Paradin' through town

Being part of the East Rockingham High School Marching Band, Ryan got to march in the Harrisonburg Christmas Parade and the Elkton Christmas Parade this year!  It has been many years since he has been in the parade.  There were a few years that we were in the parade for the Daycare where I worked and where the kids attended.

This time it was a true honor!  Carrying his heavy base drum, he marched almost two miles in the Harrisonburg Christmas Parade and marched about 3/4 of a mile in the Elkton one.  He was right on point with his marching and playing!!  Of course we are a bit bias, but pretty sure he was the best one out there.  :)

These two are from the Harrisonburg Parade.  My friend Rabia took them and sent them to me.  I was on the wrong side of the street and really did not see him well enough to get a picture.  He is the short 12 year old in between the tall 16 and 17 year olds.  :)

These shots are from the Elkton Parade.  Also not ones that I took. :)  A fellow band parent took the top one and my parents were able to come to the 65 degree Elkton Christmas Parade and my dad took the bottom two.  Ryan is kind of in the middle of the first and last picture, but towards the back of the middle picture.  So proud of what he is accomplishing and so excited at how much he loves it!!

Local Customs

The McGaheysville Lawn Party . . . best Lawn Party around. What is a lawn party you ask? . . . I don't really have a definition. I have found that Lawn Parites are not a "southern thing" or a "northern thing." I believe it is just a "Shenandoah Valley thing." Everyone I have ever met, that moves into this area (my parents included) have never heard of a Lawn Party. It must be a local thing. Whatever they are, I like them! Lawn Parties are a lot like the Fair. Two big differences . . . . it does not cost anything to get into a Lawn Party (only costs to eat the food or participate in the goings on) like it does a Fair and Lawn Parties are always planned for fundraising. The McGaheysville Lawn Party was created to raise money for the McGaheysville Volunteer Fire Department. Since we live in McGaheysville, what better place to go than somewhere that benefits our local fire department. I have always loved Lawn Parties and try to go to as many as I can every summer. I found out about a year or so ago that I get this trait from my father. He too LOVES Lawn Parties. My mother always goes with him and likes them ok, but goes for my Dad. Mike is kind of the same way, he likes them but probably would not go if I did not like them so much:). Like father like daughter!

This past Friday night Mike and I took the kids to the Fireman's Parade and then to the Lawn Party. The parade was terrific!! It is so close to our house that we are always able to walk to where the parade is being held. Lydia and Emily rode down to the parade in the wagon and Ryan walked, but the kids collected so much candy while watching the parade that we all had to walk back home:). The entire bottom of the wagon was covered with candy and Mike and I DID NOT PICK UP ANY CANDY this year. The kids did it all!! The parade is always really great. There are, of course, fire trucks from all different areas as well as Rescue Squads (this year one received a call right before the parade started--they had to leave), area car dealerships put one or two of their cars in the parade and you always see Miss Rockingham County as well as Little Miss Rockingham County adorning their crowns and riding on the firetrucks or on the back of a convertible. There are marching bands and tractor trailer rigs, motorcycles and muscle cars. And finally, bringing up the rear of the parade are about 8 - 10 men and women on horses. It is a great parade and people come from everywhere to see it! We always see all of our neighbors at the parade each year.

After walking home from the parade, we put the kids in the van and drove to the Lawn Party. The Lawn Party is pretty close and we would potentially walk there too (it is not as close as the parade), but we always come back after it is dark and walking with kids that late, in the dark, etc. just not safe. At the Lawn Party we met up with my Mom and Dad. They went with us while we took the kids on the merry-go-round and they all rode the flying elephants together. After that, we had enough tickets for two more people to go on a ride . . . rather than having a fight over what two kids were going to go, Mom took Lydia and Emily for a stroll and Mike took Ryan down the larger than life slide. The slide is HUGE and you slide down on smooth rugs. We bought the kids a bag of cotton candy and let them eat it while they watched some other children riding ponies. By that time it was almost 10:00 and everyone was ready for bed.

If you have never been to a Lawn Party, you must go to one!! Come visit us . . . we'll take ya!

Make my day!

One of the parents in our preschool absolutely made my day yesterday. . . .Yesterday my class, along with the class down the hall from us (Ms. Treasa's class), held a 4th of July parade with our kids. Treasa is Lydia and Emily's teacher and has become a good friend of mine. We tend to join together on occasion for activities and events we do with the kids in our classes. We decided to have a parade using some of the crafts we had the children make in class this past week. Treasa downloaded Yankee Doodle and I brought a cd player to school. We invited the other kids in the center to sit in the school hallway and watch our parade. It was so cute!!! The kids had a great time with it! We even went so far as to give them each a piece of candy (thanks to Ms. Rabia) to "throw" to the children watching the parade. Several of the younger two year olds did not want to throw their candy or even let go of it for that matter--they wanted to eat it:).

A mother of one of our kids came up to me as she was picking her son up from school yesterday. Her son is in Ms. Treasa's class and they had already made their way up the hill to the playground . . . Ms. Stacey tends to take a little longer getting her kids cleaned up . . . anyway, this is the mother of a child I had when I first started working at this center. Very nice woman, but this is her only child, she is an older mom and she is a little harder to please than a lot of the other mothers. Plus, she and her husband are teachers:). In her son's cubby, Treasa had placed his Uncle Sam hat and construction paper flag he had carried in the parade that morning. She collected these items to take them home. As I was sweeping up the crumbs from snacktime, she passed my room holding this hat and flag, just looking at them. I looked up to say good-bye to her and she started to thank me for all the effort Treasa and I put into these kids. She said, "This parade must really have been a production." As she was talking tears welled up in her eyes. She talked about how difficult she knew this must be for us, but how wonderful it is for our kids to experience things like this. She went on to say how she was going to take the hat and flag home and see if she could get her little boy to have a parade at home with her and her husband. She must have thanked me three or four times. I told her I would be emailing pictures to her and to be on the lookout. She said she could not wait to see them.

I am thanked from time to time and told, quite often, how great it is that I do this and that I must have amazing patience. Funny, I really don't have amazing patience, but I love what I do so much that my lack of patience is focused on showing the kids the best way to direct their energy. I appreciate the things all the parents say, but coming from this particular mother was like receiving an award! Before I even reached the gate at the playgound with my kids, I began to tell Treasa of this good fortune. She said when this mother came up to pick up her son, she thanked her as well.

This made Lydia and Emily's 2nd parade. Back towards the first part of June Ryan, Lydia, Emily and myself were in a parade that was part of a local lawn party. The director of my center owns another center and we rode in the parade for that center--advertisement. It was really neat and the kids thought it was so great! We rode on a make shift float that was actually a trailer being pulled by a pick up. The trailer sat pretty close to the ground and at the end of the parade, in order to get back to our vehicles we had to get out on the main rode for about 2 miles. One of my co-workers was in the back of the pickup and yelled at me to turn around to look at Ryan and her son, Dylan. As I turned around I saw both of them leaning over the edge of the trailer watching the pavement go by rather quickly:). Screaming at them to get back before they fell off the trailer and hit by an oncoming vehicle, I realized this is the first time either of them had been able to see the road while riding in a vehicle. What an experience:).