Parade Season

It's Parade season! We're talking summer city parades (Jared took the kids to one last weekend) and also Parade of Homes. With young kids and scheduling, it can be tough for Jared and I to get out on regular dates. We love the Parade of Homes because it's 2-3 weeks of prioritizing time together doing something we both love. We aren't able to make it to all of them in this season of life, but we pick the ones that look most interesting, schedule out some babysitting, and then tour the rest online. On Saturday we did a babysitting swap with my brother where we each took turns babysitting each other's kids and touring some homes. We saw a 25,000 sq ft mansion in Provo that was unlike anything we've seen before, and we've seen a lot of Parade homes over the years. As an added bonus they were giving away free cookies, drinks, candies, and nachos at the end so we got a bonus dinner date out of it. This is our adult version of Disneyland--it isn't "real life," but to me that's kind of the point and what makes it fun. 

We also spent a lot of time in the sun this week--pool days, beach days at a nearby lake, park days, and more. We met several of our neighbors at the pool one morning and were excited to realize just how many kids there are around here. Unfortunately for Jack, most of the kids are under the age of 5, but Alice is going to have lots of kids her age to play with. I'm sure as the neighborhood grows we'll get more kids Jack's age too. 

And now for some pictures from our week:

^^I have always loved a botanical gallery wall, with coordinating floral prints in matching frames. I loved this take using a picture railing in the largest parade home. I may need to find somewhere in my house to do a version of this.

^^Beach day with cousins. We pulled out our kayak for the first time since living in Washington. It's so fun to have Jack old enough to paddle around on his own now, or take a cousin for a ride.

^^More from the largest Parade Home. They had their own waterfall, and a water slide tunneling through a mountainside. It was wild--this particular house did a great job with heavy, old furnishings and materials that look like they could have been there hundreds of years ago. They also had classic old music playing through the grounds on speakers, and everything had an old-world European feel. Again, just a fun experience. It was the vibe of traveling to a foreign country for an hour, but the convenience of staying local.