parade day

Our small town hosts a old-fashioned Memorial Day Parade. Everyone marches in it -- Little League, Boy Scouts, Shriners, high school marching band, FFA, preschools, random kids on their decorated bikes, you name it. I think more people are in the parade than actually lining the parade route to watch, but it is great for kids. It was our first time participating, despite living here for six years to the day. We certainly got a gorgeous day for it!

We loaded two sheep, a rabbit, a wagon and the kids bright and early, so we could offload before the parade route was closed off. The kids spent their extra time decorating their animals. The older two participated as 4-H members. Primo's ewe Giulia looked great in her flag attire:

While Oreo the rabbit had a snazzy cart (even if Primo did tease Secondo that people would wonder why he put the french flag on top of the rabbit cage):

Their club had not one, but two goat carts -- the other one was pulled by two goats. (Insert all goat cart jokes here. I think we heard every possible one on the parade route.)

Oreo was not too pleased by all the attention he received from the two-week old goat kids before the parade started. If it is possible for a rabbit to look snippy, he did. Here he is giving them the evil eye as they try to eat some of his decorations.

In our little group, the sheep led the way, followed by Oreo in his wagon, the goats and then the goat carts. We did our best to clean up after ourselves but the bagpipe group that was following us had to march through some inevitable messes. Sorry guys!

You can't see him, but Terzo was in the wagon just in front of the sheep, representing for his preschool. He was a bit bummed not to be with the animals but by this point (about one-half mile into the parade) we were all happy he had a lift.

Lest we not forget: thank you to all the servicemen and women who made the sacrifices this day commemorates.