Pioneer Day Celebration!

In most of the world July 24th is only July 24th--no biggie! But in Utah--July 24th is THE 24th of JULY Pioneer Celebration!! Man I've missed celebrating Pioneer Day! There is just something special about remembering our Pioneer Ancestors and all that they did to cross the plains and leave their comforts and travel west to an unknown land. I am grateful for my pioneer ancestors and grateful for the legacy and heritage they left behind.

To celebrate we drove to Wellington for the Pioneer parade and festivities. Price does not celebrate Pioneer Day--I know: Lame! They celebrate 'International Days' the weekend after! Silly.

I don't know if Caleb quite understood the whole parade thing, but he seemed to like it!

I will admit that the parade in Salt Lake is way more exciting and fabulous--but for a small town parade it was pretty fun! There weren't any actual 'floats' in this parade! Mostly just cars, trucks, John Deer Tractors, and horses!!

I think they recruited every fire-truck from the valley! It was extremely loud as all the trucks had their sirens on! The kids had to cover their ears it was so loud!

You're not kidding Ty! We should have brought ear plugs!!

After the parade we walked across the street to the park to enjoy the FREE festivities of rides and bouncy houses! It was the most 'Podunk-small-town-USA' adventure I've ever seen! But the kids loved it and we had a great time! Here Mara and Caleb are riding the 'fan-operated' swings--the man said to Ty "Sorry kid! You are too big!"

Ty was devastated! Check out that sad face! He had to sit on the side and watch all the other kids ride the ride!

I told Ty to look on the bright-side: Usually you are big enough to ride all the big rides when other small kids can't! That seemed to cheer him up!

Next it was bounce on the blow ups! Ty & Caleb tried racing Mara!

I definitely think Mara won! She was pretty fast going through the obstacle course!

But I must give credit to Ty for being such an awesome brother and helping Caleb climb through the maze and up the wall!

I was afraid Caleb would be told he was too small, but nothing would be able to stop this kid! He is pretty determined to do what the big kids do!

The perfect thing about this park is all the trees and shade! It would have been unbearable in the heat had there not been so much shade!

It was a very fun day on the bouncy toys. The only thing that would have made it better was to have our daddy with us! But he was patrolling the forest for the holiday weekend. Grateful he works so hard for us!

What a fun Lightening McQueen slide!

It was sure a fun day with the Moore kids!! Glad we ran into them and were able to spend the day with friends.

It might be the smallest train I have ever seen but the kids sure had fun riding it!

By the end of the hot afternoon the kids only wanted one thing: a nice cold Tiger blood snow-cone!

I left my money in the car, but I just happen to have a couple of dollars in my pocket from doing the wash that morning--so thanks Charity for loaning me a couple bucks so we could have a snow cone too! I will pay you back!!

***Also to celebrate Pioneer Day we had a special Family Home Evening and dressed the kids up in pioneer clothes. I gathered things around the house that the pioneers would have taken on their trek and we put them in the wagon. Then I told pioneer stories from my family. I marvel their hard lives and wonder how they even survived. I am grateful I am not a pioneer but thankful for all their sacrifices they made. Then we pushed and pulled the wagon to our neighbors and picked raspberries for our treat! It was a great FHE! I can't wait to celebrate Pioneer Day next year!!