Last Weekend

This last weekend was filled with parades! Mark's work, Camp & Cruise, had entries in 2 different parades in the area and they needed people to pass out candy to the kids. Mark volunteered as long as all the kids could come. So Friday night, we were in the Coopersville parade which was really rather short and then Saturday night, we were in the Grand Haven parade. The weather was cold for both but Saturday we also had quite a bit of snow coming down. It wasn't bad when we left GR but part way there, it started snowing hard. We actually called friends to have them check about cancellations.

The kids did great and had a ball! The worst was just waiting around for the parade to get started and for our turn to move came. Besides several normal layers, they all had on their snowpants, hats, gloves, etc. and then I topped them off with 1 of Daddy's work shirts. It not only helped keep them warmer, it also made them easier to see and keep track of. I kept Joshua right close to me and we worked out of one container of candy. It was really funny watching him try to hand out candy with the kind of big mittens he had on. Sometimes he thought he had a piece of candy in his hand but he didn't. Other times, he had the candy but couldn't get it dropped in the other kids mittens and it fell in the snow at their feet.

There was hot cocoa after both parades. Coopersville had cocoa and cookies for everyone at their jr. high gym and then Sat., Mark's bosses invited all of us to a restaurant for cocoa and dessert. It was a nice visit only because of the snow it ended up being 11 p.m. before we got home. I ended up sleeping on the way home because there was the smell of gas/diesel on a lot of the crews boots because of the generator they were using to run the lights on the float. The smell really got to me. I don't know whether you would consider it my allergies or not but it made me rather miserable.

The float was rather cute. They took a pontoon boat and put a box around the middle of it so both ends stuck out and they had lights strung on them. They had the box wrapped with a BIG bow on top and a sign that read "NO PEEKING". I thought it looked rather neat.

Stephen had hoped that we would have a new tradition to replace our trapsing through the snow to pick out and cut down the tree together as a family since we had to go to an artificial tree now. Who knows, maybe this will be it.