We had the privilege of going to the West Bountiful Independence Day celebration this Saturday. I have to give the long version, just for journaling purposes, but feel free to scroll through this post really quickly, it's not all that exciting :)
Nate had taken the car to the shop that morning because we were having problems with our brakes, so the only option for us (no carseats available) was to walk. We live at the top of 400 north and the Parade was going to be down at the bottom (and then some) on 800 West. It was a long walk for me. But I thought it would be worth it and since the kids were looking forward to it, I could bribe them (or threaten, whatever you wanna call it) all the way there. Things actually went really well, most of the way! Bradley did manage to get a cramp in his side within the first 3 minutes of the walk (not kidding, we were like 7 houses away from home), but with some deep breathing we were able to distract him long enough for it to go away. He actually asked me after a while of deep breathing, "Mom, can I stop breathing now?" Cute. So anyway. Time was going faster than I had thought and I wondered if we were going to make it to the parade in time, so I troubled my sweet little brother with the task of picking up our car for us. (Since it was now done) And he so graciously agreed to it, picked up our car and then came and found us. We were all the way down past 200 West. Which to me is just miraculous!! I never would have thought we could walk that far. And Steve tells me that we did that in a matter of only 1/2 hour!!! Impressive! I think it was actually 45 minutes though, but either way. I was pretty proud of us. And even though we rode the rest of the way there, I kept telling the kids how amazing they were!! That is a killer hill!!! Maybe I'm just a wuss, but I do not like that hill and walking mixed! So anyway. We made it to the parade. Grandma Hatch had all the chairs set up and treats and such. The kids were so excited! Heidi and her friend came and Steve was of course there. He tried to pretend like he doesn't like parades, but you could just see his eyes light up when he saw all the West Bountiful police driving by..... he felt right at home :) LOL jk. I do have to say that this parade will go down in the books for me for two reasons: 1) because there was absolutely NO noise for the first like 5 entries. I felt like I needed to whisper. Luckily it livened up. It was slightly disappointing (for me only, the kids totally benefitted) that there were no sirens played by ANY of the emergency vehicles. I love that part of parades!!! and the other reason is because of how much candy my children acquired in a matter of what, a half hour!!! It's like Halloween on fast forward!! I think they had more candy than they did at Halloween actually. It was 99% salt water taffy, but like they care. There were not too many people there, and my kids are pros at picking up candy that's being thrown at them.... Charity actually caught one in her hand!! Pretty impressive. Even Noah got into the candy thing. Funny how we spend so much time teaching our kids not to go in the road and not to eat anything they find on the floor and then go to a parade and suddenly all of those rules are out the window!! Gonna have to do some damage control on Noah.... he was just barely getting the stay out of the road thing. But he was super cute with the candy. He could only hold about 4 pieces in his hands at once so I had to show him how to put it in the cup holder of the chair. He got it down pretty quickly and then would go take a break every couple of trips back to the chair and do his best to try to open the candy (I wasn't letting him eat any of it yet.... we still had a carnival to go to and taffy.....well..... it's messy on Noah). I think the parade was a big hit with us and we can't wait until the real Independence day to do it all over again :)
taking a break with his taffy
He would do his little bear crawling over to each piece....he even did some backing up, way cute!
If only you could see how much candy they got!! I think every Holiday has slowly turned into Halloween.
I LOVE this picture!! It's my new favorite! I just wish I hadn't stuck that eyeball sticker on him!!!! Anyone wanna photoshop it off for me? My program doesn't do that kind of stuff.
After the parade we headed on over to the carnival. We got there fairly early, so the lines for balloon art and face painting were relatively short (a must for the Maynes children) and once again these things were free! The kids found this little sprinkler thing and cooled off in it. Course when I say "cooled off" I mean GOT DRENCHED!! Luke was able to fall down on the way to the bathroom and pee his pants without anyone knowing it had happened! (I'm sure that sounds really disgusting, but.....well.....)
I have no idea when this sticker got put on Luke's forehead, or who did it, but it was hilarious!! He left it there ALL DAY!!! Even through all the water!
Here are our beloved Balloons. Charity's is a butterfly, Brad's was a fishing pole with a fish hanging from it (his popped shortly before we left the carnival, some punk kid grabbed it and pushed to the grass..... but I must say, I was somewhat relieved. And not just because I didn't have to carry it around anymore, but because of what it really looked like. It's probably just my potty brain, but it very much resembled..... well, this is a family blog, maybe I shouldn't say it. Either way, I felt weird holding it and I felt like people were staring). It was sad that it popped and if the line hadn't been so long, I probably would have let him go get another. Kelly's was a birdie, hooked to her shirt, how cute is that! Luke got a butterfly. These balloons were nice because most of them had a nice little hole for me to put my arm through and carry them while the kids went on the (EXPENSIVE) bouncy toys.
Then the face painting.... Kelly was having a bird day, she got a bird in a nest.
Charity's was just pretty eyes, WITH A JEWEL!!!! That was pretty exciting to Charity to pick out her own jewel. As much as I like to think she is like I was when I was her age (that's a mouthful) she really is a very girly little girl!
Brad's was a fish, of course... again with the theme.
and for some reason Lukey would not sit in the chair to get his face painted. The lady talked him into doing his dinosaur on his arm. Too bad I was taking the picture because apparently I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing.... the dinosaur is under the date. Go figure.
The bouncy toys were fun, but WAY over priced. I guess it was to make up for all the other free stuff.... who knows. They were able to go on 3 each (one time only) and then they played 2 of the REALLY lame games that they had to get really dorky prizes. I know I sound like a whiny baby, but you would agree with me had you been there! The rest of the carnival was SO much better!! I wish I hadn't had to waste my time and money on this part.
I gave in and let Charity do this bouncy toy, after a LOT of begging on her part, and it turned out to not be slippery enough, she practically ran through the whole thing. Seems safer for a post broken arm than just walking down the road :) lol.
We got some Cotton Candy, then went over to the little free kids crafts area where the kids did some fun paintings and got free flutes (the lady looked at me as though I was crazy when she saw us walk away with all 5 kids blowing on these very loud recorder-type "flutes") yeah, it was probably crazy, but only until we went over to the playground and they all either brought them to me (for me to hide of course) or dropped them in the sand. There. Fun without the consequences if you ask me. It was funny how badly they wanted to go on the playground. We were at one of their favorite parks, so we of course had to, but it was funny how in the end I asked Kelly what her favorite thing at the carnival was, and she said, "The MONKEY BARS!!!" Love it. Kids are so easily pleased. Even when we're trying so hard :) They were pretty tired after the carnival and fell asleep on the way to pick up Nate. If only he could have joined us. It was a lot of fun. We skipped out on the concert and fireworks that night though.... luckily there's still this weekend :)
