Monday, July 25, 2011

Celebrating Pioneer Day

It wasn’t planned as well as it could have been, but we had a fun Pioneer Day.

Clint and Caitlin have been sleeping in a tent in our backyard this weekend. They downloaded an app on Clint’s cell phone that can be used to identify the planets and stars, Caitlin thought that was awesome. She loves everything to do with space and her dad is a good and patient teacher.

Yesterday at church we talked about how lucky we are to live where we do and how we should take time to share the history of our church with our children; visiting historical sites and finding ways to help them understand the sacrifices made to settle this valley and allow our church to grow. With this in mind, we wanted to do something to remember the pioneers.

Today we stuffed ourselves at Tucano’s for lunch (Caleb’s idea), then hiked to Ensign Peak. It was the perfect temperature to go on a hike and there were quite a few people there. It’s considered an easy hike and it isn’t very long, but it’s steep and wearing flip flops is not recommended (seriously, what was I thinking?).

On July 26, 1847, two days after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young and seven other pioneer leaders climbed the hill to survey the valley. From its summit they laid out in their minds the city they intended to build.

The men fastened a yellow bandanna to a cane and waved it from the mountain peak. Brigham Young named the spot Ensign Peak. The pioneers had carried two American flags with them across the plains. Within a short time a flagpole was erected and one of those flags was flown from the peak.

The view from the top is pretty amazing (and windy). I’m happy we could do something today that we haven’t done before. We spent the rest of the day going to a movie and running last minute errands for Caleb’s trip. He leaves tomorrow.

Utah Venture Scouter-vara säkra, ha kul, och vara ett exempel på din tron.

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