24th in St. Johns

I took the kids up to St. Johns for the Pioneer Days celebration.  Jeremy couldn't get that week off, so I went solo.  I played in the volleyball tournament with the same gals from 2 years ago (Gaylene Williams, and the Burdick Sisters), plus Lanae Wahl (?).  We were awesome if I do say so myself.  We won the CO-ED tournament with our team of only girls.  It was so much fun!
Koe and Jarred came up for the last part of the week and the kids played all day long in the jungle.  They picked berries, created a fortress, cut down trees.  They lived it up.
We had a great campfire circle - though shortened by the rain.  The rain continued with tons of lightening and thunder all night long.  It was so incredible.
 
The weekend was capped off with the best St. Johns parade I've ever been to.  The theme was "Pioneers and Patriots"  The commentators were so funny and kinda politically incorrect.  There were some good floats, but the 2 that got to me were one right after another.  1 - The statue of Joe McCarthy (from SJ) came through the parade.  He was photographed in Iraq giving candy to a child.  That picture soon became famous and now, years after he was killed in combat, a statue was made depicting the picture.  The statue was coming to rest in St. Johns.  2.  The next float was a trailer of flags, simple yet so profound.  Each of the 88 flags on it represented fallen servicemen and women from Apache County since 1900.  Though I'm not from St. Johns, I was so proud of that little patriotic town.    The parade ended in usual fashion with the fire truck soaking all the kids - a tradition lost on most communities now.

The soaked kiddos with their bags of loot- Oliver, Jake, Annie, Simon, Hannah, Abby