memorial day parade

sometime last week madelyn brought home a note saying that the ymca was inviting the "character champions" to walk in the memorial day parade.  matt and i thought it would be fun for madelyn to do it.  so yesterday on the way home from thomas we asked if she wanted to and she was super excited!  she was so excited that she didn't even ask if one of us would be walking with her.  i told her that daddy would walk and that i would bring the boys and wave to her.

so matt and madelyn headed down the trail around 7:30am and the boys and i headed out around 8:15.  it was pretty cool out so we bundled up but i was peeling off the layers as we walked because that stroller is heavy and a few of the hills are steep.  but we managed to get there in time!  last year we missed most of the parade - including the marching band.

it is nice to be able to walk there and we stood/sat with most of our neighbors.  i thought that it was a nice little parade and the boys got a heaping bag of candy too!  they were excited to get a few bags of kettle corn and a flag too.

the flag was as wide as the street and the carriers were tripping over little kids still trying to pick up candy from the gutters.  oops.

and then it was madelyn's turn!  they gave the first 100 kids t-shirts.  matt said that they were the first ones there but they didn't hand out shirts until everyone was lined up, they almost didn't get one.

madelyn is in the middle wearing a purple shirt next to matt.

the ymca had an organ playing in front of the kids walking.

since we had walked over, we stopped to play on a playground on the way back.  funny enough, we have never stopped at this playground before.  i think it will be a destination for our walks in the future.

and here is our "character champion" and first time parade walker!  she was so excited to have gotten to do something so special.  love.