Longest. Fourth. Ever.

Yesterday morning I did something pretty unusual for me.  I got up at 5:15 (after going to bed at 1AM) and got dressed, then woke my family and made them get dressed too.  So that we could drive into Provo for the annual balloon festival. 

Sunday evening we ended up being up much later than expected and I reconsidered and told the kids that they didn’t have to get up and go with us, but they all said that they still wanted to go.  By 6:05 AM we were out the door, and by the time we were in Provo we could see that many MANY other families had had the same idea.  It was a lovely but slightly crazy way to start our 4th of July celebration.

We learned that the balloons are truly enormous, very loud, and beautiful on the inside.

The highlight of the balloon festival was the Darth Vadar balloon, all the way from Belgium.  Jared and his cousin Carter were pretty excited to see it.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to see it for long, because just as it was turning around towards us a few gusts of wind blew.  Turns out that hot air balloons and wing gusts aren’t compatible—all of the balloons collapsed within just a few minutes.  My brother said it was the most exciting ending to a balloon festival that he’s ever seen!

When we realized that the balloons were all done we joined the mob of thousands and walked back to our car.  We thought about going out to breakfast but so did all of the other balloon observers, so we ended up going back to Jeff’s where he made us a delicious breakfast. 

Then the rest of our day started.  (with no more pictures.)

At 9 we left Jeff’s.  We left Jared behind to play with his cousin, brought cousin Elaina, and drove to Genola.

At 10 we dropped Elaina and the girls off at my sister Andra’s house to play, dropped Jason off to pack, and picked up cousins John and Leigh Ann to drive to Ephraim for EFY.

At 11:15 we dropped Josh, John, and Leigh Ann off at EFY, then turned around and drove back to Genola.

At 12:30 we picked Jason and the girls up from Genola.

At 1:30 we dropped Elaina off at her house and picked up Jared and all of our luggage, then drove to the Salt Lake Airport.

At 2:30 we dropped Russ off at the airport for his trip home (sniff, sniff—we like it better when he’s here!) and drove to my sister Laila’s house.

At 3:00 we got to Laila’s and all of us took a nap.  Mine lasted an hour, but the little kids slept for over 2 hours and Jason was still awake when I woke him up to leave at 5:45! 

At 5:45 we packed back up and drove north to Idaho Falls, stopping only in Brigham City for some dinner.

At 9:00 we got to our friends’ house in Idaho Falls and hung out for a while watching their neighbors shoot off fireworks and eating homemade ice cream. 

At 9:45 we drove over by the river and found a nice place to watch fireworks.  In Idaho Falls the fireworks are set to music, and it is the largest fireworks display west of the Mississippi.  It was 30 minutes long, and so many beautiful fireworks.  We’d gone to a location that was supposed to keep us away from the bulk of the traffic, but that didn’t work very well once we started towards Cindy Lynn’s apartment in Rexburg.  It took us over 20 minutes to get the last few blocks out of town, and over an hour to get from Idaho Falls to Cindy Lynn’s apartment.  It was a very long drive and I was SO tired!

At 12:05 we arrived here.  I told the little kids to just sleep in their clothes, and I think I was in bed by 12:15. 

At 11:00 this morning I woke up—that’s how tired was was from such a long day!!!