24th of July 2012

The kids and I got up early on the 24th to head up to Enterprise for the festivities.  The 24th fell on a Tuesday this year and Randy is in charge of his groups' weekly Tuesday meetings at work with the FAA so he wasn't able to come to the parade and program with us.  He did make it in time for lunch at my grandma Simkins' to celebrate what would have been my grandpa's 91st birthday.

The kids getting ready for the parade to start so they can start collecting their candy

Halen & Alex collecting all their loot

This is how much Mia enjoyed her first parade Ü

After the parade, I hurried back to my parent's house to feed Mia real quick before I had to be to the program.  The theme this year was a look back at the history of Enterprise and they asked the descendants from a few of the early settlers to tell a story about their ancestors.  Since my great-great grandparents (Ben & Sarah Morris) were the first to have a home in Enterprise, they were included in the program.  The people in charge of the program asked my grandma Simkins to have one of her kids or grandkids to read a story about Sarah Morris and she thought it would be best to have her oldest granddaughter do it...which is where I come in.  I really hate getting up in front of people but I'm extremely proud of where I come from so I was honored to be able to do it.  I gave my camera to my mom to take a picture of me on stage but she was busy with Mia and forgot. :(  It was just a short story about how Sarah found a rattle snake next to her baby one time and how she calmly sat the baby on the bed and shot the snake with a rifle.

We had lunch right after the program which of course was really good.  My dad and my uncles are pretty good with the dutch oven. Ü  Since my grandma's house is just across the street from the church where the races are held, we can always hear when they get started and unless someone has an under 1 year-old, we usually can make it over there in time for all of our races.  Well, we didn't have an under 1 year-old, but we still almost missed it.  We heard the races start and before we knew it, they were already done with the 1 year-olds.  So we hurried to make it in time for Alex to race with the 3 year-olds and I barely got him up to the start line before the guy said "start".  Luckily Alex is adventurous enough that he just took off running as soon as I said "go".  I couldn't tell, but it looked like he won from where I was but they gave the quarter to another kid.  Oh well.

Grandpa Simkins barely had time to get a picture of Alex just over dad's shoulder

Again, I just had enough time to get Halen to the start line before his race with the 5 year-olds started.  Come to find out, the guy announcing the races is new to town and had probably never seen one of these races and he ran a tight ship.  He for sure kept things moving but I heard a lot of people talking about how fast he was going and I know a few kids missed their race because of it.  But Halen did good in his race.  He didn't win either but he ran pretty fast.

Halen racing as hard as he can

We hung around and visited for a while at my parent's and let the kids play before heading back home.  We also went to the cemetery to let Halen & Alex see where their great grandpa Simkins is buried.  It was a really good day.  It's always nice to celebrate with family and remember our incredible heritage and the sacrifices made by our early pioneers.