It Didn't Rain on our Parade

Wow! What a day yesterday was! It was our town's summer celebration, and the culmination of most of our hard work this summer. We started the day off with the parade. Remember that model of the church I talked about having to pull....Well, the people who are storing it for the church told us not to pull it if there was a chance of rain. (The rain could ruin the paint and the wood it is made from.) That morning, as my husband and I were driving into town, it was raining. I checked the radar after we got all the banners hung on the truck, and it didn't show too much rain out there, but there was still a 50% chance. It certainly looked like it could rain at any minute too. So, to make a painfully long story shorter, the president of my board and I decided not to pull the model.

Then, we didn't know where we were supposed to meet to join the parade. The coordinators had given us a special spot in the shade because of the kids - we were just supposed to join the parade in our place as it went by us. That's great, but they didn't have anyone at our place telling us where exactly to line up and when to join the parade. So....we just lined up where we were and joined when we felt like it.

The kids had a blast though. They managed to throw all of their candy out by about halfway through the parade, so my husband ducked into the dollar store (which was conveniently located on the parade rout) to grab some more. They, of course managed to throw all of that out within the next five minutes too... That was fine though - they enjoyed waving and smiling at all the people who were watching. We even got applause from a big section of people by the park!

Since we were at the beginning of the parade, we ducked out before the end and let the kids watch for a while. They were the only kids in that area, so they managed to get about a bucketful of candy each.

After the parade, we were hosting a photography booth in the park. This was all happening during the community picnic, so there were a ton of people there. We made a cutout photo booth - you know, the ones where you stick your face in the hole to appear you have a body of something else - of a cheerleader and a football player. We sold about 10 pictures (which was kind of a disappointment, but I'm blaming it on our location), but I'm not too upset about that. We made back the costs of the equipment, and that's about all I could hope for.

All in all, I'm going to call the day a success. We had a ton of people in our float, and I'm so grateful for that. I think we appeared as a strong, happy, friendly group of people. The kids were having a blast, which helps send the message that our preschool is a great place for kids. I think only good things can come from the experience - even though it was a ton of work!