My Yellowstone Blog

My Yellowstone Blog

This is a collection of stories and pictures of my favorite family adventures in and around Yellowstone National Park.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

The Ocala Parade!

The first week we were here, we went down to Ocala, Florida to go see Auntie Em, Uncle Mark and our cousins, Lincoln and Olivia. They moved to Ocala 6 months ago from their house in St. Augustine. The night we got there, we went to the Ocala parade. Last year, 70,000 people were at the parade!! It was very busy when we were downtown. Aunt Carrie, Uncle Jeff and Charlotte came down too. It was really fun to watch all the floats go by. Matilda fell asleep halfway through it....even when the fire trucks drove by with their REALLY  loud sirens!! :)

Charlotte, waiting to go to the parade at Auntie Em and Uncle Mark's house.


Olivia seems like she doesn't know what a camera looks like. :)


Fiona and Olivia.


We all piled into the RV to drive downtown to the parade. Claustrophobic anyone? :)


Lincoln was my seat buddy. :)


Matilda, Mom, Fiona, Aunt Carrie and Charlotte sitting on the bench seat.


Olivia sat in Fiona's seat.


Uncle Jeff sat on his throne (the toilet). ;)



When we all piled out of the RV, they ran around the Church lawn near the parking lot.



Preston, Uncle Jeff and Bennett saw a huge monster truck!


Everybody waiting for the parade to start.


Charlotte was eating/smiling. :)


Let the parade begin...







Charlotte and Bennett.




Matilda slept through every loud noise!


Lincoln and Olivia watching the parade from their stroller.


We all spent the night at Auntie Em and Uncle Mark's house.


The next morning, Preston had an orange and made a face out of it!


Everybody eating breakfast.


Uncle Jeff and Charlotte in the front and Preston chasing them from behind. :)


Their yellow lab, Gertie watching all the action by the pool.



I thought he grew out of this years ago...



Luckily, there were no women outside during this event.....:)


Their black lab, Tuesday.


Lincoln, getting used to the cold pool water (once he gets in the water, he is like a fish!).


After everyone got dried off, they picked the oranges off the tree in the backyard.



Lincoln pulled as hard as he possibly could!



This orange was huge!!


Matilda and Olivia playing at the coffee table in the living room.


Olivia, Matilda and me.


We walked around downtown Ocala.




We stopped into this thrift store.



Uncle Mark works downtown at a seafood restaurant called Harry's, so we stopped by to say hi to him.



Uncle Mark treated us to lunch from Harry's and we took it to the RV. It was SO good!  Mom and Bennett loved the shrimp!


On the way home from Ocala, we passed an RV campground so we stopped because our sewage tank was getting full. We had no idea what we were doing when we got to the place where you dump it. We were laughing the whole time, because we had no clue how to attach any of the hoses, but we did manage to empty the sewage (if you haven't seen the movie RV, you have to watch it. It is sooo funny!!).


Duh!!


Dad, attaching the hoses.


When we got back in the RV, Tilly was climbing on the windshield! I wonder how she got up there....:)


We decided to take a different route on the way back home to Orange Park. So we went through the Ocala National Forest. There were a lot of trees! =)