Phew! What a weekend! I am totally exhausted from the fantastic weekend we had celebrating the birth of our country. Man, Utah sure does know how to celebrate their patriotic holidays, I'll give them that one. Our festivities started off on Saturday, where we woke up super early to go pick up our Bountiful Basket and head off the farmers market to buy some potted basil.
After all that shopping around food, we decided we were pretty dang hungry so we stopped by that new place across from JDawgs called the Awful Waffle. The people who opened the restaurant are in our ward, so we thought we ought to test it out, just to be fair.
Owen ordered his Belgian waffle with kiwi, blueberries, syrup and whipped cream, whereas I got strawberries, Nutella, whipped cream and Oreos on mine. For some reason the server thought that Owen was the one who ordered the chocolate-y one...no idea what that was supposed to mean. Anyways, they were pretty dang good, I had no idea Belgian waffles were so thick and filling! But if we were to go there again, we would probably bring our own syrup (overpriced and they hardly give you any) and our own milk (it was $1.50 for one measly cup! That's like the same price as a freaking gallon, and you definitely need some milk to wash these babies down).
Then we went to the library, got library cards, and checked out some books, which we decided wasn't exciting enough to take pictures of. THEN, we got ready for STADIUM OF FIRE! WOOO! The awesome evening all started out with dinner provided by Owen's work, Qualtrics. Qualtrics totally rocks. We had JDawgs for dinner, which were soooooo good. We decided to photograph me eating it as physical proof that I have indeed consumed a hot dog in my life and actually enjoyed it. I don't know what they do to their dawgs, but man, there is nothing like it.
After dinner, we headed to the stadium and took our seats. Yeah baby, on the field. It was awesome to be on BYU's football field. The grass is quite soft, and the view of the stage was fantastic.
Yay for Qualtrics sponsoring this awesome event so we can go for free!
And guess who the heck was there? My sophomore roommate, Kierea! Random and awesome!
It was pretty dang hot so we decided to keep ourselves cool in the best and most delicious way possible.
During the opening, one of founders of Qualtrics, Ryan, gave a little speech and we all cheered super loud for the coolest company of all time.
They had these super crazy parachute flying men who came RIGHT OVER OUR HEADS! It was so scary and cool! I was freaking out so much I could barely get a picture, but I did. Thank goodness.
David Archuleta was our favorite part of the show! He was so cute and nervous and awkward up there on the stage--it was great. He has such a wonderful voice, and they even showed a little clip of when he was 12 singing the national anthem at the Stadium of Fire. It was so cute, I about died.
Loved his songs, his voice, his awkward comments between songs. Fantastic.
Then Brad Paisley took the stage. I think that we would have really loved the show a whole lot more if we were even slightly into country music, but we still liked it for what it was worth. We just couldn't help mentioning to each other how the end of every single country song sounds the same and how it was kind of weird that he was singing about fishing and water but everyone else seemed to enjoy it a ton so we clapped and tried to sing along just like everyone else.
I really felt like I should have been wearing a cowboy hat. That's all.
Then the fireworks began! I've never shot fireworks before, so you'll have to excuse my amateur shots, plus I didn't have a tripod, but I think some of them turned out kind of fun!
Oh my goodness, the Stadium really is on Fire!!!
Then, on Sunday evening, we decided like crazy people to camp out on University in order to secure a spot for the parade. We totally scored and got an awesome place right under this huge leafy tree that would provide tons of shade and on the corner of a not very busy street. We set up our tent and had Owen's sister with us so we played some games and then around 11 foolishly tried to get some sleep. HA! What were we thinking? It was like a huge party all night long, and I never want to hear a motorcycle drive by me again. I'm pretty sure I got a grand total of 20 minutes of sleep and 3 good bruises from sleeping out there, but at least we had an awesome view of the parade. I was debating setting my alarm early so we could go and see the hot air balloon races, but we were up at 5 anyway because everyone was so loud, so there was no debate necessary. We started walking over to the balloon area and accidentally sort of walked through where they were setting up for the parade...oops. We got to see the Qualtrics banner though--yay!
And the gigantic Scooby Doo float, which was pretty sweet.
The hot air balloons were so huge and awesome--I couldn't believe how many people were there so early to see them though. Utah County people are insane!!!
They had a Darth Vader balloon. It was from Belgium. 'Nuff said.
Then the balloons started falling over on people because of the wind, so we decided to kick it out of there. The giant Darth and giant pig almost squished us!
Walking back we saw all the sweet cars that we going to be in the parade, including this one which was going to carry BYU's president, oh yeah.
And then.....my camera died. Boo! I was so mad! But the parade was still totally fun, and then we got to spend the rest of the day with Owen's family, I got a 3-hour much needed nap, and I got to laugh as they all were so delighted and surprised to see how cool aerial fireworks are now that they're legal in Utah. All in all, I would say that this was definitely the most extended and probably most awesome celebration of the 4th yet!
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