8 Mile Run, a Parade and More Temple Pictures

This morning I finally made that long run happen! It wasn't really that long of a run, but I needed to do it. I ran for 80 minutes so maybe I did 8 miles, but probably a little less since I took it pretty easy. It was fun, though, and the only problem I had was my knee started hurting for the last 5 minutes, but when I stopped and walked it felt better.

I ran up to North Temple and noticed a lot of people were carrying chairs and stuff like that which reminded me that there was going to be a parade for Pioneer Day today. Earlier in the week, I told the kids I would look into when and where it would be, so I looked it up as soon as I got home. It was starting in one hour from when I got home so I went down to where the kids were watching The Last Air Bender and told them to hurry and get ready to go while I took a shower.

Amazingly, we were able to get out of the house with 20 minutes to get there. It was nice that it was only a few miles away, and it was also nice that Pete has a parking pass for one of the parking garages down there so we didn't have to drive around looking for parking or walk too far. We did have to walk a few blocks, but we cut through Temple Square and it was really pretty so that was ok.

We worked our way through the crowds, and found a small open spot at the front where I had the kids go sit. The girl next to them was so nice and spread her blanket out for them to sit on. I noticed that she was sitting with a girl in our ward. A few minutes later, I noticed that her parents were sitting behind them in chairs. I went over to say hello and she offered me their extra chair which was perfect because it was time to feed George. I ended up sitting with the kids for a little while after that, then moved back to the sidewalk when George got fussy and got him to sleep in the stroller. It was really fun.

I think this was the first time I've taken my kids to a parade which is pretty sad. We used to go to the 24th of July parade in Heber every year when I was a kid. The one in Salt Lake is just so big that we haven't wanted to deal with the crowds or anything, but it all worked out just great today!

We left about half an hour before it was over (at 1 hour, the announcer said it was half over and we stayed a little while after that), but we walked by all the floats that were waiting to go so we pretty much saw everything. We walked through temple square again on the way to the car. Of course we had to stop and take some pictures with the pretty flowers.

We were all really hungry by the time we got back to the car so I told the kids I'd take them to breakfast. We ended up going to Denny's and they were all very happy.

Pete had a fun morning driving all the way to Orem to work only to find out that no one was there. He just came home, but that gave him the chance to mow the lawn, which had been badly neglected for the past few weeks and growing 3 foot-tall weeds. It looks so nice now! I think a nice townhome or something where we don't have to take care of the lawn would be good for us because when it comes to the choice between a bike ride or mowing the lawn, we always choose bike ride. Or being with our family, or sleeping, or cleaning the house, or whatever...