parades and booms

We really celebrated our nation's birthday this year. My good friend Lara came to town pretty early and we jetted straight over to the nation's longest running Fourth of July Parade in Bristol, Rhode Island. This is the very same parade that J and I took our CTY kids to in 2001 during the summer we met (aka. fell in loooove - teehee). The CTY kids were there in their rockin cool lanyards and tshirts and J spotted a big group of them right away. Oh the memories... we have a photo of us next to this rock wall above with our CTY group. Who would imagine that eight years later we'd be sitting there with our little guy clapping and cheering for the big trucks and horseys! Oh, and sipping some of the same "lemon" we enjoyed that summer.
We lucked out with a very good shady spot for all four of us to plop down on the curb and watch the parade for over three hours! Yep, somehow the time just flew by! When we pulled up Aiden was asleep in his stroller, but as soon as the parade trucks started honking he popped right up with wide eyes. Luckily, he was super excited to sit in his stroller and watch all the excitement pass by us. If you ask him what he liked most he'll mention the high five he gave bugs bunny, the local dairy float that had cows, the horseys that led the old fashioned fire trucks, the big booms caused by the rifles and canons they were shooting occasionally. We cruised through the little carnival and Aiden gawked at all the Elmo schtuff. Then we passed up the greasy sausages for this yummy organic deli where we had pulled chicken with apricots. We also cruised pass the first place where J and I actually ate dinner together off campus that summer - technically our "first date" - and to my surprise it is named Aidan's! We decided to go back to the beach today (Sunday) and ate lunch there to reminisce.

Saturday night was the big comeback of fireworks to downtown Providence (the first since 1997) and it was really awesome. They just updated this park right on the water and they had the fireworks from a barge in the water. There was a band playing and a fun playground for Aiden before the show began. Aiden was especially excited because Lara brought glow bracelets (huge thanks Lara)! We even shared some with Aiden's little friend Stella who happened to be sitting right next to us in the big crowd. The glow bracelets where just the ticket to get Aiden to sit down on our blanket before the big show began. For the first few big booms Aiden kept saying "no booms, no!" but he quickly started saying ooooh, aaah, woow, colors, greeen, yellow, red just like the people around us! When we asked Aiden if he liked the fireworks he explained with his hands that the "boom color" was "happy"!


And the next morning Aiden wore his paper plate Statue of Liberty crown for about 30 seconds:


There are a ridiculous number of photos (still learning my new camera) posted here if you want to visit the parade from our angle: http://flickr.com/gp/brennans/BokM6D