Riverboat Days 2007 is now over, and we had a very fun and busy weekend. Since the Yankton School District begins classes on Wednesday, most in the Yankton community consider this to be the last big summer event. That's rather sad since there's still more than a month before fall actually begins.

We started out the festivities in the late afternoon on Friday with Accalia and Cole participating in the kiddie parade where the Captain and Belle of Riverboat Days lead the kids a few blocks to the amphitheater at Riverside Park where the opening ceremonies take place. Accalia and Cole dressed as pirates since that was this year's theme, and here they are at home trying to look like mean pirates:


Here are a few pictures of Accalia and Cole walking the parade route:




Then we went home for supper. Ella and I were very excited to be home and eat turkey burgers:


After that we headed over to the mall parking lot so Accalia and Cole could ride a few rides at the little carnival that had also been here at the start of summer. After that we headed home for a little bit before the fireworks display. All three quickly went to sleep once we got home.

Saturday morning was the start of the big parade. It was a cool and rainy start for sure, but thankfully it didn't rain for the entire two hours. Here are a couple pictures as we waited for the parade to begin:



Accalia was getting a few shout outs from people in the parade, and she had this look of excitement and confusion each time someone called her name. Ella had her picture taken by a photographer from the newspaper, so we'll just have to see if it turns up in the paper. We came home with bags of candy.

We decided we were going to hang out at home in the afternoon rather than heading to the park like we've usually done after the parade. Accalia was dancing in the early evening, so we wanted her to have a chance to just relax and not be totally exhausted for the two hour performance. Accalia packed up a bag of coloring books and crayons to share with the seven other girls in her group, and she had a great time hanging out with them. Here's a picture of Accalia on stage from behind. Cory wanted to get a more panoramic shot of the audience, but there were too many dancers backstage for him to do that.


This morning we headed over to the park so the kids could do a few things like jump in the bouncie house and ride the train. Ella even wanted to do those things, which is quite a change from the start of summer when she was more interested in just watching. We had lunch there and wandered around for a bit. Accalia even had a wax mold of her hand made:


Accalia and Cole also posed for a picture at a mural that the owner and some of the students at the art studio she attends painted a few years ago:


On our way home, we stopped to look around the Excelsior Flour Mill in downtown Yankton, which had opened to the public this weekend after being closed for more than 50 years. There were a lot of things there about the steamboat history of Yankton, and it was really neat seeing the chalkstone walls.

We've spent the rest of the day just hanging out at home, with Ella taking a huge nap this afternoon and me catching up on laundry and dishes that I ignored yesterday. I'm feeling pretty rotten right now, and I think it's just a touch of mastitis. So I'm just taking it easy now and will hopefully wake up tomorrow feeling much, much better.

I had written in an earlier post that the kids and I would be heading to Mankato today to spend a few days with my parents and be there right away to welcome Heather's baby tomorrow. Plans changed, but we'll be going to Mankato over Labor Day weekend. This will be a really quiet week, I think, since all summer activities are over. Cory and I will be celebrating our 10th anniversary on Thursday, so that will probably be the biggest event.