Big Purple Ant Butt

So first, let me begin by saying that my dad arrived safe here in Salt Lake. He actually just left this morning. It was nice having him here with us, but busy and exhausting. I'm used to having my parents on the other side of the country, so when they are here they tend to need entertaining. Every night we were going out to dinner or a movie, staying up till almost midnight talking, and it's not like I could take the entire week off, I still had to work. So here is our week with dad in review:

First when he got here we went straight to the theatre to see "The Dark Knight" and ohh my gosh it was amazing. Obviously Heath Ledger was good, we all know that; but what about Christian Bale. I could watch him all day, I was sad when he didn't do push ups with out his shirt on in this movie..well there is always next time. Than my dad came to church with us on Sunday in our family ward followed by going to dinner with my entire famdamily. I'm not very close to my Dad's side of the family and it's for good reason. The first thing my Grandma does when I walk in the door is yell at me for not coming to visit her more often, let's just say there is a reason I don't visit here, BECAUSE SHE YELLS!!!

Than Monday came along, I took a half day at work to hang out with my dad and Bryan. My dad took us shopping and bought us a nice Red Dresser for our room and than came with us to the South Towne Expo center where we had to Host our float for the parade. We are in the Murray Stake and had helped build the float for the Days of '47 Parade. Because our stake was so involved we got to do a lot of fun things for the Parade. On Monday the 21st we got to be hosts at the South Town Expo Center, where they were showing off all the floats for the parade and people got to vote on which was the best. Our float was 11 short of being the People's Choice and 10 short of being the Children's Choice. Below are some pics from the day at the Expo Center.

This is us in front of our kiosk. It was a bunch of Ants at a Picnic and "working together" they stole all the food.

This is my dad sitting in the float. He got to sit in the float during the show and move the ants heads back and forth.

Bryan taking his turn running the float.

This would be me visiting one of the other floats. This float was a depiction of Noah's Ark.GO UTES!!! And I love the drunk looking woman in the left hand corner.

This float was the Children's Hospital/Walmart, this one totally should have won the Children's Chose. Unfortunately i'm not a child and could not vote as one.

BOO to the Y!!!

After we were done with the judging we actually got to be in the parade. We had to wake up at 4:45 and be in downtown by 5:30, and why? So that we could dress up like ants and be judged for 15 minutes in our costumes. I got to dress up in a purple polyester Ant Suit, with a huge butt on it and this fun purple hat that had huge eyes on it. Bryan had to stand in a smoke stack and move the stack up and down for 3 miles of the parade. After we were judged that morning, we were interviewed by channel 13's Big Buddah!!! I was super excited because I watch it every morning. After that we had to wait around for 4 hours until our float finally got to move. So we took a couple more pics.

This is the back of our float. Our stake started designing it last summer and construction started in Feb.

This is us at about 7:15 in the morning. Do you like my super sexy hat? THis thing gave me the biggest headache after wearing it for 3 hours.

This is the whole effect. That big butt was super fun to waddle around for 3 miles. I also got to carry a giant piece of glittered cheese. I must say it was ridiculously hot outside, super sunny, I had sweat pouring down my back and blisters on my feet from dancing for an hour. But it was ridiculously fun. The kids think you are the coolest thing ever, they all want to hug you and give you high fives, all the parents want your picture with their kids and wave as you walk by. I got to shake my big purple butt in front of hundreds of people. The only sad part was that we didn't get to see ourselves on TV. I can't find it on KUTV and there are no videos anywhere. So if anyone taped the parade or was at the parde who saw us, let me know. Sorry this is so far after Pioneer Day, hope everyone had fun that day!!!!!