Friday the 20th was the big day for the Handcart Days. It was kind of a bummer to find out they were doing it the weekend BEFORE Pioneer Day, since we had been so happy that Nate had the actual holiday off this year. We decided that even without Daddy, and without the hopes of candy being thrown (I knew some people would come through for us and break the rules ;)), that it would still be worth going to the parade. So we took Nate to work around three, found a decent spot for our chairs next to the Library, and went home to get our snacks ready.
We had a pretty decent spot, we were able to move our chairs up to about the second row in a driveway that had to be blocked off for the parade. So that worked out to our advantage! I will have to look for that spot again. When we got there, even minutes after getting settled, the kids were already restless. Luckily they were doing some fun contests/questions up the street a little bit at one of the announcer towers, and they were able to head on up there to win some fun prizes!
They kept coming back with armloads of things. Stuffed animals (Charity caught an angry bird, Bradley caught a Beanie Baby Bear, Kelly caught a little teddy bear.... it was nuts!), different toys, frisbees, and even bouncy balls! LOTS OF THEM! So that was a lot of fun for them! I'm glad they got to do that part of the parade. I will have to remember that for next year as well :).
Then the parade got underway. We were still waiting for Heidi and John to show up, but they'd been stuck in traffic for most of the drive out there, so we new we would see them soon.
Erika had prepped herself, quite extensively, for the noise level of the firetrucks and ambulance. I was glad that she was on board even though it would require covering her ears. She knows how to have fun :)
They didn't have the policemen on motorcycles this year, they were super anal about the kids being on the curb this year, and a LOT of the floats and entries did not throw candy, but we still managed to have some fun :).
(and in this picture you can see the cranky lady that gave my poor girls a hard time through most of the parade about where they were standing. She sure had some nerve. My favorite part was when she yelled at Heidi though, for letting her kids stand in front of them :).)
When Heidi and John showed up, the kids were OVERjoyed! They shared the yummy sticky popcorn which says a lot :). I think Heidi and John had enough fun, but it sure was nice to have their company. I don't know what I would have done through that whole thing without them :).
This is Erika's favorite float :). She's been eyeballing it on 400 N for the past month or so, and always says, "You missed it, Mom! Princess Castle! Is Pretty!" So we had to get a picture of it ;)
This year we had a special treat in the parade, the Sons of Helaman March. It turned out to be pretty cool! This was probably the thing that made me want to go this year. And I think it was incentive to the bigger kids as well (once they heard the candy would be more sparse). They had 2000 (well, actually 2212, but who's counting) Young Men from Stakes here in Bountiful, who all dressed up in these "Stripling Warrior clothes" and carried their sticks as they marched. It sure was cool to see just how many people 200 really is!! Who knew! Gave me chills of course! I loved the thought that they were able to round all these boys up and that they were all willing to participate! It was a hot day, so it was a definite sacrifice! I kept hearing people talk about how they beat some kind of world record or something.... I'll have to look that up, but how cool would that be!
I held my camera up over my head to get a picture of them in the distance just to show how many boys it really was! CRAZY! Looks awesome.
They stopped periodically and yelled, "They did not doubt!" Pretty cool.
That was the end of the parade. We cleaned up our things, and headed back to the car. I was grateful for the extra hands in carrying things back to the car. It would have taken me a few trips on my own I think.
Took us a while to get out of the parking lot. We stopped at Little Caesar's for some dinner on the way home. We spent the rest of the evening letting Heidi and John entertain us ;). The kids were WIRED.
Heidi, the girls, and John (believe it or not) made up a dance and performed it for us as they went :). That was pretty fun and entertaining. The girls were in HEAVEN!! I wish I was more fun like that with them. But it was definitely a fun Aunt Heidi bonding moment :).
We decided to hit the carnival the next day so that Daddy could come with us. Nate got off work early so that we could have enough time to play :).
We always spend way too much money at those places, but seriously, it's just too fun not to. And all the yummy goodies they have there :). So fun. The kids all got a bunch of tickets (I lost count after the second trip to the ticket booth), and were able to choose rides and attractions. I got pictures of most of it, but of course missed some.
Charity, Luke and Noah all wanted to go on this little ferris wheel, that was cute. I was surprised that Noah wasn't too scared.
Then Luke and Noah tried out the swings. Luke was obsessed with the fact that Noah was in the baby swing :), he looked just like this, with his finger pointing at Noah, for the first few times around. It was hilarious for some reason. They seemed to have a good time.
Then Kelly sacrificed some of her tickets to go on the swings with Erika. Erika was so cute to smile when she saw me with the camera. She knew just what to do without me even asking ;). She seemed like she was on cloud 9! So cute!
Kelly was so fun with her too. It's so fun to watch our kids take full advantage of the large sibling-hood.
She even waved a few times too :)
We had some snow cones, nachos, scones, creamies, (not everyone had all of them, but between the eight of us we did client each booth at least once I think) bottles of water, and cotton candy. Some of the kids did the bouncy house obstacle course, and we all did the fish pond.
This was one of the things Bradley had been looking forward to for the entire afternoon. Luke consented to go at it with him. I couldn't believe how tough Luke was! He totally got his trash kicked, but he kept getting up and trying to lift up that heavy thing, and took SO many beatings! It was incredible how much he smiled and giggled through it all, WHILE getting wasted. We all got a good laugh ;).
I do think Luke got Brad a couple of times, pretty good, but overall, they were pretty unevenly matched, as you can see ;). Funny stuff.
And lastly, but certainly not least importantly, we stood in line for the bungee jumping! This is a favorite of our kids. This year Bradley and Lukey were brave enough to try it out! Luke was hilarious in line. The kid had really been on too many things to justify the 8 tickets to go on this, and I was trying to discourage him from thinking he would be able to, since I thought it was only fair that he not. But Nate was generous-er than me, and gave in ;). Luke was funny though, because he latched on to the idea that I was saying he was too small to go on it, instead of the whole ticket issue, and so every kid that got on that was his size or smaller, he would say, "He's doing it! and he's smaller than me!" or "He's six, and he can do it!" when his friend Hyrum went on it. Made me laugh because I told him several times that it wasn't his size that concerned me, it was how spoiled he had been all day :).
Nate went back and forth with Erika and Noah to get snow cones and water, and cotton candy while I stood in line with the big kids. It was probably a good hour there, in line before we were done. Kinda crazy in the hot sun. I was grateful for the rain clouds that joined us near the end.
Luke the amateur did pretty well for his first time! He struggled trying to flip himself over and never actually made it around for some reason. He can flip off the side of the couch, but not 10 feet up in the air strapped to bungee cords apparently. But he looked like he was having fun. My camera was on some strange setting I guess because MOST of the bungee pictures did not turn out as I had hoped. I'm not sure what happened there.
Here's Bradley taking his turn. He did really well! Lots and LOTS of flips and back flips. It was a lot of fun to watch him doing it. He was so proud of himself too ;). That was cute.
None of Kelly's pictures turned out for some reason. You can't see her cute face in any of them! BUMMER! But she was a pro this year too! Lots of flips, back flips, she did great!
I liked this one of her big fan cheering her on :). Erika insisted that she be inside the fence to watch her Kelly do it. So cute.
And as usual, Charity was a pro too. She did great! We counted a double flip during her turn I believe! Pretty cool stuff!! Seemed the whole crowd was cheering her on and hoping for a second double :). That was a lot of fun.
I really love carnivals, and taking the kids to them. They have so much fun. This year was tricky because of the heat. We were ALL just a teensy bit on the cranky side I think. But we did good at getting along and having fun I thought! It was definitely time to go home when it was over though! We were exhausted!
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