"Why do we celebrate July?"
"What do you mean honey?"
"Well, all month long there are parades and fireworks and BBQs and parties."
"Is it for my birthday?"
Oh how could they have missed our numerous lessons about freedom, our country, freedom to worship, and the pioneers entering the valley to escape persecution?
True enough, every weekend for the past 2 months has been filled with fireworks, rodeos, and parades. It sometimes feels like a bit of overkill. But I'm glad I live in a small town that celebrates. Tonight showed me why I like living in a great neighborhood.
All month, the children have looked forward and waited for "the big parade." You mean the Days of 47? No, their parade. And yes, I was in charge, once again. My children dressed up and paraded out in a wheelbarrow to invite our neighbors we've never met to come and participate. The children met an hour early to decorate their bikes, scooters, wagons, floats, or 4 wheelers. My teenager helped the smaller children.
Our scouts led with the flag, followed by our parade royalty, two disabled teens from our neighborhood, crowned and driven in a dune buggy.
This year we had an indexing family history float...
Followed by the neighborhood kids... young....
And not so young.
At the end, everyone refreshed themselves in the dunking machine, some of us refreshed themselves over and over.
Women dish out ice cream, pie,
or snow cones,
Kids climbed the rock wall,
Tried to see who could eat watermelon the fastest...
Or pie.
Followed by family games
I'd never met many of the people who came. They live in our neighborhood, but hide until July brings them out. They go home thrilled to live in such a great neighborhood. Who do they think puts these things on? Someone had to plan for months, then set up since 2:00. Who do you think that was? Well, my kids were satisfied, no, thrilled. Celebrating July is now complete. And why not? I suppose celebrating with those with live among is really celebrating.
We miss that month of holidays. We missed it in California, but we miss is more in Ukraine. We are glad that you had enough fun for us too!!
ReplyDeleteEach year this celebration gets bigger and better! Can't wait for 2013 . . . to share it with you.
ReplyDeleteGood work.
ReplyDeleteOne alternative is to live in a place where there is none of the above, for either holiday. Then the teaching happens, because that's all you can do to celebrate. And perhaps they still won't remember.
The reason I miss Hyrum yearly, still.
I especially like the costume in the top pic. Simple Class.
Wow, your place gets really festive. :) We just shoot a lot of fire works in the sky. =(
ReplyDelete;)
Hey, I saw a reference to a manuscript in one of your earlier posts--send me an email and let me know what genre you're writing in. Did you get my email from a couple of months ago? I wondered if I had the correct one, it was missing an n on the end of johnson. Is that right?
ReplyDelete