Sallying Forth

illyaa's office closed early on Thursday, so we went out for the afternoon to see Wall E. The kids rode bikes and we walked to the theatre; it's about a mile or a mile and a quarter from our house. There were a couple of harsh words with the kids when they didn't obey the rules about crossing streets and driveways, mostly on the way back. :( WallE was extremely fun. I liked that the large portions of the movie were almost completely without dialog, with only a little exposition in spoken form for the first part. I've always liked stories told with little or no dialog; they seem more pure. Dialog is spin. ;-)

Yesterday morning we went to Ann Arbor's Independence Day Parade. We were running a little late, but got a spot at the corner of William and Main, which is late in the parade route. This was on purpose, to minimize the candy haul for the kids. There were (as expected) a lot of politicians. We especially cheered for the Ring of Steel folks, and the Juggling Arts Club, as well as the Young People's Theater. There was discussion on ArborParents (a email list I am on) of getting an ArborParents group to march in the parade in the future. I would totally enjoy that, so I hope it happens.

We chilled out for the afternoon. I fielded a visit to the door of a Republican candidate looking for the previous owner of the house. We bought this house nearly 14 years ago, so his info was rather out of date. I set him a little straight, politely.

Later, we packed a picnic supper and headed out to Kensington Metro Park for the evening. We ate sandwiches and strawberries and played Mama Mia (M almost understood it I think; it's a really difficult game...but S won) until it got too dark. S rolled down the grassy hill, wrapped in her blanket. It was a little chilly. Then we settled in for the fireworks, which started at 10:10 pm EDT. It was a very nice show. (Note to sorcycat, this is fairly close to your place, so a joint picnic in the future might be fun.) Like last year's venture out to Hudson Mills on July 3, the girls were asleep pretty quickly after we got to the car. We got home right before midnight.