Parade of candy, tacos and tears

 Ah - Saturday.  Got up 30 minutes before the crack of dawn.  As usual.  

If I'm getting up at dawn, I have slept in and days awastin'...

Took Meri off to the band bus by 7:05am and the director was 10 minutes late.  Got back to the house and had a leisurely breakfast with Maddy, Robb and Ryan and then headed out ourselves.  Ryan had to go to work, Robb had to go pick up Leon for the parade and Maddy and I picked up my twin nieces.  Then we headed an hour west to meet up with Robb and Leon.

The parade started at 10:30.  We JUST made it in time, but it wouldn't have mattered.  Meri's band was going to be the last entry anyway... in a two hour parade...

 

This was a parade where it featured a billion different middle & high school marching bands with a bunch of floats in between to buffer the sound of each band.  BTW, our band won first place for our division.  Thank you very much...

Tractors were a big hit for him!  He insisted I take photos of each one.

It started off good BUT cold.  I'm glad I'd dug out blankets, coats and mittens for various people!  I forgot to get mittens for Leon...  He was excited to pick up candy and we filled a bag!  However we were towards the end of the parade run and the people on the floats were anxious to get rid of the candy, so they started throwing BIG handfuls out.

 

At first, that was great!  But then Leon realized that picking up candy off the ground was work.  He'd rather chase Maddy around the grass or eat the candy himself.  We discovered that leaving piles of candy on the ground was not a deterrent for little cub scouts or church groups...  They just kept throwing it anyway.  So the adults started picking up the treats and attempted to keep our gravelly area clear.  

 

As soon as we got it clear and turned our backs to put the candy in the bag, another float would come by and throw another 3 handfuls out, some pelting us in the back.  I whispered to Robb that I about to start flipping them off.  That set him off laughing and me into giggles.

Do you know how hard it is to bend over and reach for candy when you can't see it through the tears & giggles?  It's not easy.  The girls were confirmed in their belief that we were nuts.

Finally Meri's band went past.  She's front and center with the clarinet!

Leon directed them.  He danced for all the bands, but only discovered directing towards the end.

After gathering our things, Robb, Leon and I headed out and went to Taco Johns for some tacos for all of us.  It was way after lunch and we were all starved and Amanda had never had Taco John's food before...  REALLY?  

Meri opted to skip the bus ride back and rode with Maddy and the twins, setting out to meet us at TJ's.

I was getting Leon and his poopy little butt out of the car when Meri called.  Maddy had been in a fender bender about a block away.  Robb went back to them and I took Leon into the bathroom.  The girls and the other car/people were fine, however one of the riders in the other car made a point to get out and scream at Maddy.  How rude!!!  Especially since that woman's car wasn't even showing a scratch!  Her husband apologized for her.  Her kids sat wide eyed in the back seat, having learned a few new choice words.  Well, maybe they weren't new to them...

Our car has the license plate bent in, so nothing serious.

We gave the girls tacos and a hug, we left and after they de-stressed a little, they were going to head back home too.

As soon as Robb, Leon and I got home, we got cooking.  We were expected in an hour and a half at my besties house for a church gathering potluck.  It was to be a small group, but we needed to bring chili, which was in the crockpot all day, chicken noodle soup, Maddy's favorite in honor of her upcoming birthday, a sloppy joe Calzone and a small birthday cake.  Other folks were bringing things too!

The chicken had been cooked the day before in the crockpot and the cake was baked within that 1.5 hours.  We frosted it out at the get-together, as well as baked the calzone.

Easy peasy to throw the calzone together!  I fried up some hamburger, drained it and added a can of ready made sloppy joe sauce.  

The dough had been made up the day before, so I rolled it out and cut it like this to make it fancy.  I made it a kind of bread braid.  Normally I just roll it out, place the filling inside and then fold it over, pinching the edges.  I also do an egg wash on it so it's pretty!

 

Maddy and Meri ran it out to bake out at Ada's while I wrapped up everything else and headed out ourselves.

Have you ever had a "Blooming Onion".  The calzone turned out like that.  I should NEVER attempt to be "fancy" without trying it out on my family first...  Live and learn!  The little braid straps opened up and it looked like road kill.  

 

My pastor loved it however and told me to give his wife the recipe.  As soon as I told her it was a can, she laughed and said FIGURES.  As bad as it looked, it mostly got eaten up...

That night the girls and Leon had a sleepover in Meri's room and they were all asleep by 9pm.  

What a long day!  Sluggy would have died.