City kids

Not that Nashua, NH is a huge city by any means, but I've come to the conclusion that my kids are not rural. I grew up in a small town. Dave grew up in the city. Sometimes I forget my kids are growing up in a city. Now, don't get me wrong, we have a house with a back yard in a neighborhood on a rather slow street where the kids can play freely, but still...

It's been a few years since we've gone to the Memorial Day Parade in my hometown of Atkinson. Because of schedules and circumstances, we've attended the parade here in Nashua. Well, this year we went back to Atkinson! My Dad and brother are both firefighter/EMTs and the kids were excited to see them in the parade. Also, the fire department sponsors a cookout afterwards! I really built it up for several days. We reviewed how to be respectful when the flags were carried by and how we needed to clap to honor the soldiers/veterans. I bought descent sized flags for the kids to wave. The weather was perfect for our patriotic tank tops and Red Sox shirts (that's patriotic too, right?). We got all our gear, sunscreened and headed out!

We met up with our family, found the perfect spot on Main St. in front of a big house built in the 1800's (far better than the gas station backdrop in Nashua last year) and waited. About 10 veterans, 5 antique cars, an elementary school band, a dozen girl scouts, the same amount of boy scouts, a middle school band, a few kids on decorated bikes, 4 fire trucks and 2 dogs with fancy collars later, it was over.

Megan, on Dave's shoulders: "That was the shortest parade I've ever seen in my life!"

Nick: "What was that, like, 7 minutes?"

Oh well. We walked back across the common to the fire house and had some burgers and dogs. We sat with the fire chief's family and one of my former elementary school teachers. I was in my small-town glory. I hope the rest of my urban family wasn't too disappointed!