What a Waterbury Weekend!

This is one long blog post...so grab a cup of coffee. I am trying to keep myself busy so blogging has to do for now. I was kind of dreading the weekend in a strange way because I knew with so much downtime, I'd be thinking more and more about when the baby's going to arrive. We've finished all of our big projects for now and we really had no plans so I decided to rent lots of movies, buy some books and pick up some magazines to help keep me occupied. I had forgotten that this weekend was Waterbury's annual July 4th celebration. Don't ask me why, but each year Waterbury celebrates the 4th the weekend before with a big parade, a carnival in the afternoon and a fireworks display at night. This will be Kevin and my fourth summer in our house and we've never actually been to the parade. The parade starts at 11 and in the past we've always been too hungover or still sleeping! Well not this year...we were up at the crack of dawn as is our usual weekend routine now and so we decided to take Lily for a long walk, go out to breakfast and get a good spot to watch the parade. I had no idea what to expect, but I should have known it was going to be a little strange and a big slice of Americana. There were some interesting people there and I am so glad I took my camera...

This "rat tail" was pretty sweet...



I am still confused as to why the Grand Marshall was wearing a shower cap and carrying an umbrella. Very odd.

Look even Governor Jim Douglas showed up!


...to shamelessly campaign. Ugh!
Old creepy guy handing out candy to kids. Uh huh.

"Patsy Cline" and the Kountry Krackers rocked the mic.

She was all business.

I am totally confused by the Santa hat and snow mobile in a July 4th parade. Anyone?

Ben & Jerry's dressed as KISS.

Check out the little kid in the bottom right corner of this photo. He/She totally creeped us all out.

Rock it. This float made absolutely no sense

But who cares when they give away free ice cream!


Delicious.
A real race car from Thunder Road.


and look, it has to be pulled by a 4-wheeler! How ironic.
A Johnny Cash impersonator, why not.


I really hope this woman is dressed as Dolly Parton...
This is my favorite float of the whole parade!! A politician named Jeb somebody was driving a tractor pulling a trailer full of shit. Oh yeah, just scroll down

Oh yeah he does!

A trailer full of shit. Pure genius.

I'm a little scared and confused by the giant care bears.


World's smallest car!
Some kid was driving this, he must have been "vertically challenged."


It's NOT a parade unless you have miniature ponies!

Lots of miniature ponies.

I don't know what it is about them, but these things really, really freak me out!
Especially the red bow and the lei...You know what else freaks me out? Giant blow up GI Dolls "walking" down Main Street


GI Johnny, need I say more?


And of course, the parade must also have a cow being led by a fat kid.


Right here the cow started to get rowdy and I really thought for a moment it may loose it and charge the crowd (oh how I secretly hoped for such excitement!) but alas it did not happen. Bummer.



Damn, that was one great parade! We skipped the carnival in favor of an afternoon nap and some yard work but we did have our neighbors Mike and Erik over to watch the fireworks Saturday night. Kevin had a blast having some beers and "guy hang time" and the fireworks were pretty impressive as usual. I tested the new camera's "fireworks" setting and I was pleased with the pics!




You can check out what I captured of the finale on my You Tube page by clicking HERE

Lily hates loud noises and is terrified of fire works so I had to drag her out from underneath the bed and spend an hour calming her down to get her to stop shaking afterwards! Poor girl.

Yesterday we were supposed to have rain all day but as usual the weatherman was wrong and we enjoyed a beautiful sunny afternoon. We walked in the morning before breakfast and then I was so exhausted I slept for 4 hours! When I woke up it was 85 degrees and sunny so we headed to the reservoir for some relaxin' in the sun. After much grumbling, my sweet husband blew up a raft for me...It took a little work to get on, a fork lift would have come in handy...

But once on, I was in heaven! It was so wonderful to be weightless and floating.

38 weeks pregnant and comfortable...finally! Look at the size of that belly, amazing.



The swimming was just what I needed to cool down and relax. We took a few long walks this weekend hoping the excercise may encourage Baby Duggan to come out, but no luck! I have 13 days left until my due date and I am having contractions like crazy this morning but they are totally irregualr and not really painful, just annoying!

We have another Doctor's visit Wednesday and if there are any updates I'll be sure to post. Have a great Holiday week!