Pioneer Day Extravaganza

In Bancroft ID the 24th of July is even bigger than the 4th. That's Southeast Idaho for you. So we took our little family reunion vacation there this year. It was fun. A lot of the family was there but we sure missed those of you who could not make it. It's okay, we still love you. But we did have 13 of the 15 grandkids there, which made things quite exciting/interesting.

Wednesday:

Me and Keri (yes that is proper English now...none of this "So-and-so and I..." junk) left Provo at about 6 or 6:30, just in time to catch the tail end of rush hour combined with an accident around Orem...so it took us a while to get out. We stopped at Maddox for a delicious steak dinner (mmm...my favorite) then high-tailed it up to Chesterfield ID. We finally got through the construction, detour, and internal navigation failure (i got turned around in the dark) and got to the cabins a little before midnight.



Thursday:

We got up early to go to the Bancroft Lion's Club sponsored chuckwagon pancake breakfast. Then we waited around until everyone else was ready to go. Then everyone else waited on us because we had to feed and change Johnny. Finally we went and just about missed the breakfast. Good thing we got there before all the rootbeer milk was gone. I kid you not...rootbeer milk. And orange milk and something else just as gross I'm sure.

After breakfast was the parade. The parade goes down Main St. then turns around and comes back. Double the candy, double the fun. Daylen paid Cade a dollar to grab all the Bit-O-Honeys that he could. Daylen also couldn't resist running after some of the candy himself.


Then lunch, which I did not eat because I had just eaten breakfast and filled up on candy. Then the kids had some races. I didn't realize they had adult races, so we took off. It's probably a good thing because I just would have made everyone else feel slow. I did beat Bryson in a race. Jamie got a photo finish which clearly shows me in the lead. If you look closely though you could argue Bryson was in the lead...so we called it a tie.

We went 4-wheeling later on and no one was hurt. I also managed to scare Keri. She was scared when I went fast over the pivot road where the pivot line leaves about a 3" - 6" trench every 100' or so. Then she realized that by going fast it makes it almost as if the trench wasn't there. Fun times.

Friday:

We went to Lava Hot Springs to spend every dime that I've made over the last two years. Well maybe not quite that much, but I still think $7.50 is ridiculous for swimming. They even tried to charge for Johnny, but I told them no. Well we're the chumps that paid it, so supply and demand right? It was worth it though because we had a good time. I jumped off the 40' platform several times and had a headache and sore arms for the rest of the day. Keri got it on video, which i plan on putting on here when I figure out how. After watching the video I realized that I'm fat and need to lose weight. The camera does add 10 pounds, which makes me wonder exactly how many cameras I had on me... The extra weight did come in handy, though, as I was able to make it the furthest at the end of the slide. I'm sure skill and strategy had something to do with it too or else Daylen and Maurie would have come a lot closer.

Saturday:
I was pretty worn out by then, especially after staying up late every night destroying Daylen and Bryson in Daytona 500 (Disclaimer: the term "destroying" in this context actually means "being destroyed by"). I did destory everyone in Homerun Derby though.

We had time to go to the Chesterfield townsite. We went to the church, the cemetery where my grandparents are buried, and the Perkins cabin.

Sunday:
Church was great. It was good to see some people that I remember from my days on the farm. Also, Conner just about bit Kyler's finger off. While I felt bad for Kyler (he handled it very well by the way), I was impressed by the mark it left. When I told Shaulee what had happened she just shook her head and said, "I keep telling those boys to not put their fingers by his mouth."

After church we packed up and then had some delicious Sunday dinner at Mom and Dad's place before our long drive home, which actually ended up being pretty short, unlike this sentence that just keeps going on and on but is just about to finish riiiight now.

So all in all it was a pretty good trip. Here are some pictures of Johnny:

Taking a nap or doing his Rocky impression? You decide

With Brooks. Apparantly Johnny wants all the attention to himself.