Kicking Off a Fun Summer

We always have so many fun things going on the last weekend in June, and this year was no exception!

As usual, Mequon held its "Fun Before the Fourth" celebration waaaay early. (You might remember this is a bit of a pet peeve for me. A Fourth of July celebration on June 25? So annoying.) Elsa was in the parade this year, riding on a "float" (actually just a flat-bed truck) for her dance studio. She wanted to do this last year, but I talked her out of it because it seems like I'm always hearing about kids falling off parade floats and being run over. Also, I honestly thought she'd have more fun watching the parade and collecting candy than being in it. But she was really sad about not doing it and kept bringing it up occasionally all year long, so this year we gave in.

I wasn't sure Elsa would have as much fun as she thought she would. It sure looked boring just sitting there in the truck for two hours. And when I asked her if she waved to people, she said no! But she insisted she had a great time and preferred that to just watching the parade, so I guess she may be doing this in future years as well. She got to sit by her friends Marina and Mia in the truck, so I suppose that helped.

Claire really enjoyed watching this year's parade as well, all two hours of it. She especially liked it when anybody walked by with a doggy.

After the parade was one of our favorite summer events, the Cedarburg Strawberry Festival.

This year we had strawberry bratwurst, cinnamon chips with strawberry salsa, strawberry shortcake, and of course, chocolate-covered strawberries. Yummy!

Afterwards, we spent some time on the playground at a Cedarburg park. Claire can now climb smaller things without help, and she happily goes down most slides, so she's finally at the point where she can really enjoy a playground. Elsa's gotten much braver about slides recently as well, as Bob saw when they went to Jellystone. All of a sudden, she'll go down slides that would have terrified her a few months ago.

The playground was crowded because of the festival, and there were some teenagers hanging out on the swings. Elsa decided she wanted to swing—so she ran straight up to those big kids and said, "Can I have a swing please?" Just no fear or shyness whatsoever in this child. : ) And sure enough, one of the girls got right up and gave it to her.

Sunday was crazy-busy as well—Elsa had a birthday party for one of her classmates, and I was hosting my book club that evening. It was an exhausting weekend but tons of fun!