Skip to main content

Happy Independence Day!

When we first met our next door neighbors, back in January, we inquired about the neighborhood. Both said it was a pretty quiet place, until the Fourth of July, when it becomes "a war zone". In the six months since, Jeff has proposed all sorts of ideas for how we should spend our Fourth, but I was curious to stick around home and see if all that we had heard was true. Literally every night since the 28th of June, when fire works went on sale, we have heard the familiar boom and crackle in the evening sky.

The neighboring city of Ridgefield hosts an Independence Day celebration that included a morning parade, so with Nathan and Auntie Jennifer in tow, we found our way to the small town that is Ridgefield and found our spot on the sidewalk. There were plenty of people anxiously waiting for the festivities to start and every kid seemed prepared with a plastic bag for collecting candy (and they were not disappointed).






We enjoyed the parade, which mostly included vehicles such as old cars, fire engines, tractors and tow trucks. There were local sports teams and of course, a local politician or two. Nathan seemed to most enjoy the farm equipment that rumbled by, while Aunt Jennifer fought back the eleven year olds to claim her share of the candy (which she left in our bag and I unfortunately ate too much of this afternoon). For a small town, I'd say we were all impressed with the parade, which lasted more than an hour.




This was a group of teens playing and singing live along the route. Pretty impressive!






While the celebration continued all day with pie eating contests, yummy foods, dancing and fire works, Nathan was pretty tuckered out so we headed home for siesta. Maybe next year we'll stick around a little longer. Then again, we'll have a younger one to consider (it's still hard to imagine life with two kiddos).

We enjoyed ribs for dinner followed by a summer staple in this house: strawberry shortcake. We contemplated keeping Nathan up to see fire works, but he was still worn out from our busy week and went to bed right on time at seven thirty. Jeff and I started to hear those familiar booms again, but it was  still rather light out. At about 9 PM, the sound of fire works sounded really close and quick peek out the back revealed two neighboring houses had begun to burn through their supplies. As it quickly became darker, Jeff and I found good viewing spots in the back and could watch fire works in two, sometimes three directions, across the neighborhood. The hour or so we spent watching would rival that of any show we've seen in Portland before! Huge displays literally above the tree tops!



And can you believe it...Nathan slept through every bit of it! He didn't wake once!



P.S. Fire works are still going off as I write this. ;)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Happy New Year!

The year 2012 has arrived! I can hardly believe that I can now say my son was born "last year"! Tomorrow will mark seven months since Nathan's arrival. At the start of each month I've tried to take pictures of Nathan in our brown leather chair. I've used the series to capture his growth. Thus far I am not too crazy about the quality of these photos. In my opinion, the photos I took today are better. Nathan is sitting up pretty well now which is a great improvement over the previously propped up pictures from months before.  We used the natural light to show off his beautiful blue eyes. You might notice that he spit up on himself as we got started. But he smiled and played with his toes and the even licked the chair as I took a few photos. My sister, Ellen, gave me a book for Christmas titled, Mamarazzi . While I haven't read but a few pages, I look forward to picking up tips to great picture taking.

Parenting Cliches

As a fairly new parent you often look for bits of wisdom from those with more experience.  Most of the time these fall into pretty standard parenting cliches.  "They grow up so fast," "Blink and you'll miss it,"  "Just wait till he's older," "Your life will never be the same." One I often hear is some derivative of, "Every stage is precious, just enjoy the now." Or something to the fact that every stage of a child's development brings some sort of new equally wonderful parenting experience. And while I appreciate the advice and the sentiment, count me a skeptic.  I just can't imagine how any stage could be better than the current stage that Nathan is in.  So yes this is just a blog involving my bragging about how great Nathan is.  He may really be the cutest kid alive.  (If you don't want to take my word for it, just ask his Auntie Jenny) Nathan is 20 months old, he is walking just fine, but just learning to run....

Nathan, 18 months

Can you believe it? Can you believe that Little Man Nate is already 18 months? Nathan's Famous Hot Dog on Halloween. At 18 months, Nathan is 33.25 inches tall and nearly 29 pounds, but mostly, he is on the go. Nathan is curious about the world around him, spending lots of time opening doors or drawers, saying "uh-oh" when he finds something new. I know for certain I will have to buy a new set of measuring cups when we move again, as Nathan has adopted some into his toy collection, while others are just plain MIA. He loves pushing his cars, trucks and lawn mower around the house. He is quickly learning to match shapes with puzzles and point to his nose, ears and belly. He uses sign language to say "please" and "more" as well as ask for "help". We have just started practicing the sign for "thank you" and he seems to be grasping that one. Nathan will put his cup in the refrigerator or sink when he is "all done", and u...