Fourth of July

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Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

We must be in the midwest! Since there is a crazy drought going on down here. (Crazy. There was a whole article in the NY Times today about how crazy it is) there were no fireworks nearby. We could have driven to some of the far away towns where they figured - why not endanger the populace (of which there isn't much) and lure all those people from the big city? But, you know, two weeks off the hip replacement, sunset at like 9pm... It just seemed like the wrong choice.

Luckily we live in the cutest "city" in the world. There was a neighborhood bike parade and carnival in a park down the street. The parade lined up (see? Z with his holiday cape and princess bike, Mark holding being one of the "line leaders")... and then that big firetruck? Yeah, it led them in a march around the park. Pretty much the cutest thing ever. Then all sorts of fun including a tunnel of wet & a giant water slide and a bounce house (bounce houses are.. insanely present here. I'm going to guess we missed the rise of the bounce house because we used to live somewhere with very little outside space? They are here EVERYWHERE, inside, outside.. it is a wonder there are not bounce houses made for the backs of peoples trucks... )... And a pinata! Oh man. Totally amazing to watch. Go look at the pictures. They fail to express the total melee it was. Children, limbs, candy. One kid was definitely crowd surfing at one point. It was quite desperate because no joke - that pinata pony was made of steel. There is some annoying car commercial with an impenetrable pinata. This was that pinata. Just when you thought it was going to go...They even broke one of the sticks on it. Finally, one of the dads just yelled "NOW!" and dropped it into the pit of seething children.

Which, maybe, is how all pinatas should end. Ok, it is a little lord of the flies, but you've got to get it out of your system somehow...