Freedom Parade!

Provo City has a fantastic Freedom Festival every year.

The 4th of July parade is a family favorite.

My Grandma and her late husband used to reserve spots on the route every year. The rules for saving spots have changed, and now that my grandma is without her husband she can't hold up any spots for the family.

My sister Staci and I have done it for the past three years (with Robert joining the last two).

This year my cousin Kim came as well.

This is how it works:

Mid-afternoon we scope out a spot, and ask the home/land owners if we can camp out on their lawn for the night.

Assuming all goes well, the nice owners will say yes and we'll set up a tent and some chairs to claim our space.

We play games, watch as more people come to reserve spots and think of fight plans in case crazed parade people try to take our spots. (This happened last year... terrible experience!)

We eventually get into our sleeping bags for bed around 11. (Except Staci who is so nervous all night about people stealing our spot that she peeks out of the tent windows all night.)

The 4AM alarm wakes us up and we watch as people walk/drive up and down the street looking for a sweet spot.

We get anxious!

4:30AM we get up and prepare for the great move from private property to public curb.

We pray for no crazy people.

4:45AM spectators down the street make a run for their public spot of land.

The massive move of people from private to public land begins.

Cops patrolling tell the 100's of people to move back to private property and to wait for 15 more minutes....

We jokingly threaten all vehicles who slow down and/or stop on our spot; cops make them move (because you can't park on the curb till 5AM)

4:55AM people get too nervous and begin the move once again.

Cops can't stop us now!!!

We claim our sweet spot.

We fall back asleep-and freeze.

7AM Grandma and mom and aunt wake us up with McDonald's breakfast. :)

Then for the next 2 hours family show up, streets totally fill out and close off.

9AM the parade starts. :)

And this year, my poor nephew got sick and threw up in the public garbage can. 

We are still trying to recover from loss of sleep. :) But it's worth it and so fun for all of us and my special, wonderful Grandma.

Happy Independence Day (a day late :D)