Friday, July 10, 2015

Independence Weekend

This week we had some lovely celebrations for Independence Day.

Ashland held its 25th annual Balloon Fest, and we went to the Balloon Glow on Friday Evening.  Only 10 of the 25 balloons were out that evening due to some wind issues, but still it was fun to watch them glowing and flickering on and off to the beat of the music.



The next morning, Tom took the kids to the Fourth of July parade.  It started just down the block from our house.  I was home sick, and missed it, but took this picture of some of the booty that my kids brought home.  This was what was left after they had been raiding it for more than 2 hours!  My own childhood experience at parades was that we kids would scramble for tossed candy and maybe get a tootsie roll or a pack of Smarties.  Never more than 2 or 3 pieces of penny candy at most.  We were not expecting anything more than that, so we were unprepared. Tom said that they were served Popsicles (bomb pops) at the parade, and that walking home he had stuff sticking out of all of his pockets.  In addition to all of the candy, they received coloring books, punch balls, a Frisbee and a toy banana, and 2 superhero light up toys.  There are full sized cereal bars and fun size snicker bars in that pile.  Seriously?
We heard that the parade was bigger and better than usual this year because Ashland is celebrating its bicentennial this year.  But they had their own parade last week, and just in case, I'm never missing a parade again!

Saturday night we watched fireworks from the parking lot across the street.  Usually we hear it with the local radio station simulcast, but this year nobody in our area had a stereo on.  Even without the music it was a great show.





On Sunday evening, we wrapped up our Independence celebration by attending the Pops in the Park concert at the Bandshell.  I didn't take any pictures, but it was a great concert, including cannon shots and popping brown bags to go with the 1812 Overture, and sparklers with the closing song.

Happy Birthday, America!  Happy Birthday, Ashland!

3 comments:

  1. I wish I could have seen this stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks like a grand celebration of our country's birth!

    ReplyDelete
  3. It was a great weekend and the weather was wonderful too! That's a ton of loot! I didn't see any kids where I was standing getting that much stuff so your kiddos were in the right spot! It was fun to listen to the concert with you guys!

    ReplyDelete

If you've been here for a visit, I'd love to know, even if you just say hi!