Make do or do without

As soon as I got back from Danica’s sealing on Friday, I picked up T.J. and we headed off for St. George. Our sound system in the car has been broken for quite a while and we keep saying we’re going to fix it, but it’s hard to spend a couple hundred of dollars on that when we have other expenses, ya know? So, my creative mind finally came to work and realized, we could just hook up my portable iPod speakers to my iPhone and we could still listen to music! It was brilliant and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier. Granted, it doesn’t get as loud. But it made the trip much more fun.

The trip down there was beautiful. We pulled into St. George right at sunset, when the sun was hitting the red rock perfectly. Man, I love that place. I know it’s hot, but one day I hope I can live there. We stayed at T.J.’s aunt and uncle’s house, missed the pool party unfortunately, but played lots of card games (such as Blink!) and hooked up the Kinnect to their ginormous TV.

We woke up on Saturday early, ate the most delicious pumpkin waffles made by T.J.’s aunt Karen, then headed down the road to Enterprise for the Pioneer Day festivities.

The parade made me chuckle a couple of times. I just loved how “Mormon” the floats were. Check some of these out:

After the parade, the whole family got together for a family photo. This is the first time I’ve ever experienced this. And yes, I say “experience” because it was just that. It wasn’t just point, shoot, done. It was a large process and by the end, I was laughing in all the photos because the babies wouldn’t stop crying, the toddlers were running everywhere, and everyone was getting so tired and anxious. Oh boy, it was so funny. Next year there will be seven new babies, so I’m hoping we won’t have to do it again or else I’ll have to hold my squirming little one too.

Those pictures of the whole family are coming soon, from T.J.’s sister Lacey. Until then, here are a couple I took. I love the one with Mark and Kelly with Kelly’s grandpa who is 102.

After that, we just hung around the house, had a delicious BBQ, and played some games. I talked to T.J.’s great-grandpa (the one pictured above) and fell even more in love with him. He is such a cute old man and I am so amazed at how sharp his mind is still. I talked to him about when he was Bishop of the town. He told me it was 64 years ago and he was over 800 people. Now there are many wards in the city so it’s been amazing for him to see the city and congregation grow. He also told me about the promise an apostle made to him that he shared with the people of Enterprise. As long as they were righteous, they would always have water. I asked if they were always righteous, and he laughed and said, “I guess so, we always had water in the reservoir.” I hope Leland is around another year so our daughter can take a five-generation photo with him! She is going to have a great-great-grandfather!

To end the night, we headed over to the rodeo. I was not feeling that great and sitting on the wood bleachers started getting to me, but overall, it was a blast. I took a couple of walks around the place, pet the donkeys, and watched the disgusting and large bulls in their pins. I wish I taken more photos over the weekend, but Lacey had her camera out so I figure I’ll steal some of hers soon.