A Parade . . .

The Black family at the parade. Notice Chloe and I are wearing matching shirts, at her request!

We've been reading a Winnie the Pooh book called the Easter Bonnet Parade for quite a while. Lately Chloe has started saying she wants to go see a parade. So today we went to a parade. It was a rather short parade, part of the Clinton/Division Street fair, but a parade nonetheless, complete with a marching band, some typical Portland oddities, and ending with a fire truck. And lasting all of about 7 minutes. But long enough for Chloe to know she LOVES parades.

Fortunately, our good friend the Springgates live a 1/2 block from the parade route, and just happened to be having a little play group get together at their house right before the parade, so we biked over there, hung out a bit, walked down to the parade, watched it for 7 minutes, went back to the Springgates and had some lunch, then the girls played inside and out. After about an hour Liza and I snuck out for some quality girl time and a little street fair shopping.


Franny at the parade


Mark with August

By the time we got back, it was very close to nap time. Franny changes into her PJs for naps. . so when we returned, Franny was in her PJs, Chloe was in another pair of Franny's PJs, and when they came downstairs Chloe was not only adorned in jewelery, but also had one of Franny's pacifiers in her mouth and the rest in her hand. Chloe never used a pacifier, but she ALWAYS loves going into Franny's bed and putting all of Franny's pacifiers in her mouth. Lucky for Chloe, Franny is very very good at sharing!

We left the Springgates a little late, and by the time we got home, Chloe had fallen asleep on the back of the bike. Unfortunately, she decided her 5 minute nap on the back of the bike was all she needed and fought Craig for a good 1/2 hour before he finally agreed she didn't need to take a nap.



Later we meet up with the Broadfeet and walked down to Dove Vivi for some excellent pizza and then ice cream at Staccato Gelato. My little raspberry and strawberry hating girl does love strawberry smoothes and tonight raspberry gelato. . but still doesn't believe she would like just the fruit. . but we are getting closer!