Parades and pals

Last weekend was our city's annual week of celebrating with the Pan-O-Prog days. Parades, events each night, beer and brats, waffle breakfast at the Fire Station, etc.. Lots of fun for families- kids and adults alike.

Keifer was able to enjoy "Cruise Night" on Friday night (following the day of play at Allison's house) with her daddy and cousin Mason and Uncle Corey. Cruise Night is an hour long parade down the main street of old fashioned cars, revving up and just being really, really loud.
"Mommy, I scared! The cars hurt my ears!" exclaimed Keif when she got home, although CJ told me she enjoyed herself immensely, as her and cousin Mason shared our BOB stroller side by side.

They finished the night by running through our town home association's sprinklers, *lovely*, and getting to be wayyy too late for a 2 year old girl in THIS house.

Saturday AM was the Fire Station near our house's annual Waffle breakfast. We should've gotten there when they opened up at 7AM. However, since Keifer was up so late, she slept until 8AM for the first time (figures), hence us not getting up in time for the early arrival. Let me tell you, 9 AM is NOT the ideal time to go the breakfast when the rest of the city is in attendance. HA! Great, tasty, light-as-air waffles for $7 - but waiting for over an hour to get inside to eat? Not the best time for all involved. However, it was really cool that I ran into a student of mine that I had in my class this past year, and his dad, who works for our city. It was fun to catch up on their summer, and for them to see Miss Kyla - who was the reason I so abruptly disappeared from teaching this school year! Also, my student and Keifer LOVED being able to tour the real-live fire trucks and sit inside them.

Then, Saturday night was the grand finale: the annual parade. Keifer has attended all 3 summers of her life, and this year, she seemed most in tune then ever. She loved having her cousins at her house to play with and then go to the parade, and also my friend Missy and her family joined us. Her girls are the same age as Mason (4) and Keifer (2). All the kids had a blast together and as you can see in the video below, Keifer enjoyed being quite the show off with her dancing skills. Below, she shows off her Dancing with the Stars dance to Poker Face that Tony and Melissa did this past season. Cousin Abby realllllllllllly egged her on to do this :)

I think the highlight of this year's parade for all of us was Miss Keifer seeing a dressed up Chicken across the street from our location. Well, Keifer (not knowing parade etiquette!) took off across the road, in front of the parade route, to get to that chicken! Oye. Mama had to quickly TAKE OFF and rescue our girl, with no shoes on. Lovely. Keifer went up to the Chicken, who didn't know she was behind him/her, and he/she knocked our girl over. I'll tell you this: MANY people found this episode quite hilarious, but not me. LOL. I had to walk all the way back to our spot, up the sidewalk, across the street, and back, with no shoes. As I said, lovely. Meanwhile, Keifer had NO CLUE what she had just done. Ahh, to be 2 years old.

We were all exhausted Sunday, but we endured and took our girl to the Twins game. Whew, we had quite the fun weekend last week!

Keifer enjoying climbing on the Fire Truck

Keifer and my former student inside the Fire Truck

Keifer was thrilled when Abby and Mason came to our house for the day

I ADORE this picture of the kiddos starting out to walk to the parade: Abby, Keifer, Madysen and Mason I love Keifer's little badonkadonk in the back swinging LOL
Daddy and me, pulling our parade gear to the parade spot (Daddy pushing Kyla Whitney in her stroller)

Daddy called K1 the "Joker" after this becuase of her cheese lined lips and Abby's beret! Kyla's FIRST parade- she clearly enjoyed it! LOL Part of our parade crew
Some of our kiddos
Afterwards, hanging and playing on the deck We laughed that every child was each doing something different in the house