Saturday July 24th
Saturday was Pioneer Day. Never heard of that til I moved to Utah. When I arrived in Utah, in July of 1993, and got my college syllabus I was racking my brain trying to figure out why July 24th was marked as a holiday. I knew Utah was going to be different, but I had thought everyone celebrated the 4th of July, not the 24th. I finally found out what was going on, but I was sure only Utah people had any idea when the Pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley. And to tell the truth, I thought...BIG FLIPPIN' DEAL. That is a religious occasion and not a state holiday. But, I have come to appreciate more fully what a BIG DEAL that was and how vital the Pioneers were in building up and establishing the state of Utah. It is a religious holiday, but also a celebration of early Utah history.
Sadly, I never realized that until I moved away from Utah. I still always thought it was a hokey holiday that didn't belong on the State calendar. Just being honest.
Well now that I have a greater appreciation for the Pioneers, I am happy to find that while the 24th is not a WI state holiday and you will not see fireworks shows, our ward does throw a picnic.
This year the Primary got to help with games for the kiddos. When we went out of town on our Utah/Wyoming trip we cancelled a Primary activity. I intended to reschedule it as soon as we got back, only to find the schedule full. The Father/Son campout, three baptisms, ward temple day, and so on. I prayed about how to resolve the situation and quickly thought to ask the Activities Committee if they would like us to plan games for the kids at the Pioneer Picnic. Luckily they were eager to accept our help.
We tried to plan games that would be old fashioned, or potentially available way back when.
You saw my tin can stilts. I was so excited about them. I couldn't find clothesline, only a thin rope. I was worried it would break so I had my kids walk all over the place in them before we took them to the church. The rope said it could support 200 pounds, so even I hopped up and gave them a try. I thought they were going to be a huge hit, so we decided to use them as our lead off activity. Tin can relay races. We lined the kids up and one after the next they stepped onto their stilts and broke the strings. We tried to re-tie them and explain that even with stilts you still have to lift your foot, not just pull. Finally we just abandoned them by a tree, and told the kids that if they wanted to mosey over and try them, they were welcome to. We later determined that the rope was not breaking, but the knots were coming untied. Note to self... let a boy scout tie my knots next time.
By the time we abandoned the stilts I was suffering from some mild anxiety. It was so hot and humid. I mean, SO HOT AND HUMID. Me and Andra were running full speed the whole time and drenched in sweat. I have NEVER in all my life sweat so much that you could see it on my clothes. I almost took a picture but you will just have to trust that I was soaked.
We played cornhole. Do you know what that is? Neither did I until 4th of July weekend at the lake. Everyone was standing around playing what I would call bean bag toss. Grown men competing fiercely at bean bag toss. Cracked me up. I bought a set thinking it would be perfect for the activity and that my kids and I could play it together, even indoors in the Winter. We also played bocce ball. We did a little stick pulling, which when googled even brings up Joseph Smith's name. We also had a couple eating games. One where they had to eat a powdered donut hanging from a string. That was a riot! We also tied their hands together and made them hold a pudding cup in their left hand and eat it with the spoon in their right hand. Also very funny.
We were also going to play a Pioneer version of red light, green light where you would walk as we sang "Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked".... and stop on the words..."and stopped". We never got to that one.
Even with the heat I saw lots of kids cracking up and asking to play some of the games again, and I even saw a few kids stomping around on those darn stilts. We did lose a few kids about every 20 minutes as families started to leave, but most of them looked happy as they went. When an activity starts out wrong it is hard to ever feel like it was a success (for over thinkers like me) so I was thrilled when a few parents thanked us and told us how much fun the kids had, and even more so when one of my little Primary guys was raving about what a good time he had on Sunday. His brother had missed it for a birthday party, and he was trying to convince him that we had WAY more fun than he did. Since I was no longer sweating, I could finally smile about it all.
As always, it is hard to post pictures of church kids so I will post the very few that I can with my kids or kids with bloggy parents.
Let's start with Seth's pie. The men had a pie baking contest. I was going to teach Seth to make the brown bag pie, but I was too lazy to get up early and get him apples so that it could bake for two hours. He went to the store and came home and made this....I promise I did not help with that pie, or even go anywhere near it.
Pioneer children. My kids had on their Nauvoo hats, and Annie and Mimi were wearing dresses that Jen stayed up late getting ready for the occasion.
And if you still doubt that Alex should always wear this hat, here is another attempt to persuade you.
Annie and Alyssa stick pulling.
Um, I think Alex is cheating.
And just to illustrate how funny it was to watch the kids run in circles and get dizzy chasing these donuts, here is Andra cracking up until she had tears in her eyes.
In pudding races, the kid tied to Alyssa won their heat. No surprise since she was just eating her pudding at her leisure.
Hey, where'd my arms go?
Alex cheated again, and just set his pudding cup down on the table.
Saturday, after the picnic we went home to recover for a few hours. Once I was in my house, I kept getting hot and then chilled. I am thinking it was not healthy to be outdoors in that weather. After we felt some of our energy return, we went back to that Italian Deli again for more Italian beef and paninis, and headed off to the Hawleys house to try out the cornhole game and bocce for ourselves. It was still a little bit humid so we then moved indoors to play cards while the kids watched a movie. Busy day!
Sunday July 25th
Church. At church all the speakers talked about their Pioneer Heritage. They gave really good talks, but I thought it was interesting that they all kept saying that they did not feel connected to the actual plain-crossing Pioneers personally, because they didn't have Pioneer blood. They need to go to Nauvoo. I felt the same way once, but now I can totally see that even though their actual blood does not run in my veins, their spiritual blood does. I am so connected to the Pioneers. While my ancestors have kept my bloodline going, the Pioneers kept my religion alive.
After Chloe's Sunday nap and dinner, we walked down by the lake, on the pier, and then over to a park. When we got home we made snow cones and did a little late night playing in the backyard. Thankfully, the humidity had finally passed.
Alyssa requested that I take a picture of her Off clip-on repellent fan.
Little joker mouth jumping on the trampoline.
Off to start a new week of Summer now.
5 comments:
Awww, you got some great pictures of the Pioneer Day events. I'll have to steal some to post on my blog. I was too busy to snap more than the few I got. I, too, had never heard of Pioneer Day until our last ward. Even then the ward didn't do as big of an event as this ward, so Pioneer Day never really stuck out to me as a holiday.
Glad we finally got to play cornhole together;) It was a fun night though. I was so tired earlier that I didn't know if I'd enjoy myself, but it turned about to be a great time.
Your homemade sno cones look yummy.
That game really needs a new name though.
I loved seeing the kids in pioneer clothing!
You did a great job, as always. It was great.
Shame on you for posting pics of me lol....the activity did turn out good. next one will be even better :)
My boys LOVED the activity. I seriously wanted in on some of the games and would have if not for the boy in my arms.
Do those clip on mosquito things work? Matthias and I are being eaten like candy!! AAAHH!
Jen, I think bocce was more fun than cornhole, but we had to play it since we've been laughing about it for weeks now.
Cheryl, Yes, the name...how silly! I want to rename it, but I am also immaturely amused by a game called cornhole. I am glad you had fun. We will have to drag those games over to the park one of these days.
Andra, Sorry, I couldn't resist. If anything can make you laugh that hard when it is that HOT, then it must have been a fun game. Thanks for sharing it with all of us. I can't wait until our next activity! I think it's going to be my favorite ever. I hope so.
LeShel, I don't know if the mosquito thing works or just makes Alyssa feel better. She just got it so I will let you know if her bite count starts to go down.
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