Days of 47 Float Preview

In Utah our big Pioneer Celebration and parade is on July 24. LDS stakes are invited to prepare a float about a year in advance and it takes about 15 years for their turn to come around again. The Gym Rat was a young boy scout the last time we had this opportunity.

I knew our stake had a float assignment this year, but because my girls are all busy already on the 24th, and it's mostly for the teenagers, we didn't get involved.

Princess left this morning for 2 weeks at BYU and their intensive ballet dance camp. Crafty also took off for a week at Oakcrest, a girls' camp run by our church. And Prima Donna was already committed to march in the parade with the band.

Interestingly enough, the band was also marching at the float preview tonight, so that gave us the perfect excuse to support Prima Donna and have a fun free activity for FHE at the same time. The float preview is at the expo center and it includes all these amazing floats made by the various stakes. I couldn't quite figure out how the band was going to perform for a whole hour.

Let me tell you, it was the easiest "parade" they have marched in all year! They simply marched up and down the rows between the floats and played each of their songs several times. Since we were indoors it was nice and cool and they had a great time dancing and showing off to the audience.

When we were finished, we spent the rest of the evening picking apricots and pulling weeds in the sand pile. It was a good combination of work and play, two things I really want to teach my kids.

Now if I could just figure out a way to teach them that work can be play...