BALLOON FESTIVAL

This was the craziest ambition of them all since the magazine said the balloons launch at 6:30 am. Mallerie was the only one even remotely interested and I was even on the fence till Matt didn’t seem to think I could do it. This made getting up 5:30 am seemingly easy on the morning of Saturday July 3rd. Mallerie bounced out of bed and we enjoyed the drive down the canyon. The lake looks different in those early morning hours. At the festival we learned that though the balloons were inflated they were going to be delayed by at least an hour if not indefinitely because of the wind. They kept sending up black tester balloons to see how fast they turned. The goal was to have them go up and up and up. We figured we had time to eat breakfast at McDonalds. They did have a Kiwanis Club all-you-can-eat breakfast going on but I couldn’t pass up a McGriddle when given the opportunity. Yes, McD’s was crowded but I was amazed at how clean the place was and everyone was so patient and smiling. I love those Provo crowds.

In the end we were able to see three balloons launch. They sailed immediately towards Salt Lake as predicted, but that’s not my problem now is it.

PATRIOTIC SERIVCE

As soon as I read that Steve Young would be the speaker at this year’s Patriotic Service during the Freedom Festival, I knew I could rope Matt in to going on Sunday June 27th. He had been working in SL that day so we planned to meet at the Marriott Center in Provo before it began at 7 pm. As I had suspected it was crowded so I parked the van at the Stadium parking lot. Katrina called Matt to see where to meet him. She relayed his instructions, “Portal E Row 133, and hurry, I feel like Elaine Benis trying to save seats.” Though it was a scorching day we booked it up the street to cross, up the stairs, round the Marriott Center to portal E and up more stairs to where we saw a very relaxed Matt sitting on the bench. Gasping and sweaty I asked, “Was it awkward turning people away?” “No, no one asked to sit here, I was just kidding.” What! I just ran in heels with a 1-year-old on my hip!

Though people continued to file in as the service began I took note of how still it was during the opening prayer. Even those in the isles were motionless. As the flag was brought into the dark arena with just a spotlight on it and the soldiers carrying it the reverence was almost palpable. We enjoyed the National Anthem sung by a black woman with her powerful voice and music by a live band and orchestra, which consisted of members of the military. Steve Young was warmly welcomed as you can imagine for his speech. He shared the spotlight with an injured soldier who was blinded in Afghanistan and is still going through extensive physical therapy. Three others of his group were killed during the explosion so he said he feels blessed to be alive even though he uses a cane now. You can imagine how tickled the Provo audience was to learn he had been married for just TWO days. This was the first stop on their honeymoon. He received the longest applause of the night as well as a standing ovation. From there the program turned musical with some of my favorite songs being sung including The Prayer. The violinist played exceptionally as well as did the soloist on the piccolo. By the end when Alex Boye from the MOTAB was singing Amazing Graze you couldn’t help but to be moved by the orchestra and band playing all together with bagpipes and symbols as well as the violinist and piccolist. You’d have to be a robot to not be moved.

The program got a little long for some of the kids. Mainly because we were so squished on the bench that we never cooled down. By the end it was just Katrina, Grayson, and myself. Grayson had only stayed behind because he had been lying on the floor UNDER the bench when Matt left with Callie and he hadn’t seen them leave.

As the three of us tried to find the others in the crowd of 15, 000 I heard, “Abby!” I turned to see Kei running towards us! She had a cell so she called Matt so we could hook up. She ditched her roommates so we could give her a ride home and we were able to visit and see where lives. What are the odds, I mean out of 15,000 people…

FREEDOM FESTIVAL 2010

Every year when I get Provo’s Freedom Festival Magazine in the mail I tell myself this is the year that I am going to do more of the activities. A few new ones I tried this year were:

CARILLON CONCERT 6/17/10

You know those bells you hear chiming on the hour at BYU? Well those are the Carillon Bells. I have heard them my entire life while over at my grandma’s house on Stadium Avenue. The same house we gather to watch the fireworks at on the 4th. I was able to round up some company by recruiting my mom and Eliza and her girls to go with me to the Carrillon Concert where Carrillonneurs play hymns, classical pieces, and Broadway tunes on the bells. We walked over from my grandmas house and I couldn’t stop commenting on what an ideal night it was. The air was the perfect temperature and sweetly fragrant. The kids mostly ran around during the concert portion and I’ll be the first to admit that after the first couple of songs they started to all sound the same. We joked that it would be an even better night if there weren’t that racket of the bells going on in the background. The walk back to Gran’s was just as enjoyable. I snapped a photo of Granny’s house as we approached. It looks so nestled from a distance. We ate dinner at Wendy’s afterwards. Game seven of the NBA finals was playing and crowds gathered around the flat screens for the final minutes. I can see why people gather in groups to watch sporting events. The poor guy working the drive-thru kept coming out and trying to watch as his headset would beep and he’d have dart into the back. We are Celtics fans ourselves so I knew Grayson who was watching with my dad would be disappointed at the loss. When I told him dad was cheering for the yellow team he switched sides real fast, “We won!”

Eliza kept calling the night a little slice of heaven and I have to agree it was simply delightful. You’d have to
be a real moron to have thought otherwise. I arrived home smiling and smelling of Provo.

The BUZZ about BRIGHTON

Mallerie’s summer fun was only getting under way with the fun parties she had had. Out of the blue came the opportunity for her to attend a Beehive camp at Brighton June 21st-25th. I got a call from a mom of her friend Morgan who really encouraged me to send Mallerie. Matt agreed, “How could we not?” The original plan was for me to drive them on Monday morning. I was told Brighton is just a hop and a skip through the mountains of Midway. I’m pretty unfamiliar with that terrain so I decided to give it a test run the week before. I followed the road exactly and was only forced to turn once when there was a gate blocking the road I was on. It was such a beautiful drive and I snapped a picture of the view high above the Heber Valley. I kept waiting for some sign that I was heading into Salt Lake County when instead I recognized exactly where I was, Main Street in Park City! Do you have any idea what a strange feeling it is to think you are heading in one direction only to realize you’ve been heading in a completely different direction? It was weird. I had the three youngest with me so I parked and we strolled Main Street for a bit. There really is nothing for me there I decided. Another lady ended up taking them on Monday so I gave her heads up that Guardsman Pass is closed and she took them to catch a bus at a Stake Center in Holiday. I picked them up the following Friday.

She had a ball! She said she never wanted it to end. She slept in a cabin, ate at a lodge, hiked, zip-lined, crafted, sang, all of it! I was so glad she was able to have this opportunity. Though she had only been gone just a week it seemed like she was gone forever! I teared up when she came off that bus sweaty and beaming.

We didn’t want to put our own fun on hold while she was gone and though it pained us to go without her we saw Toy Story 3 (it was probably me who was the most anxious). Out of any movie I feel like that is one my kids have grown up with. At different stages each of them have been a Woody and Buzz fan. We are now on our second Buzz Light-year doll and Woody’s head falls off when he’s played with, but he still gets lots of luvin.

Temple Trip and Shopping: For Pretend

We left Katrina in charge to go to the Provo Temple in June 6/22/10. As we pulled into the parking lot we knew something was fishy, there wasn’t a car in sight. The big dumpster in front of the temple jolted my memory and I remembered the letter that was read in Sacrament Meeting about the temple being closed but I had only remembered them saying July. I guess it’s through July. I called my mom to get the number to the Mt Timponogos temple. We were told that if we weren’t already there we wouldn’t get in because of the extra crowds. Hmm what to do? We went to the mall! We tried on some great jeans at Gap. We even pretended for a second that we were actually going to buy them before placing them back on the shelf. When we were leaving the mall that night Matt asked, “Are you disappointed you didn’t get the jeans?” I told him I wasn’t because I pretend to shop all the time. I put things on hold at stores, I ‘add to cart’ on line, I circle catalog pictures and dog-ear the pages. I just rarely pull the trigger.

SCHOOL IS OUT! 6/9/10

Grayson had a reader’s theatre towards the end of school. I loved watching Callie’s interaction with the kids. She was real socialble.

Mallerie had anxiously been awaiting the drawing for the scooter at the end of the year. Two people would have one of the gold slips drawn. Mallerie was confident that she had an excellent chance because being the golden girl that she is she had filled out a many gold slips. The morning of I wished her luck but saw it wasn’t enough as she sorely told the tale of three other names being drawn. “Three??” I asked. “Yeah, they accidentally took out two slips the second time and didn’t want to put one back so they are going to buy the third scooter over the weekend and give it to the person on Monday.” Someone got lucky I thought to myself. The following Monday she was called down the office and presented a pink scooter. Yes, right out of the clear blue sky. The administrator said that she felt badly because she had see Mallerie put SO many gold slips in the drawing and so she picked up one more scooter over the weekend for Mallerie to have. Yeah, this really happened. And there are 400 other 6th graders. Yeah.

I was telling Ava and Grayson how sad I was on the last day of school when I taught. I got so attached to the kids. I told them their teachers would be sad too. After school Grayson said his teacher didn’t seem sad at all, “She was just acting like it was a regular day: Pick up your backpacks!”

Ava’s teacher got engaged over Christmas break and has been planning a June wedding. I didn’t realize how soon it was after school got out. School got out on Wednesday and she was getting married in Arizona on Saturday. I asked Ava if her teacher seemed sad on the last day of school but Ava said, “No, she just kept randomly shouting out, FOUR DAYS!”

Since Mallerie could only invite a few people in her school class to her birthday party I suggested she invite all the girls over on the last day of school as well as the girls in Ava’s class. Ava still had a stack of her handwritten invites after school and said she had handed out invites to the people she wanted and didn’t want to hand out any more. She assured me that the other girls didn’t even know about it, which I hope is true. That was the whole point of inviting everyone. Besides having fun with some décor and picking up a party tray from Day’s there wasn’t much to do. Ava painted a sign for the porch HANG OUT! I suppose we had 15ish girls here or maybe 20. I never counted but there was a lot of going in and out and games being played outside. I had dropped Katrina earlier at a cookout party. I asked Matt what he wanted to like watching a movie. He said, “No, we’re the chaperones,” and he parked himself on the couch. I’m sure the girls were elated each time they came in for punch to see pops there with 20 questions.

Because we had been so observant at the party you can imagine our embarrassment at 10:30 pm when parents came to pick up 4-5 girls none of which were in sight! Mallerie and a couple girls were here though and said, “Oh, they all went on a walk with Katrina.” “Katrina who?” Matt asked in front of a parent whose child was missing. Mallerie was confused, “YOU’RE DAUGHTER.” We didn’t even know she was back. And now she had taken the party guests on a walk in the dark windy night right at the time the party was to end??? The girls and Katrina came up the street a short time later but I was left scratching my head. I simply can’t think of ALL the things to tell that girl. Not taking the guests would be one thing. The other thing would be to tell Katrina, “When you take Tupperware to school for your lunch, don’t leave it in your locker all year to grow all kinds of mold so that even after a trip through the dishwasher it still stinks.”

FATHER AND SON’S 6/4/10

Matt took the boys to the Father and Son’s campout at the beginning of June. He is discouraged that year after year they hold it at the same darn place, which has no facilities. He assumes that everyone leaves so early the morning after because they all need to use the bathroom. Graham is still not potty trained but Matt was glad that he didn’t have to change a diaper. Grayson however got up in the night and needed to …go. Matt let him out of the tent but he came back smelling badly. Matt assumed it was on Grays shoes so he put them outside the tent. In the morning when he it still smelled bad he discovered Gray had gotten “it” on the blanket. At breakfast when anyone would greet “good morning” to Matt and the boys Graham would immediately tattle, “Grayson poopindatent.” Grayson sat there mortified. Fortunately no one could make out what Graham was saying. I could hear Gray and Graham arguing when they got home and were in the tub, “Grayson, you poopindatent.” “No!” “Yeah!”