Founder's Day 2009

The Founder's Day Parade theme for the year was 'Sports & Recreation'. We missed the parade (which was, apparently, really good this year - probably better than last year due to the sunny weather), but we made it to the Musical Sunset in the Park. Beth met some of her friends there & she had a few goes on some of the inflatables, rode a pony, petted some animals at the petting zoo, got her face painted, & spent quite a few dollars at one of the church stands playing a game where you won a prize if you pulled out a lollipop stick with a coloured end from about 100 sticks in a piece of foam. There were a number of displays, including: police resources, police 'Safety Town', the local fire department (which were assisting with a number of 'rooms' that were being constructed to show the importance of smoke alarms - yes, they were apparently going to be set on fire to show how quickly fire spreads throughout a room), local EMTs, & the city recreational centre. The 'Z Band' were also performing live for most of the evening playing a good selection of music (most of which was from the 60's & 70's).

We took a break from the festivities at about 7:00pm & went home. The fireworks were scheduled to start at about 9:00pm so we came back at 8:30pm only to find that the local police had blocked off the entrance to the park. Apparently, due to the significant rainfall that we had been experiencing, the grassed areas that were usually used as overflow car parks were closed. A shuttle bus service (using school buses) was provided from a industrial park about a mile away, but this meant we might miss the fireworks. I decided that we had just enough time to walk to the park if we parked on the road that runs beside the golf course next to the park. The golf course is a lot lower than the road & we noticed that quite a few people were sitting on one of the fairways waiting for the fireworks. In previous years, we had watched the fireworks from the center of the park which meant that our view was partially obscured by the surrounding trees. We thought that the other people wouldn't be on the golf course if you couldn't see the fireworks from there so we set up our chairs at the top of the bank next to the road which gave us a clear view of the park &, hopefully, a clear view of the fireworks. At 9:05pm the fireworks started & our hunch was right! We had a great view of all the fireworks (except for part of the Roman Candles, which was still better then when we had been in the park) & the slight breeze in our direction meant that we were able to hear the music accompanying the fireworks as well - result!