Monday, July 4, 2016

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

Happy Independence Day, America!  We thought that we would be spending it in Utah, but we were too far down the standby list to make it yesterday, so we spent our first 4th of July in Dallas!  It was a bummer not to be able to see our family in Utah, but we ended up having a great day, starting with the Park Cities Parade.


In Provo, people are camping out the night before to secure their spot for the parade, and maybe it is like that for this parade, but there were bad thunder storms and pouring rain in the morning.  We showed up an hour early hoping to get a spot, and we were like the only people on the street.  Most people arrived five minutes before, and even at its peak, it was not very crowded.  No complaints from us!


It was a great parade.  Not quite as big as the Provo parade, but still WAY bigger than the little parade we would go to in Cordova.  Anything would be bigger than that parade, honestly.  There were lots of floats and a marching band came through.  Highland Park High School had a few different floats.  It seemed like each sports team had its own float.


They passed out bags for the kids to store their candy.  Emmy doesn't really eat candy, but we had a bag anyway.  We gathered a few pieces here and there.  Cory mostly wanted the Starburst.


Emmy especially liked when there were horses.


Two American beauties!


The end of the parade had some of the big guns come through.  I don't know why this civilian has this vehicle of war, but it was cool for the parade.


There was a cool plane, too, to advertise the Frontiers of Flight Museum that is only a few miles from our house.


When the parade ended, we walked to the end of the route for a festival at Goar Park.  They had a lot of different tents with free food, popsicles, a watermelon eating contest, live music, and firetrucks!


Emmy and Mommy shared a popsicle.


They also went to see the horses and their riders.  Emmy loved the horses, as long as she was a safe distance away.  She does not like being close enough to touch.


After we got home, I headed to the airport to pick up our luggage that accidentally got sent to Utah without us.  That meant we could wear what we planned on wearing!  Wardrobe change!  I think Emmy got even cuter!  We waited until evening and headed out to a fireworks show in Irving.


It was a huge crowd of people with music and food trucks.  There was also a nice man selling light up toys and glow sticks.  Emmy just stared at him until he took pity on her and gave her a glow stick necklace.


It was a fun place to hang out and wait until it got dark.


Once the fireworks started, Emmy was a little apprehensive.  We think she was just shocked, because she wasn't expecting them.  She got really clingy, and spent the rest of the show on my lap holding tightly to my hands.  The show was pretty great though, accompanied live by the Irving Symphony Orchestra.  The played a bunch of patriotic music, and the Star Wars theme song, which was random, but also very American.


I think our first Independence Day in Dallas was a huge success.

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