The Memorial Day Parade in Danbury Was Spectacular

This year's Memorial Day Parade in Danbury had it all for me. There were bright colors, loud noises and happy people.

How can you have a parade without fire trucks? You cannot. There were tons of em, pretty sure all of the trucks in the local area were there so it was a damn good thing there was not a fire.

We had the Mayor of the great city of Danbury doing the parade waving. Here's a nice photo of him making some kids carry a 40' banner of his name for two hours in sweltering heat.

I thought about yelling out to him something like, "Catch me outside how bout dat!?" Sadly, I did not since almost everyone else was yelling things like, "MARK!" and "Hey Mark!"

Here's my oldest son Louis. I was told by his coach that he tipped his cap every thirty seconds for the entire parade.

In all the commotion of trying to make the parade in time and get the kids where they needed to be we forgot sun tan lotion. Naturally this meant my wife Erica ran out INTO the parade and attacked Louis with a hit of SPF.

It went on long enough for everyone to notice.

It was at the point he was actually trying to get away from her.

There's Liam. We went to Brewster together. He now coaches my son Louis on the Pippa's squad. God, I love this town.

There is my middle boy Chris in the front doing that face kids do in every photo.

Finally a wave from the utility man for the Nejame & Sons team.

My youngest son Lucas in the Green Bay Packers jersey pretending to not see/hear is family waving & cheering.

He saw us and everyone knows it. Why won't kids just let you properly embarrass them in front of their friends?

The Dominican club was out in full force.

Is it just me or is the woman on the left REALLY noticing that I am taking a lot of photos of her? She's onto me.

I've never seen one of these but I need one.

How bout this beautiful fire truck from Bethel? I spent a good portion of the day wondering whether all the hoses worked and could you actually use this to put out a fire? I think it all works, I gotta believe in something.

A local M.C. got in in the act.

All of the boys in blue looked sharp yesterday.

The star of the show for me was my baby girl Vida.

Her parade enthusiasm was the cutest thing I have ever seen.

The bag pipers were out. You can't miss those guys, they won't allow it. They bring the noise.

If you are wondering about this man's role in the parade, so were we. If I had to guess, I'd say he was not on the official list of participants.

Everyone who stepped out of their house knows what a beautiful day we had and it was particularly beautiful in Downtown Danbury. What a wonderful tradition and celebration.