She's not done yet

She just can't seem to stop. Cassidy now has her own folder on my computer that is just for her pictures. I pull a few of the best ones and add them to mine, but only a small few. It is hard to choose though.

4th of July Parade

I attended the Cub Scout's June Round Table meeting, along with two others from our pack. We talked about holding our Super Saturday event and I had also mentioned that as a pack we could go watch the Castroville 4th of July Parade. Well, one of other leaders wondered what it would take to actually be in the parade. So I looked into it and the registration was free. The other leader suggested we could walk in the parade, not a good idea for 1st-5th graders in Texas in July. But luckily Stewart had just purchased a 16foot trailer. So I roped him into driving our trailer in the parade. And I started planning the decorations. I had a few ideas and suggestions after helping to decorate two floats for our Little League parade. the principal of Thomas' elementary school donated some butcher paper, which I cut out the letters and stars to make the banners. The boys wrote their names on the stars and decorated them with glitter. The parents all pitched in and blew up balloons. The parade theme this year was "Broad Stripes and Bright Stars", I didn't know how to incorporate the broad stripes part, but I was able to pull the bright stars into it. It turned our pretty nice I have to say. Although we didn't win. The Cub Scout pack two floats ahead of us won. The scouts themselves had spent a lot of time making 1000+ small tissue paper flowers for their float. But this is our first year and we are already thinking about next year, we are going to win.

It was a lot of waiting this morning. All the parents arrived on time and pitched in to decorate the float. It went pretty fast, so after we had finished we walked up and down the street looking at all the other floats and tractors that were in the parade. Stewart drove, while Cassidy sat in the air conditioned front passenger seat ready to throw out her candy.

 

  We have our buckets of candy ready to go, we are just waiting on the signal. I gave the boys instructions not to throw candy to grown ups, but just to the kids. And don't throw out handfuls, only a piece or two at a time. Well, they listened. They through out pieces of candy to very small children, infants I would call them. And each scout only threw out a few pieces each. So our first few customers, mostly infants or small toddlers in strollers received two pieces of candy from 10 Cub Scouts. So I had to give them a few more instructions. Only throw to the kids on your side of the trailer and don't throw to kids that can't run out and get it themselves. I had no idea how long the parade route was, so I kept reminding the scouts that we still had a ways to go and we don't want to give all the candy out in the first few blocks. And of course we did run out. The parade was longer than I had thought. But we will know for next year.

This is what I get for asking the boys to smile for the camera. Zachary is such a little dear. Thomas is well, he is just Thomas, and has been hanging around his Cub Scout friends all morning.

 After awhile the sugar high wore off. Along with the regular 4th of July well wishes, we got a few Go Cardinals! shouts. Zachary was very pleased with these, since they were directed at him and his Cardinal's hat.

This was a really fun experience. The kids all had fun waving, playing around with each other and eating the candy. I think we will have to do it again next year. The float planning is already underway.

We got to enjoy free watermelon, popsicles, and hot dogs in the town square after the parade.

Our 11 year old photographer

 Now that I have my camera to play around with, Cassidy has been begging me to use my old camera. She thinks she should get it.

I think it is a great idea. Especially when she take pictures like these.

 

She received a camera for her birthday a few years ago and she loved it.  But she had to hold a little too still for the pictures to really turn out good. These are our Zinna's that Stewart and Cassidy planted from seed in our backyard.

She totally reminds me of myself. I loved taking pictures and still do. I think it even more fun now that we don't have to wait until they get developed to see if they are any good. And if you take a bad one, who cares just delete it. Or you can still keep it, just in case ( Cassidy's idea, not mine).