50th Anniversary

The community association in my neighbourhood turns 50 this year.  Yesterday, there was a parade throughout the community to kick off the celebration. The local groups (Scouts, Guides, the two schools, and various other organizations) were asked to participate, and so my Sparks got to march in the parade.

I cleaned out the Sparks box a couple of weeks ago, and one of the things I found was a stack of pages of Girl Guide stickers, so I cut them up so that they were one per sheet. We were following a vintage car in the parade, and I gave each girl a stack of stickers with instructions to run out and hand them to any kids they saw, as long as they could make it back to the group before we were too far ahead.

They loved it.  They must have run three times the parade route by the time we were done. We didn't have trouble keeping up with the car in front of it. In fact, there were a couple of times when I had to remind them to stop before they ran into the car.  The girls all were pleasantly surprised to see their parents (although ... I'm not sure why, what else were their parents going to do?), and they were super proud of themselves.

We were one of the first groups, so when we got to the end, we ducked into the parking lot and watched the rest of the parade come in. The Shriners were there, as was the RCMP marching band and a bunch of other local groups. There were clowns, who then did a little show for the Sparks. (One of the Sparks, upon seeing a clown - "I was in the parade".)

The girls' parents met us at the end of the route, and then everyone took part in the other activities. They had some games (like whacking a lever to try to get a plastic frog into a bucket) as well as inflatable slides and obstacle courses.

I left at 3, and when I came back at 6 (to work in the kitchen), two of my Sparks were still there.