Canada Day Parade 2015....

Happy Birthday Canada!

We had visitors this Canada Day, Our friends Sarah and Seth came down from Beaumont to stay with us for a couple of days and joined us for our second Canmore Canada Day Parade. A whole bunch of the neighbours filled the back of Jess and Phil's truck with chairs and they very kindly made the 6am trip down to Main Street to bag us a spot. I was pretty happy that this year we managed to get set up on the shady side of the street as it turned out to be a bit of a scorcher. 

 The kids were super excited and just like last year the parade delivered! Marching bands galore, clowns, horses, cowboys, skaters and skiers and most exciting of all.....plenty of people throwing candy into the crowd. 

After all of us getting soaked last year by all the paraders with water squirters Seb was out for revenge and taking no chances he came armed with a pretty heavy duty water squirter of his own this year. He got some pretty good shots in when the fire truck went by! 

It was obviously Silas' first Canada Day and considering the heat, drums, bagpipes and horn blowing he was an absolute angel! In fact he seemed to love all the hustle and bustle.

After the parade we headed to Centennial Park to see the various other festivities but mostly just for the bouncy castle.  There was a battle of the marching bands and it was pretty cool to watch. Those guys are impressive! I don't know how they get so many people to move and play together with such synchronization and all of it whilst wearing a ton of dark coloured polyester on a hot, hot day! 

Sethy and Bel got to go on the little'uns bouncy castle while I lined up with Seb for the bigger kids castle. I swear we lined up for about 45 minutes for just a five minute bounce! Seb seemed to think it was worth it at least. 

We didn't make it out for the fireworks this year, it doesn't even get dusky until after 10pm and we had 4 very tired out kiddies on our hands by then. We did hear a few bangs at about 10.35pm while we were sat enjoying a nice cold cider in the evening breeze :) 

Canada day in Canmore....

We had such a good time celebrating Canada Day in Canmore! The town did a spectacular job with all the events and Neil and I remarked the whole day long on how everything was so well organized and clean and friendly. We started the day with a Pancake Breakfast in Centennial Park. It seemed as though the entire town came down to the park to snaffle their free pancakes and when I looked at the line up I thought we'd never get ours. To my surprise the pancake-making-ladies had the production line running like a well-oiled machine and they were producing pancakes at warp speed! Within 10 minutes of arriving we were sitting on our blanket in the sunshine enjoying our pancakes, sausage patties and syrup, they even gave us free coffee and juice for the kiddies! 

After breakfast in the park we ambled along to Main street soaking up the sunshine and blue skies. 

Main Street was bustling even an hour before the parade was due to start. Luckily our neighbours-in-the-know had been very thougtful and set out our chairs at 8am in a great parade-viewing spot. We were with a whole gang of four families from our street so we sat and chatted and sweltered in the heat until the parade began. 

The parade was fantastic! It's pretty hard to get a real sense of the atmosphere from the photos. There were about 6 or 7 different marching bands (so cool!) , a bagpipe group, flag twirlers, roller derby girls, skate skiers, stand-up paddle boarders, kayakers, Fire trucks, Mounties, clowns, Cowboy's and girls, squirt gunners (thank goodness! it was HOT!), endless candy throwers and so much more!

After the parade we headed back to the park for a party and some more fun. The kids played and jumped around on the bouncy castle while we watched the "battle of the marching bands".  By the time we headed home the kids were totally pooped! 

As it doesn't get dark until pretty late, the fireworks were scheduled to begin at 10.30pm. We put the kids to bed as normal and told them we'd wake them up for the fireworks. It was a good idea in theory but in reality Bel is like monster when she's tired (we call her Igor) and she was not happy to be dragged from her bed and plonked in the car in her PJ's. 

Rather than go all the way into town, we drove five minutes up the road to a spot where there's a really good view of Canmore. Apparently we weren't the only ones with this idea, there were literally hundreds of people all over the hill, some with chairs and drinks and picnics, and there we were with a couple of tired children in their PJ's :) 

As it turns out it was a beautiful place to be. The atmosphere was lovely (apart from Bel being stroppy) and we got to enjoy the last few moments of sunset over the rocky mountains then a pretty spectacular backdrop to a fabulous firework display! 

We were eaten to shreds by the mosquitoes but that seemed like a small price to pay to celebrate Canada's birthday :)