Birthdays and Parades

This weekend has been filled with birthdays and parades! First, Friday the 16th was Russell's dad's birthday and Alex's birthday too. Keith was in Washington state visiting his brother Harold so we just called him on the phone to wish him a happy happy. That night, we headed up to New Harmony to celebrate Alex's 3rd birthday. He had a dinosaur party and Jen made a really cute dinosaur decorated cake including really cool dinosaur candles.

Alex loved the play dough Emily and I made him for his birthday. Jen said he needed more play dough because all of his were mixed together.

After the presents were open and the cake and ice cream were eaten, all of the grand kids played pile on sacks with Uncle Tyler. Tyler was a good sport and let all of them smash him and ride on his back. He probably had close to 100 pounds on his back. The kids loved it and had a blast trying to hold on as Tyler crawled around.

That same night, we also had some pretty crazy weather. Tom, one of Russell's grandparents' former foster boys, called from the Iron County Fire Department and told us that there was a tornado warning in effect. The tornado was supposed to touch down one mile west of Kolob Ranches which would have placed it exactly in New Harmony right where G & G Maxwell's house is. Right where we were! We were all pretty nervous so we headed down to their downstairs and turned on the news to listen to the tornado report. While listening, all the grand kids cuddled up on Great-Grandma & Grandpa's bed with them. Russell said that they used to do that all the time when he was a kid.

It turned out that the winds changed and the tornado warning moved from west to New Harmony to north to Cedar. Russell and I headed home with the kids after this and drove through quite a bit of rain before making it home safely. There was not a tornado but that was the closest I have ever been to being in one. I was glad we were with family.

The next day, Saturday, I took the kids to the Dixie Round Up parade. It was a really good parade and lasted about an hour and a half!

Emily was so excited about the parade. While we were waiting for the parade to begin, she kept asking me when it would start. She would ask me every minute what time it was and look at my watch. I would tell her 10 minutes, 5 minutes, 2 minutes and so on. Then she would yell to everyone around us "Only 10 minutes!!" etc. Everyone around us just kept laughing at her and telling me how cute she was. They also said they hoped the parade was everything she hoped it would be and not disappointing. Emily was not disappointed in the parade. She loved sitting by her cousins and especially loved gathering the candy that was thrown.

We also liked watching and listening to the marching bands. These were the best pictures I could get of our family members in the bands. Justin played the bass drum for Desert Hills Middle and Cassie and Tyler played in the Snow Canyon Middle band. Cassie played the flute and Tyler played the trombone.

Russell met us at the parade after he got off work. After the parade, we headed over to my Aunt Janet's house to celebrate my grandma's 93rd birthday! It was fun to see all of my dad's side of the family again. It is nice to see my grandma in such good health at her age. It is fun to live next door to her and have my kids get to know her. Emily loves going over to Nana's house and visiting her. Grandma loves having her over and seeing her.

The party was really fun. Russell and Emily loved swimming in Janet's pool and Colby loved playing with Grandma. My favorite part was the homemade root beer! I definitely need to learn how to make some.