The Fourth of July is a fun holiday for our family. Over the years we've developed the tradition of going to the Freedom Festival parade in Provo. I don't know why we like the parade so much - perhaps it's because Nancy and I got engaged after going to the parade together back in 1994. Whatever the reason, each year we pile in the car and head for Provo.

Emily, Anne, and Caroline along the parade route

Last year we convinced Lori to go with us but it ended up being really hot and we had to park a mile away.  This year we wrangled Grandpa Kent and Grandma Connie into the mix and were able to come up with a much better plan.  Grandpa Kent and I left around 6:00 in the morning and drove down to Provo with the goal of getting a good parking space and a nice shady spot.  When we arrived there were already hundreds of people camping along the parade route with the prime spots reserved by a variety of chairs, ropes, blankets, and other paraphernalia.  We just pretended like we couldn't see the ropes and staked out our blankets where we thought we would get maximum shade protection.  Grandpa Kent went for a run while I held down the fort. After a couple of hours Grandma Connie came down with Nancy and the girls and we were able to direct them via cell phone to a prime parking location that Grandpa Kent had paid a couple of bucks to some kids to reserve for us.  It turns out that we couldn't have picked a better location for people watching, parade watching, and shade.

 
Emily and Anne enjoy the shade

The Freedom Festival Parade is still somewhat of a small-town parade which, in my opinion, adds to its charm. In an attempt to upgrade the parade a bit the organizers have come up with what they call the "pre-parade". This is a chance for all of the groups like the "Sunshine Singing Group" and "Suzie's Dance School" and random clown or two to march down the parade route before the official parade begins. Generally the entries consist of a pickup truck with a set of drums in the back either pulling a flatbed trailer onto which the singing group is crammed or hauling a trailer full of speakers that blare the canned music out so the dancers can dance to it. Man, you gotta love the pre-parade.

Caroline in the shade. We were smart to bring sippy cups.

I think most of us enjoy people watching more than we enjoy parade watching. If you're a people watcher then a parade is an excellent place to practice your trade. One of my favorites was a "vendor" (actually a poor, Mormony, Utah County, married BYU student - you know the type) who came along selling "Navajo Fry Bread". He had it in a big cardboard box under a bunch of paper towels. Never have I seen greasier looking fare. He walked up one side of the route and down the other and nobody that I saw was interested in sampling greasy fry bread. My other favorites were the Zoobies mooning and holding hands like Nancy and I used to do (and sometimes still do), the high school cheerleaders who were each trying to outdo each other in prancing around and letting people know that, yes, they were indeed cheerleaders, and the "parade officials" on ATVs who zoomed up and down the parade routes with walkie-talkies doing their best to look important.

 
Emily tries out Buddy's stroller

After the parade we met for lunch at the Orem Prestwich Farms restaurant. Prestwich Farms has traditionally been a Marie-Callendar type of place but when we got there we were surprised to find out that it had been bought by an Asian family and was now trying to convert to a Marie-Callendar type place with an Asian noodle shop on the side. Judging by the lack of people there for lunch I would speculate that the combination of Marie-Callendar type food and Asian noodle shop won't go over very well with the good folks of Utah County.

All in all it was a fun and traditional Fourth of July for us. Hopefully we'll be able to weasel someone else into going to the parade with us next year. The extra babysitters for the kids as well as the ability to take two cars and execute a precision shade-locating plan make all the difference.