Nice Parade

Yesterday was a great day for a parade and Butte did not disappoint. It was a very nice parade and they had a lot of participants who walked the parade route. Being an election year there were a lot of politicians in the parade greasing palms and kissing baby’s.

We got up and hustled to get everything ready for the day. I finished putting together my fruit salad and then we piled into cars and headed for town. Cindy and Chad took both Mom and Dad’s cars. They had Mom in the Chevy and Dad in the Cadillac. Well we had a surprise when we got to town, they had the Harrison Avenue exit closed (which in my opinion was a good move). So we had to go to Montana Street and turn around and then head to Continental Drive and come into Safeway from the back way.

Fortunately we were able to get our “normal” spot and were able to park Mom and Dads cars side by side so they could watch the parade from the cars. Thankfully Safeway was open and I was able to keep Jennifer’s tradition of having red licorice at the parade alive. I ran in and got a bag before the festivities began. She would normally bring a bag of licorice to snack on while waiting for the parade. So that made me feel good.

We had a pretty good gathering of the families. There were the Sologubs, Benners, Walters and Dysingers all watching in the same area. The nice thing was that it was not too warm and not too cold (although it was leaning to the cool side, when the sun went into a cloud).

I sat with my nephews and I had Teddy Tornado watch duty. He was so cute in his little red, white and blue fedora and he was a candy magnet.

This is the first time in many years that I can remember the participants getting to throw candy. It used to happen and then it quit for many years, but this year there were a lot of participants throwing candy (especially the politicians). Well between the four nephews (Heath, Case, Bode, and Teddy) we had a lot of candy being thrown our way. Ted in particular was having a hey day eating candy and Uncle Joe let him eat as much as he wanted (that’s the joy of being a uncle). He probably had a month and maybe even a years worth of sugar during the parade. His parents will probably not let me watch him in the future.

There was one instance that was so damn funny. He got a very sour piece of candy. Anyway he popped it into his mouth and he got this wild look on his face and his whole little body was shaking. At first I got a little panicked, thinking he was maybe having a reaction to something in the candy (he has some pretty strong food allergies), but then I realized it was just sour candy. Anyway he sat there and made the funniest damn faces and his little body was shaking as his taste buds were being attacked by that sour Candy. After a few seconds he gave up and spit it out and started spitting to get the taste out of his mouth. Fortunately, I had a bottle of water and he was able to wash the taste out.

He loved all the Shriners dressed up in the various cartoon character costumes. A couple of the guys needed to be wearing cups as most of the little kids were running up and hugging them and they were right at groin level height. Ted damn near tackled the poor guy in the minion costume and he gave that person a pretty good shot to the groin. The rest of the characters, he just high fived or fist bumped.

Anyway it was a very nice parade and everyone had a good time. After the parade the Sologub/Galbavy clan headed off to a couple of parties and I headed up to Pat’s. I gave Janice a quick call to see how their 4th was going in Silver City, NM and we had a nice visit before I headed to Pats. She had sent us some of the cutest pictures of Turner and Myra in their 4th of July clothes.

As usual, Pat and John had a wonderful get together at their house. All of the kids were having a great time playing in the yard and lighting off fireworks. “Boom Boom” Benner lived up to his name as he was out there helping the kids lighting off firecrackers.

Yesterday was Bode’s 9th Birthday so we had a nice little celebration with a blizzard ice cream cake and rice crispy treats.

The I headed home and caught up with the Sologub/Galbavy clan and we visited and relaxed until it got dark enough for the Galbavy boys to light their fireworks. This years batch was much better than last years and they had some pretty ones. They are both big enough now to do their own lighting and it was funny watching them light and run. Poor Case got chased by a couple of the ones he lit.

There were certainly some tough parts of the day for me, as I knew Jennifer would have so loved the day and all of the visiting and it was just so weird her not being there. Although I know she was there with us in spirit, it still just broke my heart. However, I got through it.

Well I better get doing something productive.