Pioneer Days

This year's Pioneer Day celebration came with a lot of work for Scott. It was our ward's turn to be in charge of the food for the Stake breakfast, and as Elder's Quorum president, Scott was put in charge of it.  He spent weeks agonizing over where to get the food, how much food to buy, how to stay in the budget the Stake had given him, and how to transport all the food that morning (we are talking 90 dozen eggs and 50 gallons of milk, etc).  And he pulled it off!  He had a crew show up at Winco that morning at 5:30 to pick up the food and transport it to the church, where he had another crew gathered at 6:30 to help prepare the food for cooking.  The kids and I slept in till 8, then showed up to a yummy hot cooked breakfast.  I was very proud of all the work Scott put in to the whole thing. 

With the breakfast stress out of the way, we were all able to enjoy the rest of the activities that morning.  The horse rides are always a favorite of our kids.

Dunk tank. 

Getting prizes from the fish pond.

Absent from any of these pictures is Josh.  He would not wake up that morning.  I tried for 45 minutes to get him out of bed, and he refused.  I told him he was going to get left home if he didn't get up and come, and he chose to stay in bed.  As the activities started to wind down, I came home with Owen, Kate and Savannah, and left Nate and Aaron with Scott to help with clean up.  When I came home, Josh was still in bed, except now he was hiding under his covers crying.  I knew he was sad about missing the morning.  I asked him if he wanted me to run him to the church so he could get in the last little bit of fun going on there.  He chose to stay in bed and cry.  I felt so sorry for him.  Pioneer Day has always been his special thing, because his birthday is on Pioneer Day.  When he was little, he used to think the Pioneer Day celebration was for him.  I tried to get him out of bed so I could run him to the church for the last part of the morning, but he was too upset to get up.  After a bit, Scott came home.  He went in and had a heart to heart with Josh.  Josh explained that he had just been really tired that morning, so he was going to stay in bed for just a little bit longer, then he planned to ride his bike over to the church to join us.  But then he fell back asleep and didn't wake up till I walked in the door.  He was so upset that he had slept through the whole thing.  I felt really bad for him, but I was also really frustrated with him, because he had completely disobeyed me every time I asked him to get out of bed that morning.  Sometimes when you make a choice, you don't get a second chance.  He missed the celebration, and won't get another chance till next year.  Poor kid.