Pioneer Day Celebration in Monticello

On Saturday, July 23rd, we drove up to Monticello to watch the parade and spend time with family members who were visiting. As we watched the initial progress of the parade, I started to question myself for telling friends in Blanding that the parade was worth visiting. I am sorry; I know it is unkind to say. But I have been to awesome parades there in the past, and this was not one of them. At first, it seemed to be lacking in actual parade entries. Especially when the firetrucks started coming through and I thought, "Wow, there sure wasn't much to that parade," because the firetrucks are usually the finale in Blanding.

It was neat to see Uncle Jesse marching in the parade with the flag bearers. It was also fun to see the Sappers who recently returned home (although we weren't prepared for them, and they drove through too fast for us to give them a proper welcome, I thought. Was that just me? Maybe I am just slow).

My kids were happy to get to spend time with cousins. It was fun to watch Hunter gathering candy and passing it along to his cousins. I don't think anyone is as fast at snatching candy as that kid.

We also spent some time at the food booths in the park. It was plenty hot, but we were able to find a shady spot to sit and visit and eat (no pictures of that, sorry). After that, we headed down to the house at Verdure. Some of us watched TV there, some played the Wii a little, and some of us played card games, while others went riding at the track and shooting guns. It was a busy day of relaxing for most of us. It was nice to spend time with family and just have fun watching everybody else have fun. We didn't see Joe most of the day. And those of us who didn't make it to the softball tournament missed seeing JC and Lori as well. Holidays like this are great for family fun.

(I totally couldn't think how to end that, and Britt is seriously getting tired of waiting for me to come to bed. Sorry)