Around here, we always kick off the Little League World Series with the Grand Slam Parade. This year I felt especially blessed to be there with my husband, older children, and two rather nonplussed babies who seemed more interested in snuggling up to Daddy than to paying attention to the festivities at hand.
We got there fairly late– right when the parade was scheduled to start and people had been saving seats since around 10 AM!– but we found a stump no one had claimed and had a seat.
The parade route took place on Millionaire’s Row, a stretch filled with beautiful old Victorian homes built back in the times of the lumber barons.
We knew it was Little League time when we saw Dugout, the official mascot!
There was all kinds of music to dance to, and we especially enjoyed seeing the youth group kids marching with their different school bands.
Daniel loves the shriners. He calls these “gnomie cars”.
I will admit that my kids’ favorite part of the parade is the ridiculously amount of candy that’s tossed to them. And I try to deal with it with good grace, in much the same way as we tackle Halloween and Easter candy. I go through it and get rid of anything that isn’t acceptable– we do toss the supercheap “made in China” candy, gum with sugar, and anything that’s unwrapped or dirty or squished. That leaves an awful lot of Tootsie Rolls, LOL! It all goes in a communal jar and they can pick one piece each after lunch, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. So I was definitely prepared for a certain amount of candy catching.
What I was not prepared for, however, was this:
Mama was not happy. Michael, however, was thrilled.
My heart was happy, though, when the Southeast baseball team rode by. The children had been tossing candy from their bags to the players, which was sweet enough on its own. But Michael decided to give his Mountain Dew to the boys on the team. They were thrilled!
