Who doesn't love a parade?

Yesterday in Irvington, VA, Alastair saw his first parade. He was mesmerized. Or maybe it was the heat.

Our J4 weekend started out decently enough: Amanda and her mother went shopping on Saturday, leaving me alone to work on the rollbar in the Miata. I spent about 4 or 5 hours on it before they returned, and I got it mostly installed.

On Sunday, she took the boy to church so that I could mow the yard(s) and resume work on the rollbar. I got it finished Sunday night, and on Monday morning we took our sick little boy to the doctor. He's on his 3rd cold in the last 7 weeks (damned daycare), and we were given approval to administer decongestants (they work great!).

Later in the day, we got the car packed and headed down to Irvington. We took his new portable bed, which he loved, and spent a lovely evening with dad & Randy. Much time was spent in the back yard of the neighbor's house, enjoying beer, port and discourse.

The morning of July 4 gave every indication of they day's potential heat. It was oppressive at 8:30, and only got worse. Shana and Chad drove in from West Point, and we all headed out at 11am to watch the parade. Amanda spread a blanket for Alastair, and I tried desperately (and without success) to get documentation of the event. First my video camera's battery completely failed, and then my digital camera was taking up to a full second to actually take the pictures, so I got a lot of blurry pictures of the grass.

Anyway, Alastair had been leaning back against Amanda, but when the neat old cars started going by, he sat up straight and watched transfixed. The horses were particularly exciting for him, as were the fire trucks.

The parade was over by 11:30, and so was boy. We took him in for a nap, and he slept for 2 hours. He was beat. Then we took him out to the picnic, which was in the same neighbor's back yard. They had tents, lots of seating, tons of water (& beer), food, and a large pig in a smoker.

A lot of dad's friends came down from Richmond, and Amanda even got offered an appearance with Alastair in a commercial! We had a great time, watched part of the tragic Germany v. Italy game, hung out with Shana & Chad, and wore the boy out completely. Last night, he only cried for about 5 or 10 minutes before going to sleep.

It was a good weekend, with the exception of Germany's puzzling loss to Italy. Boo!