MEMORIAL DAY PARADE

We slept late this morning (8:45am late... luckily our kids sleep in when they're up late), then rushed over to the little Memorial Day Parade downtown.

 "Where's the parade?"

Ready and waiting with waving flags:

Hanging with the Kennedys as the trucks and trailers rode by. Lots of veterans in this parade, many in trucks or jeeps (which James thought were "hunt jeeps", since they were camo - he doesn't really understand soldiers and the military yet, though we're trying to explain it to him), but no floats. It was a really short parade, but the kids were happy to be there, waving to our service men and women, and we were proud to cheer them on as well. (Of course, at the end of the parade, James admonished "Hey, they didn't give us any necklaces!" and Cora complained "I wanted a treat!", since the parades they usually attend involve bead-throwing and candy-tossing.)

The military park had a trailer with some rangers/volunteers in costume:

And the camels walked main street as well:

The boys' favorite part was the "Emergency!" vehicles (including a very old ambulance that looked awesome). Especially the two firetrucks that blared by:

After the parade we snapped some portraits of the kids with their Gramma, then went over to the Cairo museum to see whether any of the tanks were still on display. They weren't. But the kids had fun running around outside the museum anyway.

Next on our list was frozen yogurt for lunch (it was noon, and we all voted for dessert before lunch):

Then The Tomato Place for BLTAs for us adults (who require more than frozen sugar to get through the day), to go, since we had big plans to spend the rest of the day lounging and playing at home: