Ice Cream/Pie Contest Ward Activity

For several years now our ward has had water games and ice cream making contest family activity. This year they added a few new things like horseback riding, bike parade and pie contest. We were going to enter our version of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia, but our ice cream maker needed to be frozen longer. (We only make our ice cream with the Kitchen Aid ice cream bowl and we love it)
This was our first activity since our trips. It seemed like so long ago that we have been in our ward. It was fun to visit with friends, play, and eat some homemade pie and ice cream. The girls decorated their bikes and had fun riding them in the parade. They rode horses that Brother Love provided for the all primary kids to ride. The girls also enjoyed the slip and slide, water balloon toss, water balloon fight, and just running through the water. It was a great activity.

Ashlyn's 1st day of 2nd Grade

Ashlyn started her 1st day of 2nd grade today all dressed up in Hannah Montana style. I can't believe that Ashlyn is already heading back to school. They start school so early here. It makes for a short summer. She is in Mrs. Allen's class and is very excited to be starting a new grade. We think she will have a wonderful school year. This morning she seemed much more relaxed about going back to school than last year.

We're Finally Home

We're finally home after being gone for almost a month. We had a blast on all of our travels, but we are so happy to be home again. It took us 2 days driving home from Colorado. We left around 6am on Sunday and drove all the way to Laughlin, Nevada getting in around 6:30pm. My parents drove with us and we both stayed at the Tropicana Express Hotel Casino. We did a little swimming in the train shaped pool and unwinding in our comfy room. Monday we ate a nice big breakfast, rode the Tropicana Train ride around the Casino, said our goodbyes to my parents and parted our separate ways. After a long way home we finally got home around 7:30pm. What a long drive.

Last Day in Colorado

Well today is our last day in Sanford and Colorado. We spent the day packing and visiting with family.A few more cousins of mine popped over to my grandparents to say hello. The girls ran around and played with my cousins kids and grandpa. We ate lunch with my parents and siblings at Domino's in Alamosa. Around 6pm we headed to my cousin Tyler's house for a BBQ. We had a wonderful visit with him and my cousin Nakala. He made us some great burgers and then gave us the tour of his home he built. We also watched the world premier of the Hannah Montana Concert in 3-DWhen we got back to my Aunt Regina's house she made us s'mores. It was a great finish to a great day spent with family.

Pioneer Days Continues

In this part of Colorado there is another small town besides Sanford that has a two day pioneer celebration and that is the neighboring town of Manassa. Manassa is a little bigger than Sanford(and I mean a little bigger). The two days are filled with a Parade(same one done twice), burger stand, carnival rides, carnival food, live bands, and rodeo. We took this day to enjoy all the fun. We started at 10am by watching a parade similar to Sanford's, but a little longer and some spectacular floats. Then we walked to the the carnival ride area so the girls could ride a few rides. They had a great time and could have stayed here all day. We then walked over to the burger stand(with the missionaries helping take orders and flipping burgers) to grab some lunch. We visited with friends and family from the area. Around 3pm we bought cotton candy for the girls and carmel apples for us. We soon decided to head back to my grandparents and let the girls rest.

That evening we took my brother Aaron to eat at Chili's in Alamosa. Then went to Wal-Mart to do a little back to school shopping for Ashlyn and Autumn(they start school on Monday). Ashlyn choose a Hannah Montana book bag and Autumn decided on a Disney Princess backpack. Both girls picked out Hannah Montana t-shirts to wear on their first day of school.

Pioneer Days

Today is Pioneer Day and a celebration day for Sanford, Colorado. They start the festivities at 7am with a pancake breakfast. 10am is the pioneer day parade that anyone can be a part of. They start at one end of main street and end at the other end of main street. They actually turn around and come back. As the participants go by they throw candy, lots and lots of candy. They even throw otter pops(yummy). The floats were really good and the parade was fun. The missionary float was our favorite. I yelled out to them to throw pass along cards out. They tried to throw one to me. It didn't go that far. After the parade they have a BBQ lunch at the church and at 1pm is the start of the games and races.

We had a family BBQ instead and headed to the kids games first. They have a three-legged race, wheelbarrow race, water games, egg toss, and water-balloon toss. After the kids play those games they have the races. They start with the youngsters, separated by gender, run a short distance and they keep upping the age. They Autumn ran in the 3-4 year old girls and came in 3rd because she stopped to grab the red tape. Ashlyn ran in the 8-9 year old girls and finished some where in the middle. I could not get Noah to race and I was not about to run against the 20-35 age range girls. Those young girls would beat me. My dad was the only adult to brave the races. He ran in the 35 & up men. He did really great considering he is 50+ now and a long distance runner. We all had a great time.Our girls went back to my grandparents house with family while Noah and I went to the Sanford Museum. This small 4 room building is packed with the towns history. I was able to find all my family members senior class pictures on the wall and learn more about how Sanford was established. The greatest find was the small Spanish history section where I was able to read and see pictures of my family. Noah and I enjoyed the quiet time by ourselves.

Our Fishing Trip in Colorado

My dad wanted to go to the mountains and do some fishing today. Everyone was invited so we all got up early and gathered the fishing poles and bait. My cousin Tyler and his little girl stopped by Wal-Mart to buy some food and kiddie fishing poles for the little ones. This was an interesting day because of all the interesting things that happened to us today.

First interesting thing is that we were up early and ready to go but got a really late start. Then we stopped in Antonito, Colo. on the way to buy some more food for lunch and ice. In the same town we stopped at the only gas station in town to buy our day fishing pass. That took a really long time.

When we finally arrived at Elk Trail were we had to find a campsite where we could set up the food and start a fire for hot dogs. The first site was really sunny and hot, but we stayed there, because we were all so hungry. When we went to start the fire no one had matches. My cousin Deanna had to go to another site to ask for a match. We should have known from our late start this was going to be a crazy day. Soon after we ate those who planned to go fishing headed over to the river to fish. The only problem was we left the worms back at my grandparents and my cousin Tyler somehow misplaced the nite-crawlers he bought at Wal-Mart. So we had to search under rocks for worms. The other half of the group went for a hike, but before they could leave they had to help my cousin Deanna get her keys out of her locked car. After a an hour or so of fishing and getting no bites we got in our cars and drove to Red Lake Trail where my family has gone for years. They have creeks running throughout the mountains and you can catch small brook trout. We learned that they loved worms over the salmon eggs we had. We spent a great deal of time searching for worms. As the afternoon went on and we had worms on our hook we did pretty good. Everyone one got bites on the line and just about everyone caught fish. Ashlyn caught her first two fish. Noah caught about six fish. He even caught a minnow that helped to catch a bigger fish. I caught four fish and then we called it a day. It was a wild day, but fun to be with family.

Fort Garland

My dad and mom thought it would be fun to take a family trip to Fort Garland. So we loaded up the vehicles and drove about 45 min. on the Old Hispanic Trail to the Fort Garland Museum. This fort served as protection for the early settlers in the San Luis Valley. Established in 1858 in southern Colorado, Fort Garland, was home to over 100 men that served to protect. We walked from adobe building to adobe building to see where Kit Carson, soldiers and buffalo soldiers once stayed. We were able to see many pictures and artifacts from the fort. They even had archaeologists on site digging to find more artifacts. It was pretty neat to see what they had just dug up.

Later in the evening we went to the Sanford Pioneer Day Pageant. They hold the pageant two nights in a row. The Pageant was a synopsis of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. My Grandpa was in the pageant playing the part of Samuel the Laminite and did a great job. He looked really cute with all of his make-up on.

Mini Family Runion

We arrived at my grandparents home to find all my family, cousins, and aunt all hanging out visiting with one another. We will spend one week hanging out with my mother's side of the family and around Sanford, Colorado enjoying pioneer days.
It was a beautiful day with nice weather so we headed to Cole Park in Alamosa. My grandparents, cousins, my aunt Regina, all my family came to eat lunch together and watch the little ones run and play. It was a lot of fun. We laughed and laughed at some of the funny mishaps that happened at the park that day. We had a great time.That evening Noah and I went with my parents and grandparents to the local library to do some family history research. My dad found a handful of newspaper articles about him when he played sports. It was fun to read and see the pictures of my dad when he was in High School.