Memorial Day

As has become our tradition, we went down to Austin today for the parade. At least we tried to. I built some time into our schedule but with two small kids, schedules are more of a hope than anything else. Instead of fifteen minutes early, we rolled into the parking lot just as the very last group went through.
(The Austin Memorial Day parade is an event you must hit with some exactitude. There really is no such thing as 'a bit late but we still saw it'. We called family from the road to let them know we were running late to see if they could hold the start for us. My mom suggested that they could also just run through it all twice.)
The next event of the day is a trip to the cemetery where they have a small ceremony to honor veterans. Met up with more family there and Relia got her first lessons about not climbing on the gravestones. Near the end of the program there is a 21 gun salute. I held Relia and warned her that there would be a loud noise (three of them actually) but that it was ok. I held her. She flinched each time but was ok. Except . . . well, don't hold a potty training toddler during a 21 gun salute, ok?
We brought changes of clothes for Relia in case of accidents. We didn't bring extra outfits for me since I've been well trained for 30some years. So a trip to Target was hastily planned. I got a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and a fun tropical print. The FP Gal succumbed to the Target trap and bought Relia 45 new outfits. Now we were very, very prepared for any more accidents.
A quick trip to a park and then off to eat with the family. I think that the head count was 13. This was Felix's first trip to Austin and he got passed around quite a bit.
Remember this? We took a trip out to Todd Park to visit the robot. Relia very excitedly climbed all the way to the top only to discover that she really couldn't climb down by herself from the robot's head. Daddy to the rescue. I can personally report that the whole big apparatus has somehow shrunk since I was younger. Also, the arm-slides are crazy fast.





Naps all around on the way back up and then to home to play with new colored chalk and blow bubbles (thanks Aunt Janet!). A very nice day.