July 16, 2017
Our first of many holidays here in Montana.
For the past few years we’ve spent the Fourth of July with our best friends back home. By a pool or on the lake, Ben and Jen were guaranteed to be decked out in complete red, white and blue.
This year we both had very different July Fouths. While we were here celebrating in Montana, Ben kept the tradition of being decked out in red, white and blue while running a 5k and they hung out by a pool…but they were also decorating and cleaning out a baby nursery!!!! (Just another change back home I am so sad to be missing!)
While they were enjoying their last Independence Day as a family of two, we headed to a small fishing town named Ennis for a Fourth of July parade.
I have always enjoyed parades. A bucket list item would be to go to NYC to watch the Macy’s Day Parade. Some years I want to stay in a hotel room over looking the parade. Other years I want to be right in the hussle and bustle where I can actually hear what is going on. Maybe one day I’ll have to be forced to make up my mind!
All the parades back home were similar. You have A LOT of church decorated floats, pickup trucks with their business name on it, tractor trailers advertising their businesses, pageant queens waving from the back of a convertible, fire trucks and a small group of Shriners. In the small town I was raised you could not even have horses in the parade. I’m assuming because of horse poop, the horses always came after Santa which just seemed odd. My favorite part of parades, though, have always been the bands and any dance groups. And there was almost always a high school who would be performing.
So we headed off to Ennis, population of 800 full-time residents, in hopes of seeing a great parade. And what we got was an enjoyable true small-town America parade. There was no band or dancers but it had its own unique qualities which made it wonderful.
But, my favorite part was watching Liam sit and clap as each float/horse/clown/car went by. Seeing things through the eyes of my two year old just warms my heart.
The parade itself lasted about thirty minutes so then it was off to discover the town…and find some food! With so many extra people in town it was hard to get in and out of many of the stores but we ended up at a food truck towards to the end of the downtown area and then made our way back up the street.
We headed out of town to a town I was super excited to see. After a big day already in the heat the boys were nearing the ‘cranky time of day’. I’d say nap time but a certain Dietrich boy has decided those are no longer for him. So we did a quick once-up, once-down of the street (with a stop at an ice cream parlor of course) and headed back to Bozeman for a rest and dinner/fireworks at a friends house.
