If the answer's yes, then, as Brigham said, "this is the place." Today is Pioneer Days, a state holiday in Utah. It's easily as big a deal as the 4th of July here, with massive fireworks shows and everything.
Robert Kirby, a local newspaper columnist, had a funny column about the holiday yesterday. Kirby is LDS, but he is what I would consider a "normal Mormon." He wrote:
You can also be your own Utah pioneer. A hundred years from now, your descendants could be telling their children how Great-great-grandpa lost his job with Microsoft, got persecuted in the Seattle real-estate market and drove a U-Haul to Zion. And when he got here, there was nothing but Mormons and highly inflammatory liquor laws as far as the eye could see.
Pretty funny! Last night we went over the the Pioneer Days Parade preview. This is the most awesome way to see a parade I can imagine. The floats are inside (translation, in an
air conditioned building), up close, and you can walk through them at your own pace. It was pretty awesome! And, for the record, there were entries by the Episcopal Diocese of Utah, the Pentecostal church, and other secular entities. Of course there were lots of "stakes" (LDS churches) well. This was the boys' favorite float. It's Shrek, Donkey & Dragon:
The famous golden spike of the railroad joining east & west:
Some ramblings on living in Utah...there are interesting dynamics involved in living here, because our day-to-day lives are actually pretty great (aside from the month of July, which is just ridiculously HOT, and January, when the valley is choked by an inversion). We've made a fair amount of friends, partly because we've made an effort to establish friendships (since we have no family around and haven't lived here since middle school) and partly because the boys are older so we have more freedom and flexibility in our days. It makes for a weird situation though because we like it here in a lot of respects, but we still don't want to be here long-term. After living here a year, I honestly think it's a smaller part of the population than you might think that has a disproportionate amount of power in structuring laws, cultural attitudes, etc. And just thinking about putting the boys in school where over half the kids, for example, all get baptized at the same time or all go to church together on Sunday just puts a knot in my stomach. So then you're faced with private school tuition...blah, blah, blah...I guess my point is that there are a lot of good points to living here too - it's just complicated.
Anyways, I need to make a couple pies for a friend's BBQ tonight...
Happy Pioneer Days y'all!
We came armed with dump-trucks and a picnic lunch. The boys did so well!
We snagged front row seats for his uplifting speech and then we all got to shake hands with Barack Obama! Barack gave Max "knuckles" & Ben added "Obama" to his vocabulary. 
I jokingly said a while back that if Barack ever stopped in Utah, we should go see him because we were sure to have a front row seat...not only did he visit, but he visited on a Sunday, so we had optimal viewing conditions in this red religious state. 
Barack originally was planning to just go to a private fund-raiser, but the paper said this morning that he'd changed plans and was going to address the public in Park City before the fundraiser, so we headed up to hear him. The paper also estimated that he might draw about 100 people - wrong! There were probably 1,000 people or so...so encouraging! 
I think it is very cool that he took the time to stop in Utah. This is not a state that he has any chance of winning - any Republican, especially Mitt Romney pretty much has it wrapped up - but there are more Independents and Democrats here than you might think, and we always just get overlooked. Not today though!! Thanks for showing us some love, Barack!
And don't worry, I threw the noodles away, so if you come over for dinner in the near future and we happen to serve you a large, hot platter of spaghetti, you don't have to wonder.
Max had to have his picture taken too:
to check out the llama fest. We didn't last long though, as it was still over 100 degrees, even at 6:00 in the evening!
Here we are at our annual neighborhood parade: 
By the way, we now have the rockingest wagon ever! I will post a pic soon. We upgraded from the umbrellas to a canopy & added a Radio Flyer trailer. We're our own little parade tooling around the neighborhood. Riding in style!
Ben cried the first time in the pool, but he warmed up a little bit everyday and was having a lot of fun by the end of the week. 
They loved seeing all of the lizards: big ones, medium ones, little ones, green ones, black ones, brown ones...always peeking out and scurrying away around the resort (sorry, no lizard pics). 
Every night we watched the sun sink into the ocean: "bye bye sun, see ya tomorrow." 
View from our hotel room:
Ben getting a good laugh about the surprise he just made for Dad:
Eating: 
The most fabulous discovery, Mango Daquiri:
And here they are showing Uncle Jordan some love too:
We had such a great time catching up with Becca & Jordan this weekend! We got in some shopping - we braved the crowds at the newly opened Ikea for about an hour Sunday morning. We wandered through this labyrinth of home stuff and then left with glazed looks on our faces. Sunday afternoon we made the rounds of stores they have missed while in Helena...Old Navy, Barnes & Noble, Best Buy...Every so often I pick up another book that I loved growing up for Max & Ben. Sunday's treasure was Tikki Tikki Tembo - I was so excited! And Becca got to read the story for the first time. (Recall her blog discussion about speech class & Tikki Tikki Tembo a while back :) .) Late Sunday afternoon, we all took a bike ride around Daybreak. 
And Sunday night, we introduced them to the Greatest Chicken Wings on Earth, Winger's! Delicious! Here they are, mouths watering, as they prepare for their first taste: 
Such a fun weekend & thanks again Becca & Jordan for making the trip!
And here are some of the boys - they love playing with their tracks! If you ask Ben what a train says, he has the cutest little baby version of "chugga chugga." 
And Happy Mother's Day to all the moms this weekend!
This Sunday it was much cooler, so no shorts around here. One week, I made sort of an offhand comment to Max that his cowboy shirt sure is handsome for church. So now it is the only shirt he will wear to church, and as soon as he gets home, he takes it off because it's only for church. The Sunday that this was taken, he wore it with shorts and cowboy boots. :) Whatever works.
and Andrew 
enjoying their "scrumptious and delicious" birthday blueberry pie - Andrew's favorite. (Poor little Ben is running a fever today & was already in bed so he didn't partake of the pie.)
Shrieks of joy with this big crazy water thing that they'd send ping-pong balls down the different tubes. 
Once this last walkway dries and the forms come off, I'll lay the last of the weed barrier and wood chips. Yeah!! Then the yard will be officially done.
Then we headed over to some other friends' house for dinner - Tiffany, Brian and their two kids, Riley and Bailey, ages 1 & 2 (Irish twins). They also live in Daybreak, about 6 blocks away. They are a really nice family that we just met at the park one day and have had a lot of fun getting to know. Plus, they're also Nuggets fans, so you know they're good people. Weirdly enough, Brian and I both graduated from Heritage (he was 5 years ahead of me though). They move around a lot with Brian's job, a tunnel engineer, but for now, we've all landed in Utah. That's it around here for now!
Shorter in back with great layers, longer in front:
I love it! Thanks Holly!
