Thursday, July 5, 2012

Parades and BBQ

I woke up today and took Persephone for a walk. By the time I arrived home, I was dripping in sweat. So it was going to be that kind of day. I let the kids sleep in as long as they could, but asked Rob to get up and decorate their bikes for the annual neighborhood parade. We always think about decorating, but never really get it done. This year, marvelous Margie and Rick brought over streamers, bracelets, and hats all in red, white, and blue. We had no excuse.
 The crew still half asleep and already hot, but eager to go to the mini parade.
 Rob affixed Josie's hat with duck tape since we still wanted her to wear her bike helmet. Josie's stayed on better than Dema's since each time he got up to normal speed it would fly off.
 Chatting and biking down to a local park for the neighborhood parade.
 Patiently waiting.
 Josie with our neighbors, Anna and Jan. Anna is Parker's age and one of Josie's favorite friends.
 Parker and Tessa. I love that Parker, even at the advanced age of twelve, is happy to participate. Tessa is two years old and into it as well.
 Chatting and waiting.
 The neighborhood kids checking out each others wheels and decorations.
 They are off. Sometimes I think the before and after visiting with neighbors is more fun for everyone than the actual parade, but it could just be me.
 I wish I had a picture of everyone together because it is much more impressive.
 It is really sweet because we actually have neighbors who sit on their porches and wave as we go by. I love the neighborhood spirit.
The kids wanted to wear their hats all day. I had to convince Josie that dogs don't like to wear hats.
 We spent the rest of the day melting or melting down. We went to Vicky's pool in the afternoon, but even that was a bust. I was trying to help the kids go down the slide into the pool and no one was listening so one of Josie's friends who just got done calling Josie "scaredy cat" went into the pool right on top of her after I told her to wait. I think everyone was having a tough day, but Josie's neck was hurt  (and it would have been worse if Parker hadn't been in the water to try to pull her out of the way) and we were done. We all took naps that really didn't improve anyone's mood. I was so glad we had intentionally kept the day free of any potlucks or events. We needed to eat though and it was 90 degrees in the house so I whipped up some quinoa and Gardein BBQ Riblets.
This put everyone in a bit of a better mood. The riblets are a wonderful tender, but not chewy texture smothered in tangy sweet BBQ sauce. Everyone was too hot for anything heavy so this paired with lots of frozen fruit really hit the spot. The kids were even too hot to watch all of the neighborhood fireworks. Thankfully, Persephone is not bothered in the least by the bangs and booms of fireworks. If she was more predictable with other dogs we would have taken her to the parade and fireworks, but at this point we still don't quite trust that she can behave herself. She is doing better on walks. I'm sure she would have loved to get her paws on our dinner, but she's super polite about food and stuck to her veg dog food with nutritional yeast. She loves nooch.

1 comment:

Cadry said...

What a cute parade! It looks like a great time!

I haven't tried those Gardein riblets yet. I've been impressed with everything else I've sampled from them, though. I'll have to give them a shot.

That's too bad that the day kind of petered out. It's tough when it's hot to stay even keel. I'm glad these ridiculously high temperatures are starting to break at last!