Rebecca has been wanting to go to a parade for so long but every time there is a parade we either have something planned already or we forget until the parade is half over. Earlier this month I was reading the paper and saw a story about the parade that the city of Salem (just east of Payson where we live) would be doing for their Salem Days celebration. I jumped on the chance to finally take Rebecca (and everyone else of course) to a parade and made sure that we did not miss this one. We hadn't been to a small town parade for so long that I think I was more excited than the kids were. When I was growing up we lived in Roy, Utah for a while and went to the Roy Days parade every year. Those were the BEST parades. There was such a feel of small town pride that just made the floats seem larger than life and of course we couldn't wait to catch some candy thrown our way. Most of the parades after we moved I was performing in as part of a marching band and the few I've been to since then have just not had that same small town feel that makes the parade so much fun (not to mention there was a ban on throwing candy...for the safety of the children.) Even though I was working that Saturday I just had Gavin's mom bring him early so that he could go to the parade with us.
I loved Megan's outfit. She looked like her own little parade float.
Here is the gang waiting for the parade (Dakota spent the night at a friends so she missed the festivities.) You would think that with the parade being so early in the morning it wouldn't be so hot, but it was. I think it was just a humid morning which of course makes it feel so much hotter. After waiting in the sun for about half an hour I found us a shady spot that we moved to just before the parade started. The parade didn't disappoint. It had marching bands, dancers, and tons of Princesses like the ones I remember. There weren't as many of the themed parade floats made with all those tiny pieces of shimmery paper and fun characters, (probably due to the economy since floats are expensive and only good for one parade season) but it was still a great parade. We were surprised though to see that not only did they still allow candy to be thrown out but that almost every entrant in the parade threw it out...and lots of it. There were also t-shirts, toothbrushes, crayons, play dough, lots of otter pops, and my favorite...bottled ice water among other things also being tossed or given to the crowd.
It's a good thing we had two strollers with us because we needed one just to carry our stash back to the car.
The picture doesn't really show the amount of goodies the kids brought home because those piles were deep. It was almost as much candy as you get at Halloween and we didn't even bring home all that we could have. We ended up giving lots of candy to the ladies sitting next to us on one side and the little family on the other whose kids were just not as fast as all the other kids in the crowd who were more aggressive than I think they needed to be. We think this parade will be an annual tradition for us just like the one I went to every year as a child.
On a side note. Our city also has an annual day of celebration named Payson Onion Days. The reason our own city celebration won't be our tradition is because it is held over the Labor Day weekend and we will be out of town for that weekend most years.
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