That night, when we had the Handcart Days parade in Bountiful, which is one of my favorite family traditions of the year. You might be thinking, it's only a parade!! But if you're saying that, you've probably never been to this one! It is amazing and this year was no exception. They have amazing floats and entries from all over, tons of candy, and it's just fun to be with family. We staked out a spot at 7 a.m. that morning, and it was silly how so many camp out for this and that the police had to babysit those who wanted to set up their places before the appointed time. It's always hot, as the parade is in the early evening, and it was about 100 degrees when it started!
Here we come!
Brody feeding Lucy a snack
Cute girls ready for the parade
Daddy & Cal
Waiting for the parade to start
Lucy dancing to the music
The boys on the blanket
Stars and stripes
Mommy & Emma
They had some really cute floats...these were a few of my favorites. The "Dream Your Dream" float, the Farmington Train float, and the CTR float with Primary kids singing (only in Utah)!
The parade was great as usual, the theme this year was "They Did Not Doubt!" which was in reference to the Stripling Warriors found in the Book of Mormon (only in Bountiful). That's always been one of my favorite scripture stories. More when I was a youth because I was young like them and had confidence in the future and wanted to be like them. Now I love that story and it applies so much since I'm a mother and want to teach my children what I know and share my testimony so they will be strong and know it and live it because their "mother knew it". I want nothing more!
Alma 56: 47: "Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had
Alma 57:26: "And now, their preservation was astonishing to our whole army, yea, that they should be spared while there was a thousand of our brethren who were slain. And we do justly ascribe it to the miraculous power of God, because of their exceeding faith in that which they had been taught to believe—that there was a just God, and whosoever did not doubt, that they should be preserved by his marvelous power."
So the best part was that they had 2,000 young men from the area dressed up as Helaman's stripling warriors, and they marched down the street. It was cool to see how many there actually would've been. Even better, my brother Mark was one of them! They didn't have enough young men to do it, so he got talked into it. He got fitted for his "uniform" and they all got a staff. They walked in sync and hit their staffs at the same time. It gave me chills and brought tears to my eyes. Just as the Stripling Warriors, if we have faith and do not doubt, we will be preseved. I think this is especially true as we live in such turbulent times. We just need to have faith and live right like the stripling warriors and we will be saved!
You can see little Marko right there in the front left with the red headband!
Some of the real sons of the Anit-Nephi-Lehis were so young, just like in this picture
And here's some classic Marko...thumbs up for the Stripling Warriors!
Then we went to Batman that night! We skipped out on the fireworks to go to see the last installment of the Dark Night that night with all of Dave's siblings. It was a really good movie. I couldn't help but think of all of those who died in the tragic incident in Colorado throughout the movie. I hope the families of the victims will be okay and those who are still trying to recover will be okay and have the peace and love of God! I loved the ending though, that was probably my favorite.
Saturday, we went to the Handcart Days festivities in the park. The kids had fun on the rides, eating snow cones and other pioneer food, doing the pioneer activities, and especially the fish pond, which is always their favorite for some reason.
Pioneer Day was actually on Tuesday. Here's Emma in her cowgirl gear - fitted pink cowgirl hat and belt buckle courtesy of Uncle Kolby and Aunt Amy! Cowgirl up, Emma!
Cal wanted a picture of course, too!
Little Cowgirl
We started things off by going to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers museum with Stacy & Tayla, my Mom, Emma, Cal and I. We listened to a pioneer story about two girls, and Emma and Tayla were picked to act it out, which was fun for them. We saw all of the pioneer pictures, artifacts, equipment, etc. The kids got to try their hands at weaving, spinning wheels, and other handicrafts. We got some pioneer crafts and got to do some activities. And we had some homeade bread with blueberry rhubarb jelly and other goodies. We even saw "Brigham Young" there! It was a cool way to help the spirit of Pioneer Day come alive for the girls and Cal. I am so grateful for my many pioneer ancestors, to even come through their lineage is a blessing! How amazing they were, what great sacrifices they made! Just as the Stripling Warriors, they did not doubt, and God delivered them, despite their circumstances.
What a beautiful stained glass window!
Brigham Young and one of his wives! They had a Q & A and I asked how many kids he had. He responded that he had 57...Emma's jaw dropped to the floor!
Emma and Tayla got to act out a pioneer story about two sisters.
With Grandma Di by a pioneer piano!
Cal by a replica of the Salt Lake Temple. Do you like how he's wearing his Samoa shirt? Dave hates the outfit, but Cal loves it! Grandpa Scott got it from Samoa. He put it on that morning and said "I look like a Chinese boy!" (Don't ask me where he got that!?)
The 2-headed sheep...this freaked the kids out, but they loved it at the same time!
Trying their hand at pioneer handiwork crafts. They loved the weaving probably the most but had many other things going on...tatting, making lace, crocheting and knitting, spinning wheel, etc. They were also given kits to make little handcarts or covered wagons, coloring books, paper dolls, made a button spinning toy and more!
I remember driving by the museum as a kid and frequently the statue of this pioneer woman would have an orange cone on it. How sad! Not one today. The kids had a great time at the DUP Museum Open House and we hope to come back soon. It was a great experience!
That afternoon, we went to Grandma Di's and had an authentic pioneer meal. We ate everything homemade (this is my mom we're talking about here!) including baked beans (that was a main dish back then, since meat was scarce), bread, butter (that was even homeade), and jam, salad greens with pioneer salad dressing, corn on the cob, and spice cake with vanilla ice cream for dessert. It was so delicious!
Then we played some pioneer games, like jacks! The kids back then didn't have Wiis or TV.
And then we played baseball.
Batters up, Callahan!
Then we went to Jerry & Stacy's in Clearfield for our firework show. Fireworks were banned at both of our parents in Bountiful this year due to fire restrictions. So we headed down the hill and north for a firework spectacular! We spent some cash in WY on fireworks (everything was B1G1, so we fared pretty well), and then we and many of Dave's family members got a couple of Groupon discount certificates for a firework stand which also had B1G1s. All in all, we spent $100 on fireworks this year just for our family, which is a record for us! I told Dave next year we're going to cut back, but he says it is all going up from here! We had quite a few fireworks!
Snap pops!
Aunt Julie helping Lucy to enjoy the night
Is there anything these babies enjoy more than eating?
Grandma and Grandpa!
Check out the sweet rainbow smoke Daddy put together!
Daddy enjoys being the one to light all of the fireworks, with his assistant, Randy. Dave burnt his eye when he was little by lighting fireworks and everyone always jokes about their neighbors bush they caught on fire back in the day!
Our group enjoying the firework show!
I love this pic of Dave with the firecrackers ammo, ha ha!
There was so much debris in the street by the time we were done and it took quite a while to clean it all up! Luckily, no property or people were damaged this year!
Happy Pioneer Day!
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