STADIUM of FIRE

A few months ago Belle's dance teacher informed us that her dance team had been asked to perform (with 1000 other dancers) at the STADIUM OF FIRE in Provo for the Fourth of July. Soon after that it was announced that Miley Cyrus was the main performer at the event and the families of the dancer would be able to purchase tickets before they were released to the general public. Steve and I decided, it would be an incredible experience for Belle to perform at such a large venue, but also neat for the rest of the kids to go to the concert.

So, every Tuesday in June Belle spent 2 hours learning the 8 minute dance and we purchased 5 tickets for the event.

We had a quick Bar-B-Que Friday afternoon before packing up the van and driving, for the 3rd time in 3 days, to Provo. Belle needed to be there a bit early so, we got there around 4:00 pm and spent the afternoon "tail gating" in the parking lot. I brought along the strawberry shortcake I had made for us to eat while we were there and Steve made sure we brought along the camping table and chairs to make our stay more comfortable.

The kids played Gameboys and Steve and I read our books. It was actually a nice way to spend the afternoon together as a family.

About 6:00 pm I walked Belle over to the stadium where she would be meeting up with the rest of the dancers. We were early enough that we could go down to the field and just take all the decorations. Belle was pretty excited. As we looked at the large stage that Miley Cyrus wold be performing on she looked at me and said, "THIS IS SOOOOO COOL!!!"

We found some of the girls from her dance team. I took a couple of pictures and turned around and walked away. As I left, all I could think about was just how cool it was that she was getting to have this kind of an experience. So many times I have seen performances where there are a bunch of dancers and thought, ....how do people get chosen to do that... and there is my daughter about to perform in front of thousands of people.

At 8:10 pm the event kicked of with 5 skydivers landing in the stadium and bringing along the flags the represent the 4 branches of the military the 5th skydiver had a flag for the POWs. That was pretty darn awesome to watch them glide in so gracefully.

Then Glenn Beck, who was the MC for the evening, discussed what the colors of the american flag represented: RED-courage, WHITE-purity, & BLUE-loyalty. As he did banners were draped over the tops of the audience withe words written on them. Once all three colors had moved down, from the top of the bleachers to the ground level, a large flag was extended that was half the length of the football field. We then stood and said the Pledge of Allegiance.
It was then that fighter jets flew over us in formation. The kids that that was so cool and LOUD!!

Then the moment that our family had been waiting for...the STADIUM of FIRE DANCERS.

It took a couple of minutes, but I was able to spot Belle in the huge crowd.


I was so extremely proud of her. I actually teared up watch the girls dance. I know she was in a group of a thousand girls, but to me she was a star. They all did such an incredible job. The long hours of work had really paid off.
Following the dancing performance came BLUE MAN GROUP . I had never been very interested in seeing them live, but they were quite entertaining and the kids even enjoyed it.



It took a few minutes for Miley Cyrus to begin her portion of the concert. Many of tweens in the audience began to chat her name to hopefully bring her out to join us. She finally made it out. She was a mediocre performer. I think for my own little girls they were disappointed that all she dis was sing songs from her new CD. They were hoping she would do some of her Hannah Montana songs. They did enjoy the few songs that they knew, but a couple of times I looked over at them and they seemed less than impressed.




The evening ended with a pretty cool fireworks show. They were so close to us!! And beautiful. There was some cool music that played in the background. I am not usually impressed by fireworks. I actually kind avoid going out and watching them, but I thought these were pretty cool.
It took us a while and a lot of patience to get out of Provo. The traffic was horrendous!! Before we made it to the freeway, Steve looked in the backseat and found our "little star" fast asleep.