The Wales Family

Thursday night we went to Boondocks for a party hosted by Westech. It was a lot of fun -but it was very windy. Playing miniature golf was a bit of a challenge when your ball was constantly changing directions in the wind - not to mention hair in your face.  but we still had a great time!  We also did bumper boats, lots of arcade games, and had a ton of good food. It was great!

Then on Friday night we met some of Craig’s fam at the Weber County Fair.  Lots of animals to see, but not much of anything else except booths, expensive food, and expensive rides. The kids had a lot of fun though looking at the farm animals.

It was a great start to the weekend. Saturday was no fun for me - I had an exam and then spent the day pulling everything out from the walls of our house to spray for spiders and then putting it all back. exciting let me tell ya.  The spiders we were getting in our house were huge. I can handle little spiders, but when they are bigger around then a quarter they totally creep me out, so I hope they stay away for good. yuck!

Last weekend we were able to go see the Traveling Tribute, including “The Wall” honoring those who served in Vietnam, as well as the “Cost of Freedom” display, and a field of over 5,000 American flags displayed in the shape of the U.S.A. - one for each soldier lost in the War on Terrorism.  It was a very neat and humbling display.

This year we had a lot of fun for Pioneer Day - especially being back here in Utah.  We had a ton of fun.  At the beginning of the week we took the girls to Prarie Schooner for family home evening. We talked about the pioneers and the girls got to eat in covered wagons. They thought that was so cool.

Keeping with a tradition from my childhood, Grandma helped the girls make covered wagons out of square cookies, marshmallows, pretzls, life savers, and animal crackers.  The funny part was that we thought we had regular animal crackers that we could get horses from, but all we had were other animals, so their covered wagons are being pulled an elephant and a bunny rabbit.

On Pioneer Day morning we decided to skip the parade and the fair. We were burned out with all of the other activities of July and just wanted to take it easy. The girls had a sleepover party with their cousing Brianna and Brooklyn the night before, and watched the parade on TV in the morning. Then the girls had their own little parade with their bikes.

They had a lot of fun decorating the bikes. Well, most of them did.  I so thoughtlessly forgot little Brooklyn is scared of baloons. She was fine until a couple of them popped and then she ran into her bedroom crying, and ended up falling asleep. Poor girl.

Here is Brianna, Jaycee, and Rylee making their way around the block.

They seemed to have a really good time.

Rylee ended up being the only one who rode the entire way. Both Jaycee and Brianna got off to walk and we had to carry their bikes the rest of the way home.

GO RYLEE!

To keep with our low-key mood, we had a nice BBQ at home for dinner and then did our own fireworks. The girls loved playing with the snaps while we waited for it to get dark enough, and they had a blast doing the fireworks in the driveway.

It was a good time, and as always, Pioneer Day is a great way to keep our past in perspective and be grateful for everything we have today, as well as being grateful for our ancestors who did so much for us.  I am glad my ancestors had enough faith to sacrifice all they had to keep the gospel in their lives and keep their families safe, giving their decendents a chance to hear the gospel and live in peace.