Father's Day Weekend

Just realized I never finished this post and barely thought about blogging this past week. We are busy getting ready for family to come visit from Luxembourg (which includes getting some house projects done) and I've been on a migraine roll. Lucky me. Anyhoo, on to Father's Day.

Normally, we have a big family gathering during the Father's Day weekend, but that didn't happen this year. It usually falls on Saturday which is also when my city throws their summer community event, Parktacular (the event is all weekend, but the kid's stuff is on Saturday). We've never been there, but since we had the day free we decided to check it out.

There were some food trucks at Parktacular, but we weren't looking for hot dogs and sweets so we went to one of our favorite places, McCoys. I worried that it would be busy as the parade went right by the restaurant, but it wasn't bad. Once we finished lunch we sauntered over to the corner, sat down and watched the parade go by. For some reason I forgot the amount of candy that gets handed out at these things - I think we have more candy than Riley received at Halloween. It's a little ridiculous. Also, they hand out stuff that doesn't melt so I can't even 'steal' the chocolate stuff from her.

Riley loved this parade - not too many overly loud trucks (which she DISLIKES greatly) and lots of floats with ambassadors from local cities... or as Riley referred to them "princesses!". There were clowns, political and religious groups, musicians, jugglers, dancers, people dressed up as super heroes and Star Wars characters, and way more. There was even some random guy who rode a Cat in the Hat themed bike (Jesse joked that the guy probably whipped up his bike in his garage as he really wanted to be in a parade).

After the parade, we walked down to Wolfe Park and played at the playground before going over to some of the special activities. Riley got a flower made by a balloon guy who was a wealth of information about everything. He was quite interesting to listen to. Turns out he's a school counselor, but I would have pegged him as an educator. teacher.

Once we had the balloon in hand we checked out the animal area where you could feed animals and ride ponies. Riley wanted to ride a pony until she was on the pony, but she stuck with it. She looked up at me once, but otherwise stared at the pony hesitantly.

We walked past the wall climbing activities and the life size Elsa, Olaf, and Piglet (frightening in life size so my kid gets excited to see them, but won't go remotely near them). There were a bunch of booth promoting items and services and we bought an overpriced sticker book at one of them.

There was also an inflatable water slide and other inflatable activities that we skipped as it was getting late and hot. We thought about getting a treat on the way out, but the line was long and in the direct sun. I promised Riley frozen yogurt later.

So we went home, rested and Jesse headed out to his buddy's house for game night while Riley and I walked over to Park Yogurt as promised. Earlier we gave Jesse his card (which Riley proudly wrote all on her own without asking me how to spell anything) and a book. We usually get him 'dad' t-shirts, but I totally dropped the ball on that. He is excited to read his new book, which he apparently had on his list, but I didn't know about so it all worked out.

The next day we went over to my dad's and helped him install a new microwave over his stove. I took some pictures of an antique bed and washer that I need to sell on Craigslist for him and then we went out to eat. My dad doesn't need anything and is going through a huge purge right now so I just make him a bunch of food and that seems to make him happy.

I never feel like I do enough for this day, but I think both Jesse and my dad enjoyed it. I know Riley and I enjoyed spending time with two of our favorite guys.