All Because of Avocados: Deck the Halls...

Founder's Day

Pleasant View Founder's Day is one of my favorite days of the year, it's my summer Christmas. I think the reason I like it so much is because it kind of kicks off the summer and because it is full of fun/funny traditions for our family. I look forward to it every year.

Just a little story of my Founder's day history...

When we first moved out here to Pleasant View, I had no idea really about Founder's day. Founder's day is a random Saturday in June and if you don't know about it, it can sneak right by you. Anyway our first Founder's Day out here my parents had gone to St. George that weekend to visit my Grandma and Autumn was gone away somewhere, so it was just me at home by myself. I was sleeping peaceful early Saturday morning and all of a sudden I was awaken by loud cannons being shot off. I had no idea what was going on. I thought for some reason Pleasant View had gone to war with who knows who. I was trying to figure out what I was supposed to do...run, hide under my bed, fight back...anyway after a few minutes of getting myself back together and waking up a little, I realized it was just part of Founder's day flag ceremony. I was relieved!

Anyway...the next Founder's Day I was a little more prepared.

The next few years we made Founder's Day a "Haun Family Tradition". We usually start with breakfast (this has been an optional tradition, sometimes we do and sometimes we don't)...down at the church bowery usually a Young Womens/Mens fundraising activity. It usually consists of pancakes, eggs, ham, hash browns and milk or orange juice and very sticky tables.

Then there's the parade. It is the perfect parade...not too long, hometowny, and candy that is thrown. I have always said that parades are the complete opposite of Halloween...the paraders dress up and the candy is brought to you while you just sit there. Love it.

This is from the 2010 parade

The next Founder's day activity is the Salmon Bake. This always reminds me of a small town get together...like what you see in the movies. Everyone in the town talking and catching up, the Hale Family Singers singing in the background...LOVE IT!! One of our biggest Family traditions is the smashing of the cupcakes. The funniest is when we bring in a "new" person and they have no idea what is going on.

Cupcakes 2010

Then are the fireworks....the best.

Anyway...this year things were a little bit different. They moved Founder's day up a week, which kind of threw us off a little. My parents planned a trip to California, so they weren't going to be there. Troy, Tiff and Danny were running the Ragnar race, so they couldn't participate in most of Founder's day and Autumn and Josh were working.

But that didn't stop me, Maddie, and Gracie from doing as much as we could.

Maddie and Gracie came over to my house to watch the parade. Danny and I live on the parade route now so we can just watch it from our house, which is nice because we have plenty of shade and anything we need we can just run into the house to get. The parade was good, as usual. We got lots of candy and otter pops and advertisements.

Some of the tractors in the parade

The girls with the cougar...
not sure why the cougar was in the parade.

After the parade we had tickets to go see the matinee of Mama Mia at the Capitol Theater in Salt Lake. Maddie and Gracie love the movie, so I took them with me.

It was really good and I think the girls loved it too.

For some reason the Mama Mia sign didn't work...oh well.

Waiting for it to start

Then we rushed back so the girls could make it to a bbq at Grandpa Ken's, but we missed the Salmon bake, which was a bummer. Then the Ragnar runners made it home and most of us made it to the fireworks. (Of course my parents didn't come and Aut and Josh family was too tired.) The fireworks were awesome...I was glad that Danny was able to make it to a little Founder's day with me.