Parade and a BBQ

Our 4th started perfectly; the boys slept in until 8:30am! That hasn't happened in months! While it was really nice to sleep in, it left us kind of rushed to get ready for church. The service was moved up to 9:30 so that those who were walking in the parade with the church float would be there at 11.

Alexander had to meet the station crew at 9:45; he was in charge of driving the station van and making sure the parade music all worked, so it was just me and the boys - they did pretty well, though I can't say that I took in a whole lot of the sermon!

After church, we all met at the float. We were about half-way in the lineup, so we had to wait for a while. Just as the boys had finally had it with waiting (they were strapped into a side by side stroller), it was our turn to go.

The theme of the float was "American Pride", so the boys had little flags that they waved almost the whole time! It was so cute!

It was 1pm by the time we finished and met up with Alexander at the park. We had planned on staying for the Mayor's picnic, but a co-worker needed a ride back to the station, and by that time we just decided to go home to eat and all take a nap.
Well...all the boys took a nap! I quickly made up some deviled eggs for the BBQ we were going to at 4.

We were invited to Sutton's house for a BBQ. There we met the church's summer vicar and his family. There were also a couple of kids from MLC in New Ulm who are here helping with VBS and Camp Luther (One of the guys now goes to UND in Grand Forks! Small world.). A few members from the church also came.
It was a pot luck - and boy, did we feast! Alexander volunteered to man the grill - 30 hamburgers, 16 chicken breasts, 16 hotdogs and 2 steaks! The other college guy went to culinary school, so he made bbq sauce from scratch for the chicken.
We didn't get home until about 10:30pm - we had a great time! Noah didn't even want to go home!

Monday Alexander technically had off, but he's so busy that he went in for most of the day to do catch up. After he came home, we went out to Lake Lucille park. We were the only ones there, and the boys had fun playing. We chased them around the soccer field until it got too cold out for Mommy!

The only downside is that we didn't see any fireworks this year. The city fired them off at midnight on Saturday, and since we knew we had such a big day on Sun - we didn't keep the boys up.