Fayette's Pioneer Day Parade

Who knew the little small town Fayette had a 24th of July celebration?  We have lived in Gunnison for years and never knew about this small town parade.  The kids were excited to hit up one more parade.  This Fayette parade is our fourth parade in three days.  Although the kids love every minute of it, we are wore out!

 

McKenna and Lindzey decided to join up with the Belle, the current Miss Gunnison, in this parade.  It was a good thing they did because it has been a tradition for the past several years that the current Miss Gunnison royalty ride a tractor down the parade route and pass out crowns to the small girls in the crowd, so it would have been a lot of work for Belle to do alone! 

 

A huge shout out to Bruce and Alice Christenson for donating the crowns and bringing their tractor over for this fun parade!  This was so fun for these three girls to do, who wouldn't love to get a crown versus a bunch of candy.  The girls in the parade crowd loved this.  McKenna even said she had a couple opportunities to get her picture taken with a few little girls! 

 

 

What a some cute girls!  I am so grateful that McKenna has had this awesome opportunity to serve, especially in times like this with Belle.  I love the bond these two cousins share!

Orem Owls Game

Orem Owls vs. Idaho Falls

- UVU Brent Brown Ballpark -

 

I don't think we could have picked a better way to celebrate the 24th of July than at a baseball game, with cousins, and a great show of fireworks.  The kids were so excited to go to the Orem  Owls baseball game with Eric, Jenna, Maddie, Tripp, and Krew.  This group of kids love to be around each other, so it was fun to watch them tease and giggle with each other.  The baseball game was fun and the fireworks show at the end was wonderful.  This definitely was fun for the entire family.

 

 

Mayfield's Pioneer Day Parade

 It wasn't but a quick trip from Sterling to Mayfield before we were ready for another parade.  This time, both Allyson and McKenna participated in this parade.  Allyson and Lottie have been taking signing lessons this summer and so they had the opportunity to sing the patriotic songs they have been learning in the Mayfield parade.  We couldn't convince Lottie to be in the parade, she decided she wanted to catch candy with Trey rather than ride in the back of the truck.

 

Allyson was pretty excited to ride in the back of the truck, mainly because she was able to throw candy at the crowd.  She did say they sang quite a bit, its just when they came past where we were standing, she was ready to throw us candy!

 

 

 

Here are McKenna and Lindzey back at it again, parade three of four for the weekend!  And as always, look so cute smiling and waving for the crowd!

 

 

Sterling Pioneer Day Parade

One good thing about McKenna being in the royalty for Miss Sanpete Outstanding Teen, is that it opens up fun opportunities for the entire family.  We were able to make it to the Sterling Pioneer Day's parade this morning.  We had never been to this small town celebration, so to be able to participate in it was fun for the whole family.

 

 

While McKenna and Lindzey rode the parade route, Trey, Lottie, and Ally loved gathering up all the candy.   For being such a small parade, the kids scored big with a lot of candy.  They were even fully entertained with the runaway pony pulling the lady on the cart.  Who knew that what we thought was just fun ended up being disaster.   

 

Trey was nice enough to share his candy with the girls.  They weren't a very good catch so he hand delivered!  This was such a fun parade, lucky it was short and sweet because off to the Mayfield parade we go!

Centerfield's Pioneer Day Parade

I can't think of a better way to kick off the holiday than to start it with a fun parade.  Small town parades are always filled with kids on bikes, local businesses, high school band, local royalties, fire trucks and of course lots and lots of candy.  Allyson and Lottie could not wait for 6 o'clock to roll around so they could get to the parade.  We were lucky to get Hadlee Belnap to come and hang out with us for the parade.

 

This was the first of four parade that McKenna had to be in this holiday weekend.  Rather than fixing up the trailer to pull them, Jeremy shined up his big truck, posted a few signs on, and away they went.  McKenna and Lindzey had so much fun waving to so many of the local people that made it out for today's parade.   Trey didn't get left out of the fun, he and Shea rode the side by side in the parade too, no signs for them, it was all for fun.

 

Finlinson Family Reunion

Joshua Finlinson and Ida Jane Jacobsen Finlinson Family Reunion

 

Today was such a fun opportunity for Lottie, Allyson, and I to attend the Finlinson Family Reuinion.  With Jeremy, Trey, and McKenna busy with other plans, the three of us decided to ride over with Rod and JoAnn to attend this reunion.   It was held at the town hall in Oak City.  Oak City was place where the Finlinson family were born, raised and buried.    This was such a great fun day for us to meet and see so many people on this side of our family. 

 

 

There were 352 people in attendance out of the 711 in the Joshua and Ida Finlinson posterity.  For me is was just a huge expansion of people from our regular Anderson family reunion.  Surprisingly, I was shocked the few people I did know.  It was fun for our Grandma Loraine to be in attendance, she is the only child of Joshua and Ida that is still living.  Another fun statistic in being there, is all of the living grandchildren of Josh and Ida were in attendance today, to me that's quite a thing to know so many came from so far to be here today.

 

 

 

After we were finished serving and cleaning up lunch, the girls and I spent time outside playing on the fun play ground.  They had so much fun running from slide to slide to the swings and etc.  They did participate in the races, one of which Allyson was excited over because she won, but then back to the slides they went.  It was all I could do to pull them off to go back inside to hear the program.

 

The girls absolutely loved this slide, I mean look at the air that they catch on their way down.  There was always quite the line up for this, I don't know if it was the speed they caught when they went down it or the pile of rocks that they slide through on their way to the end, regardless, it was fun for all!

After the reunion was over, we drove to the Oak City Cemetery where we were able to walk through to see the headstones of the 22 family members that are buried there in Oak City.  It was interesting to walk through with Darlene and JoAnn to hear of the stories and histories of so many of these people, what they were like when they were alive and how they died.  So interesting, even Ally and Lottie enjoyed listening to these histories.

 

 

 Above is the headstone for Josh and Ida, it was because of them that this reunion took place today.  And of course, we can't forget our Great Grandpa Don.  This is the first time these girls have been to Grandpa Don's burial, although they were not born while he was still alive, they both know and love to hear the stories of him.  We sure do miss that great man.