The Derby Weeks

While I sit here in the hospital waiting for Jared. (it is a quiet night he says, until we get on the elevator to get some grub.) So while stuck here in the surgeons room with lots of computers and nothing better to do why not update the blog.

I guess I will start with the beginning of Derby with the beginning of events.

THUNDER OVER LOUISVILLE

So much fun! All day there were airshows, water shows, side shows, any kind of show and then there was a firework show. We only went to the fireworks part of it.
Jared had been up the whole night before and for some reason did not take a nap so was super tired... BUT being the sweetheart that he is he toughed it out and took me to "thunder". I think it was mostly for this deep fried pile of dough (can't remember the name right now). We parked at the closest we could... 2 miles away and had a lovely walk with mulets, whitetrash, and from every walk of life type of person. We got there and got the dung looking deep fried thing (which was good) and fought our way through the crowds to a good spot. FINALLY the fireworks. It was really really good. Supposedly it is the biggest firework show in the Nation. I believe it. Disneyland has nothing compared to this. It was so cool and it lasted for a long long time. SO COOL. I would urge people that can go to go. It was fun even walking back to our car... we are weird and like to play this game to try to get ahead of people in front of us like we are racing them to our car.... don't really know why. I guess because 2 miles can take some time to walk.

Some of the fireworks. I wish we could have gotten a more representative picture of the wonder.


A blurry picture of us... Jared took it :)

Then well there were lots of things .... Most I dont know about. There was some hot air balloon thing one sunday. Charlie was outside while I was working on a sharing time before church and he started FREAKING OUT. I looked outside to see these hot air balloons literally just higher than our house. Those things are huge.

They were right above our house and not very high. It was really amazing.

Then I know there was a parade last Thursday. It was a rainy windy just horrible day for a parade. Pegasus Parade. I know this because while driving home on the freeway from school I saw a massive spongebob trying to fly away with the wind. An interesting site.

And then Oaks and Derby. Now for all my western people... let me explain somethings I did not know before coming to Kentucky.

Horse races is a 'dress up' event. Not just derby any race any day. But Derby is the BIG day. Limmos, dresses, ties, the fancy hats. Horse races are HUGE in the east. I had never ever seen one til Jared got me to. And there are two main events in derby. The Derby race itself. and Oaks. Oaks is the day before derby where they race the girls.

Yesterday it was amazing. The horse smoked the others and I think made a new record.

Then today was derby. (other than it being miserable weather all day today it looks to have been all good) The same jockey won the derby today as yesterday at the oaks. He also is the same jockey that won derby last year on 'big brown'. One lucky guy.

Check out the race...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv8x9x5A49s

Churchhill downs

Sadly tickets for this event are bought out years in advance and run in the thousands of dollars, so for probably the rest of our lives TV will work just fine.

BUT one happy thing is I get paid time and a half to babysit on derby weekend. :)

I have to say it is sad it is all over. The hype for the upcoming derby will be gone and because it is talked about so much and I pass the track everyday at school I will miss the talk, but soon it will start up again. It really is kinda fun! Nothing like this in Arizona thats for sure.