4th of July

We had a very exciting Independence Day this year as we attended the legendary Lakewood Parade in our  neighborhood. I have heard about this parade before since the Gaspards have been appearing in their own float for years. I think they won a prize one year for their very impressive Jonah and the Whale float. This year only Gigi made it in the parade aboard her high school reunion float but Papa decorated James' wagon with such flair that we were mistakenly given our own number to enter the lineup.

Here we got James to yell, "Freeeeeeedom!" and "Hooray America!" while waving the American flag.

There goes Gigi, our star of the parade!

Gigi thought it would be fun to introduce silly string to James. He was a little confused/upset about why his grandmother would "squoosh" him but I think he can now look back on it and laugh. He will still sometimes out of the blue say, "Gigi squoosh me" and start laughing.

Most floats were tossing candy to the masses and at first we had to encourage James to pick it up. "No, seriously, pick that lolly pop out of the gutter and put it in your mouth before the 9 year old next to us hoards it all again! Come on, where were you!? That was a blow pop!"

Later that evening we enjoyed a cookout at one of Dinah's friend's house on a lake.

Other fun things that have been going on are Grammie & Pop coming into town for one of Pop's business meetings. We went to visit Grammie at her hotel where James worked on his golf game before taking a dip in the pool. There are no pictures of Pop from this visit but if there were it would just look like Pop bored in a meeting at a hotel that has a pool and a putting ground.