Kylee and Sadie both had to be in the parade. All these years we have avoided the parade because it's so crowded and parking and driving are a pain. But they had to be there this year. And they both wanted to run in the 5K that morning. Because of the parade, we didn't have time for all our family games so we decided to do the games the day before. But then the afternoon on the 4th we did the big waterslide and 9 ball. So basically we just had two fun days.
I stayed with Sadie during the race and she ran so well! She stopped for a couple walk breaks and she got pretty miserable in the last mile, but se still ran hard and finished strong! She place 5th out of 31 in her age group of under 13 girls.
The parade was an interesting experience. It was both what I expected and still kind of fun. We ended up driving two cars to the 5K so Kylee could drive from there to where they had to meet her dance team at IFHS. I left my car where it was near the end of the parade thinking the girls would finish and could meet me there. I rode over to the high school to help Sadie with her hair and stuff. Then I walked the streets to find a decent spot to watch and I sat and waited for a very long time. The good part it is was beautiful weather. But it did take forever. And the floats in the parade were really not that special. It was mostly just the high school organizations like football, band, dance and cheer. There were a few businesses too. But there are SO MANY PEOPLE. Like every person in Idaho Falls. 500,000 people. It is crazy. Why do people do this every year? Why deal with finding parking, and waiting around for two hours, to watch a few floats? I could understand if your kid is in it. I'm not sure if you can see from these pictures, but it is just a huge crowd of people all the way down the street. Look at the third picture and look all along the road.
The girls float was one of the last ones so I had to wait forever. Then I walked along with them trying to get a picture of Sadie, or a video of Kylee's group doing their routine. I was not very successful with either. But I made it to my car. I felt very conspicuous walking in front of 10,000 people though. It's fine. But the girls didn't get to stop at my car. They kept going for a few more blocks so I ended up just driving to where they were supposed to be picked up and it wasn't that bad. I didn't mind walking and I got out pretty quickly so that aspect was okay. But I still would not recommend this. I'm sure Sadie will have to go again next year. I might just go pick her up after.
We had fun doing more family time in the heat.
Afterwards, since we didn't have anything planned with the family (and my family didn't want to fight the crowds at the firework show that night) we planned a little BBQ with Sherri and Jen's families. We ate food and played yard games and it was fun.
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