Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Well, my husband has red hair, so we decided that that was enough to classify us as Irish.  In order to celebrate our newly thought of heritage Sam and I started the day in downtown Huntsville at the St. Patrick's Day parade.  To my surprise there were quite a few people there.  When we first got there the fire trucks were blaring their sirens and the Shriners were tooting the insanely loud horns on their tiny little cars.  Let's just say that Sam was not a fan of these sounds and his face immediately balled up into a little red ball, the mouth flew open, and out spilled the sounds of horror.  My poor baby was terrified.  He has never clung on to me like he did during that parade.  As time passed he became more relaxed and even enjoyed parts of it.  It was an interesting parade to say the least.  The only parades I remember going to were in St. Louis, so they were a tad bigger.  I must say, however, that I appreciated the smaller town charm of this parade.  Let's just say that there was quite an eclectic mix of floats and parade participants!  For instance...

Irish dancers

The mascot for Huntsville's hockey team..."Chaos" maybe?

The Mayor

The St. Patrick's Day Parade Queen!

Irish punk bagpipe rock band.  Like I said, eclectic, but you haven't seen anything yet...

The recycle robot...a favorite of all the kids

John Deere tractors and street sweepers.

Well, of course there were pirates...what St. Patrick's Day parade would be complete without pirates?

And my personal favorite...the St. Patrick's Day Ghost Busters.  

I am pretty sure that this dog is the size of our cottage.  He was huge!  I don't think Sam understood that he was a dog!

When we got home from the parade we were very excited to see that Ty was home for the day.  We had such a special afternoon enjoying time together as a family!  We had a nice lunch together then headed to Big Spring Park which is just a few blocks from our house.  It is a wonderful place full of fish, ducks, trees, a pond, fountains, and many other fun things.  (It is also where Ty proposed.  Who knew that we would one day lie right down the street from that special spot!)  We went on that day in particular because the big fountain was died green for St. Patty's Day.  I would not say it was the most spectacular thing I had ever seen, but it was fun to look at the green fish!  While we were there we ran into our friend Chase who is a news anchor here in Huntsville...we even got on the news!  It was wonderful as always to see him and catch up on his exciting life!  

What, you can't tell that it's green?  Good thing it only cost $2,000! 

Sam and Chase 

I think he was telling us that he was feeling a bit exposed! 

That is one cute baby!

Outside is still his favorite place to be! 

Outside is even better when shared with Daddy! 

So incredibly thankful for the blessing of these two! 

After we were done at the park it was time to eat dinner...spaghetti for the first time! 

It wasn't quite dark yet when we were finished with dinner, so Sam and Ty walked over to the high school to watch a soccer match.  Sam clapped and cheered for the Huntsville boys! 

At the end of a long, fun day.  What precious times to cuddle with my sweet boy.