Independence Day and Fires

I hope everyone had a wonderful Independence Day! We definitely had a good day together as a family. It was HOT, but we tried to make the best of it.

In all of our years in Provo we've never attended the big Freedom Festival Parade on Independence Day. I thought it would be fun to take Miles this year since he is old enough to appreciate the fun things in the parade like the Police on their motorcycles, the loud firetrucks spraying water to cool everyone off, the high school bands marching down the street, the horses walking fancy down the street, etc. We got there a tad bit too early so by the time the parade actually got to where we were, we were all sweating and about ready to die! We stuck it out as long as we could so Miles could see as many fun things as possible, but we ended up leaving long before the parade was over. So, we missed most of the floats, but we got to see all of the aforementioned fun things! I think Miles was in heaven when the firetrucks and the bands went by! He was so hot that he finally agreed to go home although I think he would've loved to stay longer.

Waiting for the parade to start

 

It was fun for Miles to see a real band. He loves instruments!

This video is for my dad although I'm not sure he looks at our blog. 

He used to Indian dance so I'm sure he can appreciate what these guys are going through. Neat to see!

Our annual family pic in our Old Navy shirts

After the parade we went home for a bit to cool off and to figure out what we wanted to do the rest of the day. Dave had to work that evening so there would be no fireworks in our future unfortunately. I really love to watch a good fireworks show, but since Miles has joined our family we haven't seen any. Hopefully next year he'll be old enough to stay up late enough and Dave will have the day off!

We spent the rest of the day driving around seeing sites we've never seen before and some we love to see over and over! We drove up to a lookout point over Jordanelle Reservoir and then drove up the Big Cottonwood Canyon. Both very beautiful places! Utah has a lot to offer in the scenery department for sure!

While driving around we also wanted to get a closer view of one of the fires that is burning relatively close to our home. Currently Utah has seven active fires burning across the state. The closest one to our house is the Quail Fire. It has burnt about 2,200 acres so far and is about 50% contained. This fire is approximately 20 to 30 minutes away from us. Our favorite canyon and favorite place to go camping (Alpine Loop) has been closed for the last several days due to this fire, but it has reopened today. Our air here in the valley has been filled with smoke for a few weeks now due to all of the fires burning around us. It is a crazy summer! We finally got some much needed rain yesterday and it only got in the high 60s which was a HUGE blessing and helped clean out the air for now. Several of these fires burning are human caused and that makes me so sad!

View from our mailbox

View from the Provo mall

View from the Orem mall