Yesterday was the anniversary of 9/11/01. I wanted to document my experience that day so I always remember what I thought/felt.
I had stayed over at Peter's the night before. Peter got up early to go to work so I was alone in his room getting ready for school when his Grandma knocked on the door. She came in and told me that we were under attack. I immediately thought she was pulling my leg because that's how she is. There is no way that we could be under attack. We were the U.S. and being "under attack" seemed like something that happened when my grandparents were young, not something that happened in the 21st century. I assumed that we were under attack from bombs but later learned that it was airplanes. She said she wasn't kidding and that we had been attacked in New York City and at the Capital. I immediately turned on the T.V. and watched in horror at the coverage. I believe it was around 7:30 - 8 am MST, I think. So many details were unknown at that point which added to the fear.
I didn't quite know what to do about school but couldn't find any information about classes being cancelled so I drove to Provo to attend my classes. On the drive, I called my dad (and woke him up). I told him what was going on and how I was immediately worried about what this would mean for Kimberly since she was in the ARMY. Would she have to go to war? Up to this point yes, she was in the military but she hadn't had to do any fighting. I remember feeling so fearful about her and how this attack would affect her. Dad helped calm me down and talked me through it.
After I got off my cell with my dad, I turned on the radio. I found a talk station that was covering the attacks. (I couldn't believe that EVERY station wasn't covering it. How could anyone play music at a time like this?) It was sort of surreal to see people driving on the streets which was a normal thing, at a time when it felt like everything should have just stopped. I was about 5 minutes pass the point of the mountain on I-15 when I hear them say that the first tower had come down. Then later, the second tower fell. When I got to campus it was hard to leave my car and the information I was getting from the radio in order to walk to class.
My first class was an English class. I thought that maybe the class would be nearly empty but instead most everyone showed up. The conversations were about what was happening. I figured the professor would cancel class but instead she ran the class like normal. Again, I felt surprise that life was continuing as "normal" when clearly today was not a normal day. How could we be sitting here talking about a novel when something so horrific was happening?
As I think back, I don't remember anything else about my day on campus. I imagine that I had other classes that I went to but I'm not positive. The only reason I believe that I stayed is because I remember driving home and it was in the late afternoon.
Traffic was tough. It was especially bad when I got off the 4700 south exit on I-215. I drove west and when I got to about 3200 south I started to see American flags flying on the side of the road. In front of the church that was my church when we lived in West Valley City, flags had been placed on the parking strip. They continued for blocks. Just a line of red, white, and blue along the side of the road. I figured someone had placed the flags the Boy Scouts put out on July 4th along the street. I remember feeling such a swell of patriotism at the sign of those flags. I teared up at the horrible tragedy that had occurred and at the same time felt a reassurance that our country would be okay. The site of the flags will forever be in my mind. I don't know who placed them but I am grateful to them.
These are my memories from that horrible day. I knew that unfortunately this would be a major event that would define my generation similar to how the assassination of JFK defined my parents. I will always remember where I was when I heard.
In September we went to the Plano Balloon Festival. As we were getting there, a bunch of balloons had just taken off. If we had only been about 5 minutes earlier we could have seen them take off. BUMMER.
It was a typical festival with lots of booths, food, and crowds. We enjoyed some typical festival food and watched as the crews laid out balloons for the Balloon Glow. I found it really cool to watch how the balloons went from just baskets on a trailer to a fully inflated balloon.
I took lots of shots as it continued to grow and fill up but didn't want to bore you with all of them. :)
You can see it completely inflated in the background plus the field is starting to fill up with other balloons.
Part of the field - look how many balloons and what fun varieties!
Another perspective. There were SOOOO many balloons! I should have counted them all.
Balloon Glow
Here is the "twinkle burn" so neat! (Ignore the people walking in front of the camera as they leave.) 
