King Mango Strut Parade.

A couple of weeks ago Lily bought a form home from school requesting permission to participate in a parade. It was not a school involved parade but a parade that her art teacher has been putting on for the past 25 years. It coincided with the Miami ING marathon which her P.E. teacher wanted her to participate in.

I said I would talk to Jacob but ultimately the final decision would be hers if Daddy was OK with it all. Daddy was fine with either and she chose the parade.

This morning at 10.30 we met down a side street with her teacher and other parents and kids. There was a huge VW car show going on and apparently this year the King Mango Parade was going to be a flash parade and the group was going to just start parading down the street. You can read about the parade here

Lily was part of the, "Next BP Oil Slick". She loved it. Even Rosie got in on the action as she was chosen to sport a sign that read, "I put the piano on the island". Perhaps by chance you have not heard about the grand piano that showed up on a sandbar in Biscayne Bay, in which case you can read about it here. ( the first search I did showed a paper from Ontario, which is why you may have heard about it because it has been all over the news with people claiming "they did it")

Jacob was asked to carry the sign along with another dad to introduce the oil slick and I pushed Rosie in her pushchair. I have never seen so many camera lenses and T.V news crews direct cameras at us before. If I saw them aiming at us I dodged and left Rosie in the spotlight.....it was her, after all, that did it! We had so much fun and both kids loved it. Jacob and Lily made the news this evening much to Lily's delight. Rosie and I dodged that one but were interviewed by the newspaper and I gave permission for her photo to be in it so tomorrow it might be her turn.

These ladies were form the South Miami Farmers Market and I loved their "corny" signs

Miss B.P. covered in oil and tar.
Little Barack Obama
Lily, centre, in her oil slick
The perp.

Jacob with Lily giving a goofy grin over the top of the sign

Meeting King Mango
A juggler
Getting the slick ready

About 20 minutes before we were due to leave I had this hairbrain idea to make a picnic that we could eat in a park, any park, somewhere, after the parade. That my friends proved to be a stellar idea. We ate at Kennedy Park in Coconut Grove and then walked down to the Bay. It was gorgeous, absolutely glorious in fact.

Lily by the bay

Silly girls. Look at the colour of the sky, is it not beautiful?
Way to much of a zoom for my little camera but this was the view during lunch
Freaky, that just looks like it hurts
Another view on our walk around the park

I kill all plants so I was amazed to see this little shrubby thing growing quite happily out of a piece of coral

Lily and Rosie were throwing stones into the water and then Lily found some coconuts...they made a bigger splash and got the biggest giggle out of Rosie
Waiting for Daddy to hand them some throwing stones.


It was a perfect day and the end to a perfect weekend. The last weekend I will ever have with a 3yr old child. Gulp.