God Bless America

I have to be honest...I'm pretty patriotic. I love my country so much, to the point that every year I start tearing up when i see those fireworks light up the sky. I guess for me its more about the people who gave us our Independence. I think about the people who fought and died for the idea of freedom. I think about Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Lincoln, and all our service men and women. Enough about my gratitude...lets talk about what we have done this weekend.

On Friday I had the day off. So we decided that it would be fun to check out some of the events going on in the area. We first started out at "Ellis Island in the park" at Scera park. Nothing too interesting there.

Then we headed down to "Freedom Day" in Provo. This was actually really fun and a lot better organized than any other freedom days. Go Freedom fest! They had a children's area where all the attractions were free. They had a large blow up slide and a blow up obstacle course. Audrey loved both and refused to get off. It was pretty cute. Oh, and I got my hair cut. It pretty much rocks.

Then on Satruday morning we had the parade. I'm not going to go into too much detail about what happened but it was not awesome.

Every year mom volunteers for the parade and organizes the bands. AKA I volunteer every year too. I had to be up by 5:45 so that i could be ready at 6:30 so mom and I could be there at 6:45.

Provo High has a driving range and every year we use the range for the buses to drop the bands off. When mom and I arrived there were 12 cars parked in the range. Somehow they had gotten in and thought it was okay to park there. Stupid people! So we had to make an announcement at the balloon area and about 7 of the cars ended up coming and moving. Which was nice. But we called a tow truck to come and get the others but he never showed up so we had to deal with it.

Since the driving range is so small we have to have the bands come at a certain time so that we can accommodate every band. They can't be early and they can't be late. The first two bands who needed to be there were 20 minutes late. Other bands were 15 minutes early and one band...I don't want to name names but I am...Juab. unloaded everything in the driving range and left there bus sitting there for over 30 minutes blocking the exit for other buses to leave. I had told the director several times that the bus needed to move. But it never did. When they finally started to move it was too late. I had 6 buses on the street waiting to enter the driving range. again remember people started showing up early.

Another problem was that we have to have the bands come in from the south. AKA they have to turn right into the range I can't have them cross traffic to get into the range. Well NO ONE LISTENS TO DIRECTIONS. I had people coming from the wrong direction. And the buses couldn't get out of the range because they need the middle area of the road to turn right back onto the street. But the buses couldn't get out because 4 buses were in their way. We ended up having to get 2 cops to stop traffic so that the buses coming out of the range could loop to the wrong side of the street to get around the buses in the middle. I hope you can see the visual image. Then one band didn't even use a bus and came in 20 cars. 20! We can't accommodate 20 cars! Mom had even talked to the director the night before and told them they could only have 5 cars in the driving range. We still needed to get 3 more buses in and out of the range. The worst part about it was I tried to direct them on where to park. Again NO ONE LISTENS!


Congratulations Liahona Alumni band and Juab marching band you will not be marching in the 2010 Freedom Festival Parade.

Another problem...yes, another problem. Because of the limited amount of space we have Bands can only have ONE support vehicle accompany the band. You guessed it some of the bands decided to have a few more than one. I'm talking two or three. That did not help the jam.

After that everything went really well. Bands...except Juab...were moving when I asked them to. They were lined up at the right time. It was very very nice. Thank you everyone for being so great.

Then I walked to parade with Timpanogos.

After the parade I went home and took a nap. Yeah for 4th of July naps.

STADIUM OF FIRE! Awesome theme song by the way!

I love the Stadium of Fire! I love going to it and experiencing it. It one of my favorite things to do for the 4th of July.

Since mom is the chairperson for the Baby Contest she was able to get tickets to the reception before the concert. That's right ladies and gents I was in the same room as the Jonas brothers. about 20 feet away. HA HA aren't you jealous? I was also really close to Glenn Beck too. FYI he rocks. He entered the stage to the A.F. Band and a choir playing and singing "76 Trombones" And he was really acting too. He wasn't walking out half hearted he was really getting into it. It was a lot of fun and a great way to start the show. Patrick and I both agreed that this was one of the better thought out stadium of fires we've been to.

here are some awesome vidoes. If you watch one watch the 3rd one. It's the best.









I guess I should wrap this up. I really loved the flag burning ceremony. It was really really great. And yes i shed a tear or two for our beloved flag.

But there is one thing that I want to tel you about. which is related to the title of the post. When the show started it looked like it was going to start raining on us. But I kid you not the sky was clear above us practically all night. They ended up rushing the jonas brothers off the stage because they thought it was going to rain when the clouds started getting real close and they wanted to start the fire works. But once those fire works started the clouds cleared. It really was amazing. I couldn't see the moon all night and all of a sudden you could. You could see the stars and actually watch the rain clouds dissipate behind the fireworks. It really was beautiful. One of those tender mercies of god.

I really do love this country and am happy we can celebrate it's birthday every year.

Love,
Elizabeth, Patrick and Audrey