Fourth of July

The exhausting but every entertaining Fourth of July has come to an end.  I must admit, I'm glad.  It has been marvelous, as you will see from the pictures, but we are all tired and need to recoup.  Our festive activities began early, of course.  From the early morning of the third until the last night of the fourth, it was go, go, go with nary a pause between.

I really like to go and see the balloons being inflated and taking off from Fox Field.  Kent, not so much.  When I suggested we get up to go see them, Kent said, "You want to wake the kids up to go see balloons?"  Welllllll . . . yes.  He wouldn't hear of it.  But Thursday morning, the third, Brandt woke up at 6:15, so I said, "Get dressed quick and you and I can go see balloons."

By the time we drove down to the field, found a parking spot and got to the field, the last of the balloons were taking off.  We had missed all the inflation, which I think is the best part.  By a stroke of luck, however, we ran into Makenna and Luke who were going to be balloon chasing with some neighbors.  All those thousands of people at the field as we walked right up to them.

Blythe had a birthday party the afternoon of the third, and Brandt has been desperate to work at Uncle Christopher's fireworks stand.  So while I was without children, I went birthday shopping for Brandt, and ran a couple of errands to prepare for tomorrow's activities.  I picked up Brandt just before my last errand at Macey's, and the Mini suddenly quit shifting.  I rolled into a parking stall and had to call Kent to come get us.  The BMW doesn't have any air conditioning at the moment, so we are sort of in a bad spot automotively.

Little boys who really, really, really like fireworks.

Brandt was excited to take people's money, too.

Gail Halvorsen, the Candy Bomber, was doing a fly-by over Scera Park that afternoon, too, and we thought it would be cool to go see the plane fly over and watch the candy drop.  We prepped the children for the bitter disappointment that they wouldn't get free candy dropped from an airplane, but said it would still be pretty cool to go watch.  We weren't the only ones in greater Utah Valley who through the same.  There must have been 50,000 people in the park and surrounding area.  It was an absolute zoo.  We stayed briefly to watch the fly-by, then left before the mad onslaught so we could get home.  We were quick.  Eugene and Sharae went too, and it took them 45 minutes to get out of the jam and on their way home.  We did see candy being dropped, way far away from us.  It was hot and Blythe complained from the moment we arrived for the full 13.5 minutes we were there.

 

Do they look hot and miserable?

They were.

Crowd of thousands.

 To cool off after all that heat, we went to open neighborhood swim at the Cutler's pool.  We swam with the Drakes, some of our very most favoritest people, and stumbled home for dinner after nearly two hours in the water.  We had a bit of dinner, and then we went to the neighborhood Cul-de-sac of Fire, hosted by the Phillips.  Most all of the neighborhood was there, with lots of treats, music, and lots and lots of fireworks.  Now, there weren't lots and lots of fireworks like at Christopher's Cul-de-sac of Fire, but there were still a lot.  We visited with people, ate junk, danced a bit, and watched explosions.  Is there a better way to ring/explode in the Fourth?

We got home shortly after 10:00pm and got the children into bed.  Everyone was tired, but still wired enough that settling down was difficult.  It had been an early morning, an active day, and a late night, and we were going to do it all again the next day!

At 11:00pm, I picked up McKenzie Drake and in the company of several other women in the ward, went down to the Davis' business on Center Street to reserve parade spaces.  This is the third or fourth year in a row I've done that, from 11-3am, to insure that we have fantastically great seats for the parade.  This year, there were a couple of women with children and cots set up on the sidewalk in front of the house.  They weren't on the Davis' property, and they weren't on the mow strip where they couldn't be until 5:00am, and they technically weren't supposed to be on the sidewalk (that must be kept clear all the time), but they had been there for hours and were committed to staying.  McKenzie and I went looking for a policeman and clarification of the rule, and requested someone with authority come help "sort out" the situation.  Or, in other words, get them to move along.  We felt badly that they had invested so much time someplace they really couldn't be (the sidewalk), but hoped they were "early" enough to find someplace else.  It was all very awkward.  However, as soon as they left, we had a nice time visiting.  In addition to me and McKenzie, Mikayla with Cora, Elizabeth Elder, Angela Richards, Heather Helquist, and Maureen Ogles' daughters Liz and Becca came, insuring we all got the prime spots for the actual parade.  Mikayla, McKenzie and I played cards when everyone else left, and stumbled home for some sleep at 3:00am when the second (male) crew arrived.

Kent woke me at 9:15 to go to the parade.  The parade started at 9:00.  I was very frustrated in addition to being very tired, and as a result, I was grumpy all morning (and sort of all day).  We raced down to the parade and had missed lots of pre-parade stuff that's fun.  Fortunately, the kids didn't realize how much had already gone by and were very happy.  The Davis' always have snow cones and other treats, and Eugene and Sharae and their kids joined us.  In fact, they were there before us.  Everyone was there before us.  The coolest parts of the parade were Darth Vader and a huge group of clone troopers who marched by (why?), and the missionaries from the Provo and Orem Missions.  Blythe liked the beautiful young women on their floats, and I liked watching all the children watching the parade.

Think of the Star Wars music as you look at this picture.

How American is Darth Vader and a flag?

Saylor, Abbie, Blythe, Ellen, Shaylee, Ashlyn

Brandt getting a high-five from the missionaries.  

Blythe too.

Check out this cuteness! 

And more cuteness!

Blythe having her face painted by the darling Kiera Helquist.

My peeps watching the action.

Two not so cute pictures of the Johnsens. 

Too bad Guy wasn't cooperating.

Sorry Mik.

At the end of the parade, the BYU ROTC always comes by with George Q, the cannon.  The guy in charge singled Luke out and had him come and pull the chord to fire it.  How cool is that?!

We returned home from the parade and I launched into food production.  For our Fourth of July dinner at Mom's house, I made panzanella (yum!), caprese (yum!), guacamole (yum!) and two kinds of homemade ice cream, vanilla and raspberry lemonade sorbet (double yum!).  We gathered up swimming suits, bug spray, the picnic blanket and jackets, the camera and all that food, and headed over to spend the rest of the day at Mom's house.  We swam with cousins, ate all the delicious food I had brought plus a lot more others brought (no pictures--I was too busy eating), and then prepared for the Cul-de-sac of Fire.  

As usual, Christopher went all out for the fireworks show.  In a text message he said, "I am going to do the most amazing firework show in the history of the world.  This year's will be life changing.  You don't want to go to the Stadium of Fire.  Trust me."  The cul-de-sac filled up with hundreds of people (or so it seemed), all excited for the big show.  There were enough fireworks for five rather lengthy displays, and Brandt and the other little boys were all agog helping with preparations.  By the time the actual lighting off began, however, our kids were so tired, we only made it through two rounds.  Brandt went home with Kent on the scooter because Blythe said she wanted to stay, but within two minutes of them leaving, she wanted to go too.  I wasn't too disappointed because I had such a short night's sleep, and we were able to miss all the traffic after Stadium of Fire.  Turns out, it wasn't life changing for us.  However, lots of other people were delighted.  The grand finale was recorded and posted on Youtube.  It was 12 minutes long.  It was a wonderful Fourth, and I was happy to be with people I love.

Below is a view of the fireworks looking into and out of the garage.

That's really a lot of fireworks. 

There were some on the side of the house too. 

 

    

Turns out, that while the fireworks show wasn't life changing for us, it was for someone else.  Joe Glenn's backyard shed caught fire just before 5:00am and burned to the ground, taking three snowmobiles, his riding lawn mower, and several spare cans of gasoline.  That's a bit more excitement than most people need, but oddly enough, most of the cul-de-sac slept right through it.  It may mean the end of the Cul-de-sac of Fire as we know it.