HAPPY FOURTH OF zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Happy fourth of July everyone! In past years, the fourth was just another day off from work to do whatever we wanted. For us, that may have been going to the cape for a beach bonfire get-together, playing a round of golf on a nice course, catching a fireworks show, or having our own little clambake dinner at home. Well, with an infant in tow, all of these things are just hard enough to deter us from even trying them. Instead, we decided to do what every other family in Needham seemed to be doing and enjoy the town events. Unfortunately, we couldn't go to the Needham fireworks show this year (at the highschool, about a 5 minute walk from our house) because we thought the noise would freak Brady out. So we stayed at home....and the fireworks still shook the house and we saw some from our livingroom, which was neat. Of course we were fully ready to handle a crying baby - but it never came. As Stuart Scott says, Brady was as cool as the other side of the pillow. Never phased, never moved, and basically snored his way through the whole event.

We did manage to go to the Friday evening fair events at the highschool before the fireworks on Monday and that was quite enjoyable. Lots of kids and families around and we got to meet Pudge and Ro's newest addition, Ava. That was a nice way to spend a few hours going into a holiday.

And since Brady did so well with the noise last night, and we're doing the family thing this holiday, we went to the Needham parade this morning. It was preceded by a 5k road race, which we saw briefly on our walk to Dunkin Donuts and then we met up with my brother and his family to sit and watch the parade (which passed right in front of the highschool too). Lots of fire engines, old cars, floats, performers, etc. With all of that though comes lots of noise, but again Brady didn't flinch through the entire parade. We fed him once when we got there and then he snoozed his way through everything. Since he missed it, we took a bunch of pictures for him to look at tonight.

Now that we are coming to the end of the holiday, we can honestly say that Needham is a great place to spend the fourth of July for families. Next year, everyone is invited to join us!

We arrived and fed Brady his morning bottle. From there it was all zzzzzz...

Where there are kids, there are balloon vendors

Irene kicking back and enjoying the marching bands

Irene, Brady, Judy, Brendan, Larry (left to right) enjoying the high priced front seats they acquired for the parade. I have no idea who the woman on the left is though. Sorry.

In the spirit of political correctness, I will just say that it was very nice of this African-American man to march with this band and spray water mist on them since it was a hot morning.

Irene teaching Brady how to hold a Q-tip in the nose. Okay, okay, it's lollipop stick in her mouth, but it looks like a Q-tip

"The Red Coats are coming! The Red Coats are coming!"

And what would any town parade be without every little kid with a bike being able to ride in the parade. Next year maybe we'll pull Brady in a wagon.