
Eric has put more photo’s (over 40!) from the day can be found in the St. Patrick’s Day album in the Gallery. Also whoever sent the gift, thank you very much! I am hoping Eric finishes reading Color soon (he’s already about a third of the way through it!) so I can read it as well. I know we will all, but especially Johann, get hours of fun out of Nature’s Art Box as well.