Frogs and candy.

Yesterday we were going to go to the caves but as we were driving there the girls were freaking out that there might be bats so I turned in at the Hurstville Interpretive Center instead. We had Jennifer with us, the wife of one of Bill's co-workers. She is cool and her kids are at their dad's for the summer so I think she is missing kids because she always gives mine so much attention and little gifts. It was a cool place, I would call it a Nature Center. They have a beehive behind plexi glass with a little tube that connects it to the outside so you can watch the bees fly in and out and do all their work. The girls want to see that again. We took one of the trails out to the pond. It would've been a fun hike if my girls weren't so girly. Seriously, there was a frog or toad every step you took. I was imagining back when I was a kid and we would have caught them all. There would've been at least 100 or more. On the way back Jennifer carried Campbell and I carried James because of the frogs and toads. They were crying. We just need to get them used to nature I think they have been in the city too long!

Last night we had Jennifer and Marty over for dinner and then we made our way to the parade. The county fair is this week and it was kicked off with the parade, "the largest parade in the area". James is talking of cotton candy and ferris wheel rides. When I was driving by the parade route this morning I noticed chairs and blankets out (Bill said he saw them on his way to work at 6:30 am!) so I stopped the car and threw out a blanket (thanks Dot the quilt always comes in handy!). We headed to the parade at 5:50 it started at 6:00 and there were so many people. I haven't seen this many people here before. The parade lasted one and a half hours. It was really good with lots of funny cars/mobiles. And at the end there were tons of horses. The girls loved it. Campbell got this bash on her head from diving for candy off the curb, and while she was crying it wasn't because she was hurt but because she had dropped her ring pop. This is the haul we got from the parade. You can guess my favorite thing (and the thing I yelled the loudest to get) is the globe ball. So cool! James got the little frog. This actually wasn't all the candy thrown at us. The novelty of it wore off on the girls and they aren't that into candy I guess. Kids would come and clean up all the candy the girls left periodically during the parade.
We sure had fun at our first hometown parade and there are already plans in the works to be part of it next year!