Becker Freedom Days

After seven years of living in Becker it feels great to attend events and really feel like you are a part of the community. I know I would have never chosen Becker as a place I would love to live way back when, but it has become a wonderful little town to have a home, a family and build lasting roots in.
That being said, we all had a great time celebrating our community on Saturday. The celebration is definitely small in scale, but a great deal of fun. We started off with a parade and then made our way up town for great food, conversations with lots of students/parents and activities for Anthony. Later that night we spent time with our neighbors and got to know who we live by a bit better. (It's pretty sad that July marks our fifth year of living on Balsam and we really don't know anyone very well on our street.) We ended the evening with some drinks (chocolate martini - whew!) and fireworks.
It really was a beautiful, fun day.

Who knew that a Spiderman bucket could do double duty as a helmet and collector of candy?!

Anthony was beyond excited and kept asking when the parade would start. It ended up being a L-O-N-G wait for the little boy who likes to always get up before 6:00am.
FINALLY, right on time, the procession started.

The usual line-up of tractors.
This year Anthony waved at everyone that went by and even ventured out to get some candy. That was a huge improvement from parades of previous years.

Llamas?
Interesting.

We were visited by a group of former and future students, which was a lot of fun. It was another reminder just how much I love teaching and being around so many great kids.

Later A got to touch a snake. I stayed a respectful distance away and just took some photos. Yuck!

A's deep in concentration hoping his rat will win in the race.

The absolute highlight for Anthony was getting to ride a horse! He was very serious in every photo, but had a great time.

PS ---- There was no Michele Bachmann sighting at the parade this year.