Pioneer Day 2018, Part 2

Pioneer Day fell on Tuesday, the 24th (in case you weren't keeping score at home). This is to commemorate the day back in 1847 when Brigham Young, upon entering the Salt Lake valley for the first time, said: "This is the right place. Party like mental ward escapees, and shoot off your fireworks like a bunch of junior high kids left to their own devices! Heck, you may even start a whole bunch of new brush fires to cause added stress and grief for our brave firefighters, already battling a number of blazes in this arid, desert climate."

OK, so, I may have paraphrased a little.

We gathered at Mom's house for a family BBQ and swimming for the kids. That included spending time with our two youngest nephews, nine-month-old Ike and ten-month-old Tanner:

The rockets' red glare shined in other places that night, but not with us; we passed on fireworks this time around.

Christian's Fifth Birthday Party

July's family birthday party was all about five-year-old Christian, because, well, he's the only family member with a birthday during the month. We celebrated #5 with him last week at family dinner.

I love the look of pure joy on this kid's face as he got ready to blow out the candles on his cake:

. . . which turned out like this:

And so, things turned out great.

Pioneer Day 2018, Part 1

Pioneer Day, our great state holiday, was observed last week. Of course, that always means multiple days of celebration 'round these parts. On Friday, July 20, we went to Bountiful City Park to see Ben and Steve and their band, Bluegrass Thunder, perform just prior to the annual city parade.

These kids had a great time listening on the grass:

I love how Ike's red hair has been coming out lately.

Our Dinner with Jake

The kid in the Angels hat, our nephew Jake, turned 13 years old this week. Because we are the Fun Aunt and Uncle, we took him out for a birthday dinner at Iggy's, because that is the kind of fun-loving aunt and uncle we are.

"Crazy for You"

JB and I have season tickets at CenterPoint Legacy Theatre this year. (It's the same theater where I perform improv in the black box most Fridays, don't ya know?) Considering all of the years I've been associated with Rodgers Memorial Theatre and now CPLT, it may seem odd that this is the first time I've actually held season tickets. (My sister used to work in the box office, and it's good to have friends in high places, and all that.)

So it goes.

Anyhow, we caught the latest show, Crazy for You, last week, and we really enjoyed it. Neither of us knew much about what we were in store for with this one. But we were pleasantly surprised with a number of memorable George and Ira Gershwin tunes along with a lot of tap dancing.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find an ad for our troupe in the playbill:

The thing of it is, nobody in the troupe knows how it got there. I asked the other directors about it, and none of them had an idea that we had an ad currently running. Well, we're not complaining. All told, I'm happy to see CPLT supporting what we feel is a very worthwhile cause. Speaking of which, they put on pretty good shows on their main stage, too, and you should definitely attend when you can. The next one up is The Pirates of Penzance, and from what I've caught of their rehearsals, it'll be another great one.

Independence Day, Part 2

Wednesday, July 4, which was the second day of two consecutive days' worth of family holiday fun, took us to Mom's house in North Salt Lake. We enjoyed a delicious BBQ and played board games while the kids waded in the kiddie pool:

That took us to fireworks at dusk, bringing out the pyromaniacs in more than a few people. The next-door neighbor, like you do, brought his cannon (yes, a cannon, apparently) out onto the street to fire it off a couple of times, scaring the McGinnies out of one and all.

It was both Tanner's and Isaac's first Independence Day.

There's something purely enjoyable about getting together with family and celebrating our country's birthday by doing our darndest to burn down our little corner of it.

Independence Day, Part 1

This year's Independence Day festivities included two family parties, held (respectively) on the 3rd and 4th of July.

Sometimes, I have to pinch myself to remember on a daily basis that my family now includes a wife, parents-in-law, three brothers-in-law, three sisters-in-law, and seven additional nieces and nephews (niblings). And each one of them is a pretty amazing person.

On the 3rd, we assembled together at the parents-in-laws' home in West Bountiful for a BBQ and something I'd never tried before: axe throwing. Tyson showed us all how it was done:

. . . after which JB showed off her stuff and reminded me once again to never mess with her to the point of ever getting frustrated enough to throw an axe in my direction.

As for my own efforts, of which JB snapped some photos, I'll say that axe throwing is somewhat harder to do than it looks. But it's also a lot of fun. I found that the two-handed method works a lot better for me than trying to throw an axe right handed only. It helps explain why I woke up the next morning barely above to move because my muscles were so sore from the attempt.

To close out the evening, Spencer set up a movie screen in the backyard, and we watched the recent Spielberg movie Ready Player One in the Great Outdoors, with only the mosquitoes to keep us company.