Pioneer Day

Yeah, you thought Pioneer Day was July 24th...WRONG! Santa Clara was founded by a group of Swiss pioneers whose ancestors still live in Santa Clara and keep the pioneer spirit alive. (Santa Clara and Ivins border each other and have always hated each other, for reasons I don't know, but since we are transplants we don't feel the hatred and just do the fun stuff!)

This weekend is Swiss Days for Santa Clara where they celebrate their heritage. The citizens of Santa Clara buy wooden cows (life-sized) to paint and then they put them out each year and there is a judging contest to see who has the best cow. It gets pretty intense. They have a parade on Saturday and all kinds of pioneer activities set up for the kids. They have cows to milk, make butter, play pioneer games and make candles, just to name a few activities. It's great fun. Right after Courtney was born, I entered the pie baking contest and won 1st place for my filling. I didn't understand the nasty looks at the time, but now that I have lived here longer, I realize that I made a major social mistake by entering when I hadn't lived here long enough and I wasn't living in Santa Clara. Oh well, I still won!!

So today was Pioneer Day for the 2nd graders at Ethan's elementary (Santa Clara Elementary). My friend around the corner and I are room moms together for the boys' class and we volunteered to do the pioneer games. We played stick pull, Indian leg wrestle and chain tag. There are 4 classes of 2nd graders so we did 4-30 minute rotations. It was great fun and the weather was so nice...high 70s and sunny. The kids were asked to dress up like pioneers, which we were not prepared for. We went all around the neighborhood and got things for Ethan to wear. He ended up just wearing a cowboyish shirt from and a hat borrowed from a neighbor. Earlier on he had on boots, chaps, vest, hat and jeans. He looked so cute but thought maybe he was overdoing it a bit.

The other rotations the 2nd graders did was to make homemade butter (yummy), homemade ice cream, and some other pioneer games. Then the kids sang pioneer songs while we buttered a bunch of wheat bread with their homemade butter. They then ate bread and relaxed until it was time for lunch. It was 2 hours of fun!!

Courtney went with me and would switch from being a pioneer girl to a "regular" girl. She had a bonnet she would wear. We have one that Grandma Pack gave her but she wanted to borrow one, so I got her one when I borrowed some clothes for me from a woman in the ward.

Here are some photos: