another one bites the dust

Drew had enough parade and carnival when we watched one of Dave's softball games this weekend. She couldn't make it the 6 blocks to the ball diamond from Casey's house after the parade. Luckily, my children have this gift from their father. They can sleep anywhere. I know I've posted about this before here... She fell asleep. I was able to move her from the van to a blanket in the shade by the ball diamond, moved her and the blanket by dragging both when the sun started getting to her, and she still slept through it all. Then Grandpa Randy joined her :)

cheese days: parade!

The last and most photos from our weekend are of the parade. Usually parades are loud and slightly frightening to two-thirds of my children, but this year was silent. Over 4 months ago we lost one of our fire fighters (and a fellow EMT) in a structure fire while helping a neighboring city. I'm really at a loss for words when it comes to this...

Rescue 5 from 9-11 came in honor of our fallen fire fighter. Quite the sight to see. I took photos of it at the hall and didn't even thinkkkkk to get innnn the darn thing. Der. Regardless, it was pretty neat to see and have in our small town.

 some of our rigs lined up, ready to go

(below) Mallory braving the heat and throwing candy. I declined their invite. I'm too fat. And slow.

As a change of pace this year, the oldest four kiddos agreed to ride on a couple floats. Peyton and Tayt went together on the Jamison Kampmeyer memorial float, and Lia and Austyn went together on their school float. Most of them said they'd like to do it again next year.

Nash relaxing

Homer relaxing

Jax man

Mal getting some love from her other child, Drew. They have some sort of bond...I think Mal secretly gives her candy. Or something!

carnEEEEval!

A couple weeks ago we enjoyed our city's carnival. Fortunately it was so HOT we only made it up town for Saturday night. Unfortunately I have promised the kids we'll go to ANOTHER carnival because the big kids only got 1 ride each. Deprived children. I know.

Friends of ours came to visit with their children (4) and this was our attempt to get them all together. Pretty cute/hilarious!

top: Tayt, Austyn, Drew, Peyton holding Tylan (friend's baby)
bottom: Nash, Hayden (friend's #3), Lia, Ryder (friend's #1), Kenley (friend's #2)

Sunday was the annual parade to celebrate the carnival where we sit at Casey & Jake's. It's like trick-or-treating but not leaving your front yard! The only bad part... the weather was SO hot a lot of the candy just melted. Even so, our candy drawer didn't stay full very long. :)

behold... Father from Church :)

infamous Cheese Days parade

This last weekend our yearly carNEEval was in town. Unfortunately, the carnies were also here for almost an entire week before which made everyone a little uneasy. Here are some of the photos from the Cheese Days parade celebration :) The kids loved the parade, even Nash, and we have our candy drawer full again.

Peyton and Lia go to the Catholic school here in town and the school had a float in the parade this year. Hilarious to see our priest driving the float! He's the greatest :)