4th of July in the Countryside

The 4th of July is Independence Day in the USA - and we celebrate our freedom.  Our little town of Corbett, Oregon has put on a festival each year for many many years.  We just walk or drive up to the top of our road, park the car and haul out our chairs and enjoy the parade!  Here is grandpa with all his grandsons. 

The first to arrive are the motorcycles, cars, trucks and firetrucks.  Most of them toss out candy for the kids.  Our 4 had a blast racing about picking it up.

The color guard of service men carry the flags. 

Our local volunteer fire department and their trucks. 

Here is the grand marshal, Woody Davis, and his family.   

On the float behind the truck is many of his family - and on the trailer is their family's covered wagon and his sister, Pam is up there, she's a friend of mine and was happy to see our boys and grandsons there! 

This is a beautiful pair of draft horses, Percherons, pulling a magnificent carriage. 

My friend Nev Scott was the Queen of the parade and she had a 5 generation court of her family members! 

 Isn't that the most wonderful and comfy looking carriage?

A vintage fire truck. 

The car of my dreams, a Rolls Royce convertible!  Only the one in my dreams is bright red. :-) 

How about this gorgeous vintage Cadillac? 

Isn't this a neat old Ford? 

My favorite part of the parade is the horses!  Little Caleb liked them too!  These girls looked gorgeous in their sparkly outfits! 

Then these two gorgeous Belgian draft horses pulling a cart full of kids and families. 

 How cute are these young rally squad girls?

Our local high school mascot is a Cardinal -- this one came over to see our kids.. yikes, I wonder if Caleb and Hayden will have nightmares about big furry birds? 

Don't you just love this woman driving this great old tractor and pulling a cart full of kids? 

Ohhhh... pretty vintage RED Jaguar! 

In between cars and horses.. this was our view across the road. 

Our guys loved this big oversized Army truck. 

While we were enjoying the parade, our daughter-in-law Kristi was organizing this great buffet for us, she had put together goody bags with fun things inside and the yard was all set up for games and fun.   

They filled a bunch of water balloons for the kids to play with, here is Caleb with his arsenal in his shirt. :-)  He's wearing some cake around his mouth.. lol! 

We tried to get all the boys to smile for the camera, but Caleb wasn't playing along.. the boys all had a very fun day.   

And so, summer has arrived and the weather ahead is predicted to be pure joy.  We're having cool nights and warm days and no clouds.  I hope you have a great summer ahead of you!  The rest of July looks nice and easy, not a lot of plans.  In August we'll be taking our trailer to our annual lake trip.  Summertime.. and the livin' is easy, the fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high.. ((hugs)), Teresa :-)