Bloomington Fourth

Since my grandma's birthday is on the 4th of July, it's always fun to celebrate with her. And like I already said, it's more fun to celebrate in Paris where the crowds are tolerable. We went up on Sunday evening and spent the night with her. Jason & Shalee had gone the day before to play in the lake. Her house was sweltering when we got there. I hung out with Grams as long as I could stand, but then I just had to get some air. Unfortunately, right before I got out there Jason had ran through the bushes and stirred up the mosquitoes, so then it wasn't even fun to be outside. I survived the night and the next morning I took Grams to the Bear Lake Ranger's chuckwagon breakfast in Paris. We got there at the right time, when the line was still short, but after we ate we had to wait around for the rest of the gang to show up. By the time they got there the line had grown tremendously. That was ok, because it was nice to sit outside. It turned out to be a nice, cool day (with just a tad bit of rain).

Chloe was still feeling ill, so Brandon took her back to my grandma's house. He also took my grandma's hearing aide with him, so I had to borrow Lark's car to go get that before the program started. I got the hearing aide to her in time, but then I didn't get to attend the program or go decorate the float. I got assigned to sit out front and direct Jason when he got there. I called Jason to find out he had no plans of coming. Then I waited and waited for the program to end. When it was over I watched for Grams and Ross and Melanie to come out, but no sign of them. I went inside the tabernacle to look for them. They weren't there, so I headed over to the float. I was sure I'd find them on the way thinking Grams could not out-walk me. No, I didn't find them and I didn't find a float. It was missing. Oh, and I should probably mention that right at this time my phone battery died. So, I walked BACK to the tabernacle. Waited and waited, hoping I would see my husband drive by (who was on his way to the parade), or somebody. It was time for the parade to start, so I decided to start walking the direction I thought the parade was coming from -- and miraculously I found my husband! Yes, of all the people I knew he would come looking for me.

Now we just had to get to the start of the parade, find our float and hop on. But somehow they passed us without us noticing! So, now we had to try to run and catch up but this parade did not travel anywhere near as slow as the children's parade in Centerville did. Running, we could not get ahead. So, we just decided to wait for it to turn around and catch them on the return side. It actually worked! Brandon and I hopped on and finished the parade! But by the time we got on they were already out of candy to throw, so we didn't make any friends along the parade route, but it was great to watch Grams. She was pretty happy to be the star for the day!

After the parade we went back to Grams' for a late lunch and everyone hung out and played. My kids had some fireworks left over they wanted to do. I took lots of pictures and tucked them into a slideshow for anyone who'd like to view.