pioneer parade

Small towns are cool.

I'm sure a lot of people - some I know very well, in fact - think that small towns are lame…. and their small-town parades are even more lame.  I feel the opposite.  I mean, big cities are great and I have loved being able to be close to big cities.  But having both - particularly living in a small one and being close to a biggish one - is great.

You gotta love the small town feel and you gotta love a small town parade.  All these people walking to main street with their lawn/camping chairs, setting up along the streets, meeting up with friends, bumping into other friends.  Its just good stuff.

I thought heading out at 9:30 (about a three block walk for us) for a 10:00 parade would be plenty of time.  I was mistaken.  We still got a good space, but it was about the only good one left….right at the beginning, across from the fire station.  Note to self - leave around 9:15 next year.

By the way - the celebration is for Pioneer Days - mainly celebrating the Mennonite Pioneers.  There are all kinds of festivities all weekend, particularly at the Mennonite Heritage Village/Museum.  And the grocery stores have farmer sausage on sale - that part is extremely important!  I stocked up yesterday and bought the limit of 12 links of sausage.  Yum!

The parade started with some RCMP in their official uniforms.  Unfortunately they left the "M" out of the equation (as in Mounted…. as in mounted on a horse).  There are of course a few select rcMps around, but they are only m-ed for certain celebratory purposes in the Musical Ride thing.

There were bag-piper people, which I love.  I wouldn't exactly like having a bagpipe player in the family, and not practising in the house under any circumstances, but in a parade like this?  Yes please.  And a little bit more, please.  I took the picture after they basically had passed because I noticed at the last minute that one of the last drummers had ear plugs in.  Not that you can see that in the photo.  But I found it rather humorous.

We got a kick out of this se-mini.  As in a mini semi.  It was pretty fabulous.

The school I work at had a bus that they drove through - and some coworkers handed out candy.  Me thinks they need to step it up a little next year…..

I was a little disappointed because on the other side of this float stood Gru and a minion.  I love Gru and minions.

My big sister and three of my nieces were also in the parade with their ranch.  Kim in the blue (first two pictures), Riley next, also in blue.  Timaya follows in green and then Shandy, also in green.  Riley made a valiant attempt to throw candy at the cousins but it didn't quite happen.  Don't feel sorry for them, though.  They got buckets of candy from all of the other parade people (Superstore had the best candy, if you ask me.  Even if you didn't ask me, they still had the best.  Bulk bin selection!)

And the telltale sign that horses were in the parade…. maybe that is why the RCunMPs were just RCP.  They are no stupid dummies, you know!

Hockey team recruitment was out - handing out paper hockey helmets.  Keep those away from my kid! No hockey for me - please!!  A) I am too cheap to pay over and over and over for all of that expensive equipment; B) I am too lazy to spend every single weekend and several week days going from practise to game to more game to more game and; C) I like my kids to have a full set of real teeth.

I thought I should also get in a picture from the Carillon News.  They are also (sort of) our employers.  Yup, still out there delivering papers.

Cade, who did not want (at all) to go to the parade until I told him that they threw out a lot of candy, stayed in the "ready position" whenever he was not actually out there gathering goodies.  He would run out whenever candy was thrown and then kind and generously hand some over to his cousins and sister.  After a while they all seemed to get smart and realize that they didn't really need to exert a lot of effort because Cade would do most of it for them.  They're no stupid dummies either.

I had to get at least one tractor picture - there were a lot of tractors and cars in this here parade!

The after of the parade was kind of like halloween….. dump out all your candy on the floor, do a little trading of things you don't want for things you do.  The pioneers never had it so good.