December 5th: Christmas Parade and Star Wars
Months ago, in the midst of yet another reading of Sandra Boynton's "the Christmas Parade" I asked Abbey if we could join her family at a parade. I must have read that book to Maia several hundred times this year, so it seemed ideal to take her to an actual parade as an advent activity.
We ended up combining our visit with an epic Star Wars marathon. Starting at 10am with episode 1 ( Eric actually went two miles over the speed limit to ensure we arrived in time to see the beginning!). And he then proceeded to spend nearly 24 hours on their couch! The kids watched a surprising amount of the movies, as Donovan never watches actual movies and Serenity doesn't do well with tension. Donovan adores "Vadey" as he calls Darth Vader, and he made light sabers out of perler beads for our whole family. I brought the perler beads with us randomly and they got used a lot! The parade was fun! The weather wasn't too cold, and they were selling light sabers that I couldn't resist due to the movie marathon. Maia was fascinated by the parade! She would say "Ho Ho Santa!" and watched until he disappeared from sight. Her favorite was the fire truck that had a fire dog that looked just like Marshall from Paw Patrol on it though. My favorite was the Star Wars float with Jedis, storm troopers, and Darth Vader in a Santa outfit. Donovan was especially thrilled with that =)
We stayed the night at the Richard's house, which was SO much fun. I got to have Bailey's in my hot chocolate and visit after Maia fell asleep. Donovan and Serenity stayed up till 10:30 but actually didn't go crazy the next day. Love getting to spend time with such great friends!
