Fire on the mountain

There is a fire buring on the other side of the mountain. It has been burning for awhile, but today the wind is blowing and it's stired the fire back up. Normally, the wind blows the smoke away from us, but today it's blowing it right at us. Yucky.

Sunday Day Trip

Yesterday we took a day trip to Kanab and Otter Creek. We ate dinner in Kanab at a grill that was pretty spendy, but the food was good. I, of course, had the chicken fried steak. Chuck says that is what I get any time we go out. But that is not true, they don't serve it at the all you can eat Chinese Buffett hehe.

Well, naturally, I got stomach cramps on the drive home, but to make the kids happy we took a side trip to our day trip and went over to Otter Creek. These two pictures are the view from the State Park boat launch ramp. The kids loved playing in the water and the nature etc. Me, well . .let's let the last 3 pictures tell the rest of the story.

This was my restroom companion. Fortunately, he/she/it didn't move, if it had I think it would have been dead.

Promised pictures

In last night's post I said I'd get pictures posted from our small town parade. In this first picture you can see the first entry in the parade, our towns "big" fire truck. Joshua is riding in it and if you look close to the passenger side you'll see his purple shirt and cowboy hat. You can also see down the street how long the parade is hehe.

I was so excited this picture worked. The truck was moving and I was sure it would be blurry. But, what a great shot of Joshua's big smile. He thought it was totally awesome to ride in the fire truck.

We had a couple of first this year in our parade. We had our first Grand Marshall. The older lady in this picture is the Grand Marshall, but she was afraid to ride in the car by herself (even though it was her son driving), so another lady joined her. Who made her Grand Marshall, I'll never know hehe.

This is the second "first" for our parade. An actual float!

This last picture is of the 4-H horse riding club. They came at the end after the bike riders, the 4-wheelers and motorcycles, and the walkers. After the horses was the final entry in our grand parade . .the other fire truck spraying water on everyone. I didn't get a picture of it because I had my camera shoved under my shirt to keep it from getting wet.

Pioneer Day - Utah State Holiday

Today we celebrated Pioneer Day. This is a Utah State holiday celebrating the pioneers entering the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. It is also and LDS holiday celebrated throughout the world by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In our little community the day starts with a flag raising ceremony and then a pancake breakfast at the park. Chuck took the kids today since I had to work, but they did bring me a plate of food. It was very good despite being a bit cold hehe.

Later in the day there is a parade on Center Street, this parade is mostly the kids in the community walking, riding bikes, riding horses or riding in one of the town's two fire engines. It probably takes longer to get every one ready to walk the 1/4 mile (if that) than it does to actually have the parade. The last entry in our little parade is always one of the fire trucks ready to get spectators nice and wet, the front window of my van is nice an clean now hehe.

After the parade the citizens and guest of our fine little community move on over to the park. The activities at the park this year includes 4-H horse exibits, the kids showed off the things they've learned this year with their horses. I think all the participants enjoyed riding around the arena holding an egg on a spoon to see who could go the longest without letting it fall and break. They also did some timed events racing through a serpintine of poles and other riding techniques.

There was also plenty of water activities. A huge water slide was the main attraction. Stacia and Shayla loved going down this. Makiya and Joshua not so much. Joshua enjoyed the bounce house and I think we all loved the potluck dinner and mingling with our friends and neighbors. Another new event this year was a greased poll. Joshua even forked over his $1 to hug the pole.

We headed home about 7:00 pm and had to get the van loaded for Chuck's trip to the SLC farmer's market tomorrow morning and then I headed into Richfield for gas so he wouldn't have to try and find an open gas station at 3:00 in the morning. It is now a great end to a great day, rain is falling and it has cooled off considerably. AND, it will be too wet for me to mow the lawn in the morning (darn hehe).

I'll post pictures tomorrow of the parade, that's the only place I had the camera with me.

nice visit

My 90 yo grandma is moving to Texas so my Aunt can take care of her. We went up Sunday to visit with her and and get a picture. I had to do some manipulation of the picture because there was a huge mirror behind the couch and it was confusing seeng the backs of our heads and the photographer hehe. This pictures will of course be a family treasure. Most likely we won't see grandma again until her funeral.

Some new layouts

Here are a few layouts I've done recently.

Our 4th

I hope everyone had a great Independence Day. We had a good one despite Stacia and Chuck being up in SLC at the Farmer's Market. The rest of us went to the parade in Richfield, it was a lot of fun. Then at 4:00 we went to a play called "Field of Stars." It started with the Boston Tea Party and took us through the end of the Revolutionary War. It was a musical and fantastic. At the end the audience joined in singing "God Bless America." Later that night after Chuck and Stacia got home we went to the foothills west of Richfield and claimed our spot for the fireworks. We love going out to the west side of the freeway and watching from there. No city lights to interfere. These first two pictures are our view of the mountains from our spot. The following pictures are of some of the spectacular fireworks.