Friends, family, Summerfest, who do they think they are?

Every year in June, my hometown throws a little summer celebration, complete with carnival rides, a parade, and fireworks. I haven't been for a few years because we are usually traveling with Dan for work around this time, since we were close I decided to drive down the day before and hang out with my cool sis-in-law Suz. Ashton asks all the time to 'go to mantha's (samantha) house'. We had a lot of fun talking, eating very blue blueberries and letting the kids play. Dan drove down from the airport and met up with us. We invited Suz and Tom to the parade the following night and Tom joked, "don't I need a bishops interview to be able to go to orem?" referring to the somewhat, judgemental feel there is in Orem. I laughed and added that we might all have to get our hair streaked with blonde before we are "approved" to go. (No offense to those of you who live in Utah county, a lot of people are cool, but you know those few people who you can just tell are judgemental and not very friendly-as I've lived a few different places in the country I've noticed this stigma is pretty true)- this will be relevant in a minute.


The next afternoon I was able to go to lunch at Guru's in Provo with my friends, Ashlee, Lara, Emily, Stacey, and Mandy. It was so fun -as it always is with these girls- to talk and laugh and share horror stories about childbirth, hope we didn't freakout ninemonthpregnant Mandy. It really is energizing to connect with close friends and have a few hour break from the kiddies.

Next, Dan, me, ashton, adrienne, and my nephew AJ went to the parade. We were meeting up with Tom and Suz who were putting blankets down for us. Dan went ahead with Adrienne to meet them while I talked with some friends I had run into. When I called Dan to find where they were, the parade had started with the police and fire engines letting their sirens blare as loud as possible. It was too loud to hear dan's directions so as I was about to get off I hear someone screaming into the phone, I was wondering what was going on, I heard dan say, "things are getting crazy around here. I got off the phone and just walked down a little ways; when I found everyone, things seemed a little tense, I just brushed it off and we all happily watched the parade. Afterwards I ran into a few more childhood friends, all of whom were nice, then Ashton and Adrienne rode two rides but it was too busy to do more, then we met up with Kristen and Grayson, to drop off AJ and watch the fireworks. Then to top it all off we went to Artic Circle for icecream-which was yummy btw. While we were there Dan told us what happened at the parade. He found Tom and Suz and sat down on the blanket, on the street, and this lady came up behind him before the parade started and said, can you sit somewhere else, my kids can't see. Note: he was there before them, he was sitting below them because they were on the sidewalk standing up, its not like the only view they had was the back of dan's head, then when the parade did start and we were on the phone, he was holding adrienne his legs, on the ground and looking away from the parade looking for me, when this military guy walks up to Dan and gets right in his face and yells at him to stand up for the flag and that he is going to continue yelling until Dan gets up and salutes the flag! WTFreak? Um, last time I checked, this is America and we have our freedom to choose if we salute the flag or not. This is not Stahlin's reign were we are killed if we don't salute, or Heil Hitler, this is A-M-E-R-I-C-A where freedom rings. Now, to clarify, Dan was not being disrespectful, he just plain wasn't watching the parade, and didn't see the flag. Dan is totally respectful. That was really uncalled for, who do these people think they are trying to control someone else at a parade, sheesh? Seriously, if you can't see, then turn your head about three centimeters to the right, it is pretty easy to look over someones head to look up at the huge floats and firetrucks and be able to see, and if you see someone talking on the phone and holding a baby while the flag is coming by, don't assume anything, because you know assumming makes and a#s out of u and me. What if Dan was paralyzed, or blind, or a Jehova's Witness (they don't salute the flag), or not even American?

That definitely was two strikes for Orem city. So at least the negative experience was sandwiched between three good experiences. Its kind of like eating a BLT where the bread, bacon, and tomato are good, but the lettuce is moldy and slimy. Tear the lettuce off and you still have an okay sandwich. lol.

Sorry Orem Summerfest, next year we might have to skip you, but we'll still come down and hang out with the fun people we know are nice.