Pioneer Day Festivities!

This year we joined the madness called the Days of '47 parade! This parade is such a huge deal around here. To get a good spot you have to stake out your spot early, as in the evening before. Jaime had invited us to join her family in their annual tradition of camping out on the side of the road the night before the parade! I agreed, it sounded like fun. And I knew my kids would have fun with Jaime's kids. So we stocked up on snacks, water, and blankets! We met Jaime downtown about 9 p.m. My kids were so excited for this new adventure. I did worry a bit about crazies, but we had enough people in our group that we all watched out for each other! Of course, my kids, the early bed timers, were the last to go to sleep! Timothy didn't give up until about 1:30 a.m. after a very long stroller ride! Ugh. But it was still fine, I was prepared for a bedtime struggle. Leslie joined us at about midnight with her two oldest kids. We had such a blast. The kids played games, the adults played games, and we had good old fashioned conversation. Of course I didn't go to bed. I laid down for about an hour with Timothy when he was too cranky for anything else! Jaime and I walked a few blocks down to visit with some friends that we knew would be there also! What a riot! I love to people watch, so it was fun to walk and see the setup some people had.
In the morning, we moved our chairs and other stuff out to the street. The parade route boundary is painted with a green line. So we moved our stuff to the green line and spread out. After all, we couldn't be crowded! :) The hardest part was keeping Timothy off the parade route as the 10K runners ran past! I didn't want him to get trampled, but hey, at least we didn't have to worry about many cars. The street was closed at that point.
When we got home we all slept. I slept for about 3 hours. Then we headed off to my dad's house for dinner. We had a simple barbeque of hotdogs and hamburgers and some good old fashioned conversation there too! Yay. It is always so wonderful to get together with my family. My siblings are such a riot. I only wish all of us could have been there. But, we take what we can get! Another late night for the kids. Not quite as late as the night before, but they were so ready for bed. They slept easily that night.

Enjoy these few pictures from our adventure at the parade!