Celebrating our Independence... where it all began

Happy 4th Everyone- on the 5th.  I've been busy this week; actually not all on house stuff.  The week started with our usual barrage of contractors. We have a problem with our roof/gutters that is causing one of our plumbing problems- so I had gutter people here. Also had the irrigation company come and check all of their lines. The GC was here again measuring to see what we can do with our kitchen sink. The saga of this house continues- starting to verge on Money Pit.  But- we love the house- we truly do. So, hopefully we'll spend some money up front and give her love and she'll pay us back. 

Amelia had another softball game and we've been fortunate enough to hit it off with a couple of the families from softball. One was gracious enough to offer to meet up with us during the annual Fourth of July town fair.  They also invited Declan to their son's birthday party (which is going on right now). That made Declan more than thrilled. My little social butterfly was starting to get antsy with no friends.  

So- Wednesday night Matt actually snuck out of work early and we headed down to the "Common" (I have now lived in towns with Town Square, Uptown and Center or Common- but never a Downtown. Weird.).  It started out not so crazy busy- but as the night wore on- it definitely became more packed.  It felt a little like we were in the movie "Groundhog Day"; it was a very quintessential affair. Booths of food and games run by the local civic organizations, the band's majorettes performing on the Common- you get the idea.  Luckily our new friends met up with us and showed us around and introduced us to a few more people.  It was a nice evening.  

On our way home we noticed that the chairs were really starting to crowd the sidewalks.  As early as Saturday we started noticing people marking their parade spots with chairs.  As we got closer to home (and also the start of the parade) there were less chairs but the spot we were hoping for was getting crowded. So, in the spirit of the town we put down our chairs as well.

Now, understand that probably the first 5 people we met here asked us if we had heard about the parade. I guess it's one of the top ten longest continuous running parades in the country (the town is well over 300 years old) and it's a huge draw from communities around it.  Everyone raved about how wonderful it is.  Let me say- it was a very nice parade. It was a very long parade.  There were great handouts (not just candy) and several bands.  However it was also about 200 degrees street level and did I mention, it was a very long parade?  All kidding aside, it was great. Was it worth people putting their chairs out Saturday? Not sure- but glad we experienced it. Super fun!!  We also went to the pool and watched a movie. Today, we went blueberry picking. It's nice to just put chores aside for a few days and really just enjoy being a family.  More exploring to come- but for now, enjoy some parade pictures!

For the record, I did try to stick my foot out and trip "Pat". haha