Summer Adventures Episodes V and VI: Pioneer Day and Willard Bay

I do not like picture dumps, and yet, for reasons beyond my control, what we have here is a picture dump.  I will do my best to reconstruct the actual events surrounding the following:


July 24- Dan Sr. and Linda were appointed grand marshals of the Cedar Fort Pioneer Day parade.  We might have been forever shunned from the town if we  had missed this event, so Dan took the day off and we all headed for the hills, and what must be the tiniest parade in Utah.  Not that being a grand marshal of a tiny parade detracts in any way from the glory of it all.  It was a proud day to be a Metcalf, that's for sure.  It's just too bad they didn't get their names on the banner.

 Of course no Cedar Fort parade is  complete without  Scout the dog front and center for all the festivities.

And here is good old Paul driving the tractor with the kids towing along behind in some borrowed wagons.  Paul jumped in last minute to be tractor master when the true tractor master got sidetracked from his duties.  We learned this year that if the tractor master is also the grand marshal of the parade, there is a very good chance that it will cause a 20 minute delay in a parade that is only 5 minutes long from start to finish. Hence, most people had packed up and gone  home, stupidly assuming the parade was over, long before our little entry came along. Oh well. Better late than never. And since the Metcalf family is about half the town anyway, there were still plenty of folks left standing around to cheer them on.

They paraded all the way down the road to Grandpa's farm. You can tell Will was so excited to be there.

It seems there is always a puppy in Cedar Fort.  This one was an especially cute one though.  I don't know who he belonged to, he was just there for the fun of it.

Alisa may have been in  the final stages of severe culture shock this day.  So me and Travis rescued her with an emergency run to the movies to see Batman.

And there were plenty of cousins splashing it up in the swimming trough.  That water was ice cold.  The trough got filled from the hose only moments before the kids jumped in there.  I really don't know how they did not all turn into flesh-flavored snow cones.

This was meant to be a picture of Olivia's very loose teeth.  Since you can't really see the teeth, she just looks rather crazy, but the point is SHE HAS LOOSE TEETH.

The next week, we headed up to Willard Bay for another day of sand and sun.  Grandma even got in on the shell seeking action.  What a great sport.

Sisterly solitude

Will has had two very thorough sun burns this year already.  And yet, there he is sleeping in the sun again.  You would think he would learn. You would think he would follow in the example of his wise older brother, who very patiently endured a sunscreen slathering by grandma and little sis....

And then ventured into the water.  The water was  hard to resist this day.  It was like being in a bathtub.

Audrey's handiwork.  Will was a very patient subject.

Audrey and Olivia once again spent nearly the entire day in the water.  We finished off another perfect summer day with hot dogs and s'mores.  We were planning to stay and watch the sun go down over the water, but a terrible windstorm came up, and we had to get the heck out of Dodge while the sun was still high in the sky.  That's okay though, we are already planning another go-round in a week or so.  We need to cram in as many days of THIS:

as we possibly can before summer ends.