Pioneer Day

Most years, we spend Pioneer Day at the lake with Grandma's side of the family, playing with cousins and lounging on the beach.  This year, the lake day was postponed, so we woke up on Wednesday with no plans.  Grandma and Grandpa has invited us to go watch the Days of 47 parade with them but we ended up sleeping in and only send Butterfly.  They later reported she had a blast! She made friends with a nearby family and particularly loved the motorcade of police officers and the princess floats.  Afterwards, they did a little shopping (Grandpa bought some of her new school supplies) and went to lunch before joining us again at home.

Meanwhile, we slept in.  And then piled into the car, searching for garage sales.  On July 4th, there had been several in town.  But we weren't as lucky on the 24th, despite being a similar holiday in Utah.  But we drove around, stopped at the thrift store and snacked on donut holes and blackberries (Lovely was in heaven).  Once we got home, I made a feast with crepes, strawberries, bananas, scrambled eggs and bacon.

We leisurely played through the day, watching movies, playing with toys, having a pretend picnic and eventually had a late night dinner with Grandma and Grandpa.  I was putting Lovely and a very tired Ladybug to bed while everyone else slipped away to watch the fireworks.

Nothing fancy but a fun, relaxing day.

And then last night, we set off our own fireworks.  Lovely LOVES the little pop-its.  She takes them one at a time, sets them down careful and then stomps on them, squealing in delight.  The sparklers didn't go as well.  Butterfly had a great time dancing with them but curious little Lovely touched the end and burned her thumb.  I plopped her in the sink to run her hands under cold water.  Daddy helped distract her by gentle washing her very dirty feet too (her first pedicure?).  Once she had settled down and we concluded the burn wasn't too bad, I gave her a frozen teething toy to hold (her "fishie", and then she needed one for each hand) and went back outside for more fun.  However, Ladybug was being fussy and didn't want to play so she ran inside to hide.  But Butterfly and Lovely happily sat on our laps as Daddy played firework emcee, lighting a few small fireworks.