July 24th in MONROE

 LaDon is a good PR man.  He went on and on about how great the 24th of July (Pioneer Day) is in Monroe, Utah.  So Summer and I thought we'd go and check it out.  Guess what?  LaDon was absolutely RIGHT (which isn't unusual)  IT WAS THE GREATEST CELEBRATION EVER!!   And I'm not just saying this because CJ was in charge.  It really was SO MUCH FUN!!!!  Summer and I flew in too late to see the big Broadway bonanza on Thursday night (plus we had to get Krista so she could go to Zion Nat'l Park with her friends and do the SUBWAY).  But you can bet we didn't miss any of the other great festivities throughout the weekend!  Friday morning we got up and CJ said she wanted to make her beloved wagon into a Conastoga for the children's parade.  I said, "do the kids have pioneer outfits?"  The answer was no, so we ran off to Walmart and got material of the girls choosing and I whooped um up some good ol pioneer skirts, bonnets and aprons and they were the cutest kids in the parade!



The Carter Pioneer Wagon!



Ram rode in the wagon on his horse.





Check out the chickens that "marched" in the parade (in the background)





Viana enjoying her prize for finishing the parade.  A Popsicle!



And CharlyAnn, the best baby of all, just enjoyed the whole thing!

After the parade we enjoyed a delicious brisket dinner with the entire town in the park.  From there we went to the tennis tournament where Sum and CJ paired up as the most novice players there and Eric and one of his students teamed up to take 5th place! 

CJ and Summer in action. 

The tournament ended about 11:30 and from there Eric went and played in the 3 on 3 basketball tourney.  He finished around 2 am!  The next morning Summer and I got up early (but not as early as CJ who was down getting all the booths organized for the great events at the park) for the MILK RUN!!!  There was a 5 mile and 5K.  This was my first run where I got a shirt and as a bonus a finishers medal!  Monroe does it right!  Sum and I did the 5K.  It was so gorgeous. 

AND I won second place in my age group! $3



The cool thing was, Summer won her age group!!!!  Cash prize-$5



So we did our traditional jumping after running picture!

And liked the one in the shade so much we moved to the sunshine, ready for take-off.

And had a great launch.

But our launch in this field right next to CJ's house wasn't as great as all the landing that went on that evening.  There was a group of paragliders that launched off the mountains to the east and flew around catching thermals and then landed right HERE!  We sat at the dinner table just enthralled by their flying/landing.  But that was nothing compared to the next 40 that came swooping around and landing for the next hour.  By that time we had walked across the field to where the fireworks were going to be and just laid on the grass at the middle school football field and watched them dash around like a bunch of dragonflies.  SO COOL!

Then CJ (who was SO COOL) announced the winners of over 83 prizes and a band played and the kids danced and it was magical.  Then we had the most outstanding fireworks show.  There's nothin better than laying on the grass and having the fireworks burst right over you head.  AWESOME!

That was a great cap off to a great weekend and I didn't even go into details about the begillion pounds of candy we caught during the parade, or how Eric played 6 more hours of tennis in the hot, hot weather in the singles tourney, or how we enjoyed all the great booths and entertainment at the park that CJ orchestrated so perfectly.  Basically,  you just need to mark your calendar for next year, July 24, 2012 and head to Monroe City, Utah and see it all for yourself!  It's AWESOME!