We had a fun Branch Pioneer Day party at our house. I was feeling like the primary kids needed something fun to do together. Our past couple of activities have also doubled as a service project with them coinciding with the Primary's twice a year assignment to clean the church. I also don't remember doing anything as a branch to celebrate Pioneer Day before and I love this time of remembering our amazingly strong and faithful pioneers. I asked each auxiliary to help run some stations or help in some other way (which totally helped in getting people there who don't have kids).
We had the first 30 minutes or so be "Chore Time" and had chores we needed the kids to do that were similar to ones maybe the pioneer kids did: gather kindling, wash clothes, make butter. Then they could go to other stations like a 3 legged race, candle making, button necklace making, or watermelon seed spitting.
Meanwhile the food was cooking. We had talked about doing foil dinners or dutch oven something but ended up simplifying and just doing hotdogs and sidedish potluck. Then we had a short devotional where I passed out cards describing life stories of real pioneers and we talked about how sacrifice brings blessings. After the dinner and devotional we had a hoe down. Its funny how hard it is to get people excited beforehand about square dancing with partners. But once you make everyone join you... they all have SO MUCH FUN. We danced for a good long while till we were too tired to move. I love how much Alec and Gwen loved the square dancing. We ended up doing the dances again for a FHE activity a week or two later.
All in all, it was a successful event and a really fun time. It was kinda exhausting getting both the activity ready and our house ready to host, but I'm glad we did it. (Not sure, I'll do it again next year... though!) The main downside was that it was SOOOOOO FREAKING HOT!!! Like we had a heat advisory out since the temperatures were "feels like" way above 100 degrees F. We encouraged people to take spells going in the air-conditioned house to get away from the heat. That part was kind of miserable but I just kept thinking... people lived like this every day before AC! Crazy!
We also had invited anyone who wanted to do set up a tent and camp out in our yard for the night. We had one family take us up on it and the dad and two youngest kids camped out. Also we set up a tent for our boys and our good friend. Alec really wanted to sleep out there, but Charlie and Dash said it was too hot and came inside. Alec didn't want to sleep alone so he came in too. Chris is the SUPER AMAZING dad and offered to sleep outside with Alec. So they did. I showered and collapsed in bed in my cool, comfortable bed. Nothing like utter and sweaty exhaustion for a good nights sleep! (something that's getting harder and harder to come by with my pregnant body!)
We had bananas, donuts, juice and milk for anyone who camped out in the morning. I was so excited to have this fun event in the past. It was my last big thing to focus on before school started and I was feeling the need for two opposites: relaxed summer fun, and working hard to get ready for preschool.
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