what kind of parade is on april 18th?

this has been like the best saturday ever. well, in a long time anyway. not only was the weather nice, but we had just a great day overall. besides the temporary grumpiness that kendal awoke with (which is half-way normal these days), we all had baths, i polished my toenails, actually got to straighten my hair (with more than the brush and the hairdryer) - AND put on mascara! we packed our diaper bags and got all dressed up to go to our nieces' (twins) christening this morning. we left plenty early - but here was the only snag in our perfect day - on the way there, we got stuck in traffic. we weren't sure what the traffic was from, but roads were blocked by police and fire trucks. after a while, we saw a float go by - so, we assumed this was a parade. but there weren't any warning signs up the week before!?! and what in the world would a parade be for on april 18th? who knows. i found nothing online either. it may remain a mystery forever... anyway, after going into a near panic about being late, nathaniel thankfully put the pedal to the medal and we got from rolesville to durham in record time.

• (side note: rolesville is a town notorious for cops who will pull you for going 36 in a 35. my husband, who also thinks going 57 in a 55 zone is speeding, was going ~50 in a 35 zone in rolesville after leaving the parade site. he said "well, we know where all the cops are!")

we actually pulled into the church parking lot at 11:28 (the ceremony was at 11:30), and walked into the church and sat down as the priest welcomed everyone. WHEW! i so hate being late. (even when we left, nathaniel wanted to drive, and although we left early, i told him to not drive like an old man because i'd rather wait than be late!) so the ceremony was beautiful, i've never been to a christening/baptism before (yea, i'm raised in the south, most folks around here are NOT catholic - not to say there aren't lots of catholics, just not compared to baptist and methodist, etc.) it was so nice, though, all the babies did so great - it even had a flair of comedy thanks to jacqueline who was particularly curious about the baptism part - she reached for the water cup! (i'm sure the water cup has a special name, but i have no idea what it is.) the dresses were so pretty, not only for J&S, but also the other two babies that were baptised. after that, we went over to jon and shannon's house for lunch and drinks, kendal and sophie played while jacqueline and holly slept. it was great to see sophie - wish we had spent more time with jacqueline, and wish holly had spent more time with jon and shannon (it was the first time they'd met), but we had to get maggie at 2pm PLUS kendal had not taken a nap (his naptime is usually noon to 2pm). i could see that he has some moodiness coming on, so i thought he would sleep on the way home. (and if i could have foreseen the future, we would have gone back to J&S's house because we were having SUCH a good time there, neither of us grownups were 'ready' to leave... ) so in the car, kendal chatted the entire way home. when we got to my mom's house to drop off maggie, we quickly had mom take some pictures of us since we were all dressed up... at which point kendal went into melt down so i put him in her crib. he SCREAMED for about 15 minutes... until katelyn couldn't take it anymore so she got him out (it was about 3pm by then). he was hungry. he ate, and then we played and played until about 6:30. one of the games we play outside is "swat the bee". my parents have tons of those carpenter bees - i hate them. we have these lid thingys that we hit them with and then stomp them. we were all swatting and stomping... and kendal thought it was HILARIOUS!!! then we got a golf ball and bounced it on the patio, he thought that was funny too. he also thought rolling the ball down the slide (or sliding board as mom calls it) was funny. anyway, we had a great time. kendal went to sleep on the way home from my parents' house, then he went right to sleep in his crib after that. he was one tired boy! it is 8:45 now and nathaniel just fed holly and put her to bed. looks like i will probably be going to bed in the next 15 minutes! i stayed out too late last night!!! (reaping that tiredness today!)