Productive Weekend - even made time for another parade

Our weekend started off with sirens and flashing lights! Luckily none of us were arrested nor required any form of emergency medical treatment. Our friends invited us to their town's annual festival and parade - and after discovering Nathan's new found love of parades, how could we not go? So on Friday evening we drove to Fairview Park, and staked our position along the parade route. Our friends cycled over from their place and met us just in time to sit back and be pelted with candy! Nathan, had a blast as the police cars and bikes drove past - followed by a fire truck and then the floats! This was the part that the candy was strewn along the Street to the waiting children- who were quickly filling up their plastic bags with the sugar-loaded delicacies... We were quite intrigued to see a controversial politician taking part in the parade, Dennis Kucinich. He is a member of the US House of Representatives, and twice ran for president - most recently in the 2008 elections. However, he is most well known for his attempts to get George W Bush impeached, and currently has one of his articles before a Congressional committee.




After the parade - we went to the field in which the Fairview Park festival was taking place. They had hundreds of stores selling a variety of goods. We wanted to stay there until 8pm when the LifeFlight helicopter was scheduled to land. As you can imagine - there was great excitement when at about 8:15pm, 3 police cars pulled onto the field with their lights on a parked strategically for the helicopter to land in the center. But 10 minutes later, an announcement was made that the helicopter had received an emergency call and was needed to transport someone to a hospital. Now try explaining that to a 3 year old who has been sitting patiently to see the Air ambulance come and land before his very eyes. Poor Nathan was inconsolable as we had to leave without seeing the helicopter :(

Saturday was a very productive day for me. It started out with us going to the shops to buy a medicine cabinet for the bathroom and food for our guests that we were having later that evening. When we got home, I finished my painting of the garage door frame and hauled out the pressure washer to clear the driveway of my accidental paint spills. Next on my agenda was to declare war on the lawn weeds. I bought an weed killer that is meant to kill only the weeds - not the lawn ("guaranteed") and walked up and down the entire yard carefully aiming and firing at these evil intruders. That in itself took up a good hour of my time! Once I had finished examining every square foot of my lawn in the 95F/35C sultry weather, I retreated to the garage to assemble some shelves that I had purchased to reduce the clutter. It was then time to bath Nathan and get the grill pre-heated as our Bible study leader and his family were joining us for dinner. Nathan had a great time with them - since they too, own a Wii, and we all played a number of games - and Nathan even beat me in the bowling :(

Sunday morning arrived and my cell phone had me out of bed by 7am so I could be at church by 7:45am for our pre-service rehearsal. The services were excellent - both the music (even if I do say so myself) as well as the message! I got home at 12:30pm and after lunch took a lazy afternoon. That was until Liesel woke up from her nap - then I went upstairs to install the new medicine cabinet in our bathroom. That took us to dinner, bath time and then bedtime for Nathan. Then once Nathan had fallen asleep by 7:40pm - Liesel and I put our feet up and watched a very sweet and enjoyable DVD : The Bucket List starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. What a great way to wind down the weekend!

On a completely different note: my mother is in England at the moment and on Tuesday will be fulfilling one of her life long dreams - and that is to have tea with the Queen! She received an invitation to one of the Queen's garden parties in Buckingham Palace's garden! She is so excited about this - and I just had to share it with everyone!