Tulip Festival Parades

It's our first Tulip Festival since moving back to Orange City. The tulips are long gone, but Ryan still liked playing in Windmill park (and throwing things in the canal).

Ryan saw a total of 4 parades this year. We started out with the Thursday night parade where Abbie, Wade, and Saylor joined us. This parade is not as crowded and we easily found a shaded bleacher spot. Ryan was a little antsy waiting, but had no trouble polishing off a foot-long hot dog while we waited! Saylor loved the parade, especially the marching bands. Ryan liked the bands, horsies, tractors, and a certain float that had rabbits moving around a track and a squirrel peeking out of a log. The funniest thing was watching him point and wave enthusiastically to the small tractor and wagon that followed the horses (the poop wagon). In his defense, though, at some other parades we've been to, that WAS the entry.

Friday night, Adam's parents joined us for the parade and then stayed with Ryan while Adam and I went to the Night Show, "My Fair Lady."  It was a good show, but didn't get over until 11:15 and since we'd been sitting on bleachers since 5:45, we were a ready to be done with bleachers.

On Saturday afternoon, we grabbed a spot on a curb to watch an afternoon parade so Ryan could watch the street scrubbing. He did okay, considering it we right during his normal nap time, and he was excited to see Juliana walk in the mode show with her authentic costume from "Zaan" and then stop by to sit with us. He also loved seeing my cousin Carter riding a unicycle. On Saturday, he even got to ride the 5' tall one! We went on a few rides after the parade and my fears that we missed any sort of "nap" window were eased when Ryan fell asleep about 2 blocks after getting into the pickup and took a 2 hour nap even though it was after 4:00! Watching parades (or climbing all over mom like she's a jungle gym and bonzing for fruit snack) must be tiring!


On Saturday night, I had to run to Sioux City to do some necessary shopping and Adam ended up taking Ryan to the night parade. This one featured over 100 antique tractors and Mustang cars (which Ryan loved) and the Alumni Band. He was probably the most excited person there to see so many tractors!

 All in all, he was pretty excited about the parades and already told me on Sunday morning that "maybe after I take a nap, we can go see the parade." I hate to break it to him that the parades are over for another year, but I'm kind of glad we have a day to rest up from all the activity!