It's Wild Here: what a weekend!

Saturday evening, we had a chilling grilling potlucking party in the back yard. The preparations were going along nicely that day until the boys spotted this on our driveway:

Yep, those are three of the cutest baby raccoons you ever saw - sitting in my daisies.

They decided to stay for the party, so they waddled around back, through the gate, and eventually into the neighbors' yard - the ones with dogs.

The boys gathered them up (wore gloves) and we put them in a dog crate with some water. They must have been near dehydration, the way they drank. After the party, we let them out, far from the road, and with some food concoction recommended by a wildlife person (one of many with whom I spoke on the phone, none of whom were willing to take these critters and keep them safe until adulthood).

The party was fun! Soccer was played, food was eaten, sweets were consumed in abundance, rain fell (but only for a short while).

Next day, we ran errands and had a delicious dinner with the grandparents and others, and on Monday we went to Cincinnati. We celebrated Grandpa's and Isaac's birthdays, and attended the parade, where we saw a lot of this kind of thing:

also, bagpipes. Kellen, not so impressed with the volume:

Gigi loves a parade, particularly a marching band.

Yes, that is Jeremiah, hiding from the clown. He was not the only one hiding.

Ryan was very, very happy to be at the parade. He hollered "HIIIIII" at everyone, gathered candy, enjoyed his little flag. At one point, he left his Dad's side, walked past me, and headed toward the family that was down the sidewalk from us. I asked after him, where are you going? He said, I just have to talk to them. ??? I watched from a distance as he chatted, and then handed his flag to one of the men. Awww, I thought. Then he very casually lifted the *much bigger* flag from the grass at that man's feet, and started backing away.

Kindly, the man allowed him to borrow it for the parade, and he took it back over a while later. It was so funny, looking back at it, how that flag must have just caught his eye. And you know he wasn't about to tell us what he was up to, because we would not have gone for it.

"Oh yea, you know I'm ready, toss that candy right. in. here."