Mayday

After seeing photos of Mayday last year Brittany said she wanted to come up for it this year. Brittany and Jeff are going to be moving soon so I figured this would be the best chance for them to come visit.

Meadow was happy to have her cousin over to play.

Everyone loves Blueberry.

I thought his name was Blue Bear?

It always sounds like we say blueberry so I switched it over.

The two kiddos played with Meadow's recently expanded stuffed animal collection.

Brittany and Jeff had their wedding anniversary a few days before they arrived. I know they don't have anyone to babysit for them so I offered to watch Marina while they were here if they wanted to go out. When I got home from work they were already gone.

They had left me alone to watch the two rascals. Meadow took a long nap, so it was mostly watching Marina.

Brittany texted me requesting that Scott make cookies. He had just made some a few days prior. I didn't think he would want to make them again, but I guess any reason to make cookies is good enough for Scott.

That's true. I made peanut butter choclate chip cookies to change things up. I gave a third of them to our neighbors to thank them for checking on Peanut while we were gone.

Marina did really well with her parents being gone. She hardly cried at all. I think she preferred me over Scott though.

These were super crumbly, but delicious.

This year the parade was starting earlier at noon instead of one. We ended up sitting near the ever expanding punk float. This year they added a ferris wheel to the thing. 

I feel like I actually look more forward to the punk parade then the proper Mayday one.

I went back over to the Grease Pit to check out all of the freaks (in a good way).

The cousins played while waiting for the parade to start.

A little before the proper parade was starting the punks took off.

I guess they didn't want to get in the way this year.

The other cool thing besides people watching on Mayday is seeing all the custom-built bikes that Minneapolis has.

I can't believe some Minneapolitans haven't been to this. It's kind of like being from Milwaukee and not going to Summerfest.

Once the parade started the girls were in awe of the handmade puppets and people on stilts.

The parade was awesome as usual, though I wish they kept the spacing tighter.

It's always hard to tell what parts are going to be part of the ceremony.

This years festivities were centered upon bees.

Hippies, hippies and more hippies.

These little ants were excited to see the snacks Marina was eating.

I'm not sure how Cadillac Kolstad makes his way into the puppet section of the parade.

Meadow was getting bored.

Or sleepy.

I always like watching Las Aztecas.

Whenever the free speech portion of the parade starts we start heading to the park.

The people watching is so great.

Sometimes I wish we had bought a place in East Phillips. It's just as dangerous as our hood, but way more walkable.

We stopped at Taco Taxi for lunch before going all the way to the park.

Meadow lost her socks at some point.

By the time we finished lunch the parade was over and everyone was already heading to Powderhorn Park.

This year we thought we would sit on the other side of the hill. I was worried that since we were arriving with everyone else that we weren't going to get a good spot. Not as good as last years, but not too bad.

The south side is a pretty great place.

Meadow sat on my shoulder for some of the show, but was more interested in her snake.

After the ceremony we walked around the park looking for the free plants. They must not have been doing that this year as we couldn't find any. 

The girls fell asleep so we went home. I can't wait until next year when we can bike to the parade. We plan on staying all day instead of leaving after the ceremony.

We didn't really have dinner planned so I went to the 'burbs to pick up some sausage.

We had split pea, sausage and kale soup.

After dinner Marina had to go to bed.

The next morning we said goodbye to my sister and her family.