For the past few years when the 24th of July rolls around, I have felt kind of guilty. In the past we have always celebrated Pioneer Day, we lived right in Salt Lake City, and always went to the celebrations put on by the city. And many of the small towns here in Utah have their own celebrations. When we lived in Tooele, my kids would dress up like pioneers and walk in a parade, and then hang out at the city park for a few hours. But once we moved to Grantsville, all that changed. Grantsville didn't have anything planned. I would get up and watch the parade on TV, and we'd all lounge around the house, and call it a holiday. This year was different. Steve and the Stake President of the Grantsville West stake got together and decided to have a combined stake pioneer day celebration. Apparently this was done previously, but before we moved to Grantsville. You can see an article that was in the Tooele Transcript by clicking HERE What an amazing day!!
We started with a 5K run in the morning. There was not a lot of advertising for this, it was just mentioned in the wards, but we had about 90 people show up for that, including Steve and Kaylea. I was dying to run, but had to take a break due to some very minor surgery I had a few days before.
Kaylea was actually the first woman accross the finish line...she's a great runner.
Steve was not the first man accross, but he did finish in style!! He told one young man that anyone who beats him in the race would have to speak in Stake Conference. The young man said he'd start writing his talk!
At around lunch time we had my sister, Erin and her kids, and my brother, Lee and his family come over for a barbecue and games. We had such a great time! I turned the camera over to Jessica to take some pictures, she took over 60! Here are a few to show some of the fun things we did.
We played "Topple" a couple of times. Emi was the winner of this game.
Jessica and Peter
Lee and Steve, talking "Stake President" stuff. Lee ended up taking the older boys out past Dugway to hunt for geodes. Conner went with them, he had a blast! Thanks for the adventure Lee, Conner felt like it was a fun treasure hunt.
Conner, Steve, and their cousins Andrew, Corban, and Dallin enjoying the Xbox a little too much.
The kids all ate their food outside, here is Kaylea with her cousins Quincy, Parlee, and Gabby.
I have about 40 pictures of craziness like this!! They had a blast posing for weird pictures. In this picture are Emi, Kaylea, Gabby, Parlee, and Jessica.
I caught the three younger kids having a blast jumping down the stairs, if you look closely, you'll see pillows at the bottom of the stairs. In this picture are Corban, Peter, and Parlee. Quincy was there too, but wouldn't hold still long enough for a picture.
We also played scrabble a different way. Actually it was really quick and really fun. I prefer this way to the real way of playing. Tricia, Erin, Lee (with chocolate in his teeth), McKenna, and Jessica. I'm driving my kids crazy, because all day Sunday I wanted to play scrabble, it was a lot of fun.
After our little barbecue, it was time to go back to the festivities in town. There was a primary children's pioneer trek, my kids were too old, but it was fun to see my nieces and nephews dressed up as pioneers, and walk to "Salt Lake City". Steve's parents came to enjoy the evening with us. I was running low on batteries, so I don't have a lot of pictures, but there was a lot of fun things going on all around.
We picked up Berniece, a sweet woman in the stake, and she spent the evening with us as well. We all sat under a tree and enjoyed watching the primary children's parade. Then there were booths set up all over around the church. There were activities for the children like washing clothes on a wash board and hanging them to dry, decorating a pioneer hat and apron to wear, making a rag doll, making your own ice cream, there was a chicken launch where they would stretch a bike tube back like a sling shot and launch a rubber chicken, and on the other side someone would be wearing pants with a huge hula hoop for the waist. They'd have to try and catch the rubber chicken in their pants. And there was an obstacle course. There may have been more things, but I didn't have a chance to see them all.
A free dinner was served to everyone. Steve said there were over 1,800 meals served, we were really surprised with how many people came out. I was able to get one picture of them serving dinner before my camera died altogether. But there were people EVERYWHERE.
After the carnival and meal, they put on a pageant. It was very well done. They had the pageant two nights in a row so that everyone would be able to see it. We didn't get home until around 11:00pm. All in all, it was a very fun day. I enjoyed the 24th more than I have in 10 years!
We started with a 5K run in the morning. There was not a lot of advertising for this, it was just mentioned in the wards, but we had about 90 people show up for that, including Steve and Kaylea. I was dying to run, but had to take a break due to some very minor surgery I had a few days before.
Kaylea was actually the first woman accross the finish line...she's a great runner.Steve was not the first man accross, but he did finish in style!! He told one young man that anyone who beats him in the race would have to speak in Stake Conference. The young man said he'd start writing his talk!At around lunch time we had my sister, Erin and her kids, and my brother, Lee and his family come over for a barbecue and games. We had such a great time! I turned the camera over to Jessica to take some pictures, she took over 60! Here are a few to show some of the fun things we did.
We played "Topple" a couple of times. Emi was the winner of this game. 
Jessica and Peter
Lee and Steve, talking "Stake President" stuff. Lee ended up taking the older boys out past Dugway to hunt for geodes. Conner went with them, he had a blast! Thanks for the adventure Lee, Conner felt like it was a fun treasure hunt.
Conner, Steve, and their cousins Andrew, Corban, and Dallin enjoying the Xbox a little too much.
The kids all ate their food outside, here is Kaylea with her cousins Quincy, Parlee, and Gabby. I have about 40 pictures of craziness like this!! They had a blast posing for weird pictures. In this picture are Emi, Kaylea, Gabby, Parlee, and Jessica.
I caught the three younger kids having a blast jumping down the stairs, if you look closely, you'll see pillows at the bottom of the stairs. In this picture are Corban, Peter, and Parlee. Quincy was there too, but wouldn't hold still long enough for a picture.
We also played scrabble a different way. Actually it was really quick and really fun. I prefer this way to the real way of playing. Tricia, Erin, Lee (with chocolate in his teeth), McKenna, and Jessica. I'm driving my kids crazy, because all day Sunday I wanted to play scrabble, it was a lot of fun.
After our little barbecue, it was time to go back to the festivities in town. There was a primary children's pioneer trek, my kids were too old, but it was fun to see my nieces and nephews dressed up as pioneers, and walk to "Salt Lake City". Steve's parents came to enjoy the evening with us. I was running low on batteries, so I don't have a lot of pictures, but there was a lot of fun things going on all around.
We picked up Berniece, a sweet woman in the stake, and she spent the evening with us as well. We all sat under a tree and enjoyed watching the primary children's parade. Then there were booths set up all over around the church. There were activities for the children like washing clothes on a wash board and hanging them to dry, decorating a pioneer hat and apron to wear, making a rag doll, making your own ice cream, there was a chicken launch where they would stretch a bike tube back like a sling shot and launch a rubber chicken, and on the other side someone would be wearing pants with a huge hula hoop for the waist. They'd have to try and catch the rubber chicken in their pants. And there was an obstacle course. There may have been more things, but I didn't have a chance to see them all.
A free dinner was served to everyone. Steve said there were over 1,800 meals served, we were really surprised with how many people came out. I was able to get one picture of them serving dinner before my camera died altogether. But there were people EVERYWHERE.
After the carnival and meal, they put on a pageant. It was very well done. They had the pageant two nights in a row so that everyone would be able to see it. We didn't get home until around 11:00pm. All in all, it was a very fun day. I enjoyed the 24th more than I have in 10 years!
