Pioneer Day/Thankful Thursday 38

In Utah, we get to celebrate another fun holiday in July.

Pioneer Day

It is always on the 24th of July.  It is a day that we celebrate our Pioneer Heritage.  Utah was founded by Mormon Pioneers who were trying to escape persecution and find a place where they could worship God freely.  They packed up all of their possessions- or sometimes only the clothes they were wearing and very little food- and made the trek across the country from Illinois to Utah.  I have some great pioneer stories in my family and one day I will have to share some of those with you.  Remember when we went on a Pioneer Trek 2 years ago?  In 3 years we will get to go on another one (if Mark is still the Bishop then) and we will get to take Josh and Emma along with us.  They are both so excited.  It is a wonderful experience and a great opportunity to forget yourself and see a small little sliver of what some of these amazing, courageous pioneers went through.  I am writing this post on a Thursday so I have decided to also use it as an opportunity to express my gratitude for all of the pioneers who sacrificed so much so that we can have these beautiful places to live.  They are my heroes.

Because we had a funeral coming up :(, we had a lot of family in town to celebrate the 24th of July.  

We made tin foil dinners and had a s'mores party at Grandma Great's house.

Can you say Oooey Gooey Sticky Mess?

Oh, but it was so much fun...and tasty.

We ended the night with our very own fireworks/glowstick show.

Who knew that providing the kids with a few glowsticks would provide over an hour of entertainment?

They had so much fun running around in the dark, and I had so much fun capturing these moments with my camera.

It was a very bittersweet night.
We were having so much fun with all of the family around, but we were missing Grandpa Great like crazy.  It's definitely going to be very weird for a long while as we adjust to these good times without him there.