DARWIN is on his 12th year of teaching, currently at Springville High School teaching astronomy, geology, environmental science, and physics. He also teaches physics at UVU for a 7 week STEM summer school program for junior high students. He also teaches teenagers in our church ward. He's super busy, but still makes time to be an awesome dad and husband.
Utah has a state holiday on July 24th, Pioneer Day - the celebration of when the Mormon Pioneers first came to the Salt Lake Valley. We do a lot of the same stuff that happens on the 4th of July, but I'm totally okay with that because I love both holidays.
This year, we tried something new and started off the day running a 5k from the Provo LDS Temple to the site of the future Provo City Center Temple. It's the only place in the world you can run from one temple to another in 3.1 miles. Pretty cool. Most 5k's we've run start and end in the about same location so this time we had to put a little more effort into our parking planning. Dar dropped the girls and me off at the Provo temple, then drove back to downtown Provo to park our car where our BFFs picked him up and brought him back up to meet me. (Come to find out later they actually had buses shuttling people back up to the Provo temple to their cars. Live and learn, I guess.) One fun thing about this 5k (besides the fact that it was free) is that they asked us to run in honor of one of our deceased ancestors. Totally a fun idea and completely perfect for Pioneer Day!
Angel Moroni - Aurora LOVES him! :)
Our little family just before leaving Savy to hang out with Tracee while we ran
Part of the crowd getting ready for the race to start
(The organizers had hoped to have 1000 people sign up, and I don't know what the final number was, but there were well over 3000 people there!)
Mr. P was really sad when we all left to go to the starting line. We stuck him in the stroller with Aurora and they rode together the whole way! Cuties.
I'm pretty sure this is the first 5k we've done that started with a prayer :) I love our church!
Our traditional self-shot :) Boy, do I love him!
It's fuzzy, but I got a quick shot during the run. If you look close you can see the crowd continue as the road turns. It's neat to see so many people running!
This is what the Provo City Center Temple currently looks like - completely up on stilts. Cool, huh?
It used to be the Provo Tabernacle until a bad fire a couple years ago and they decided to turn it into Provo's 2nd temple! Woot! Woot!
And this is what it'll look like when it's completed. Pretty, huh?
Rori at a statue across the street from the PCC Temple
It really was such a fun 5k to do. I think we'll make it an annual Pioneer Day tradition. Thanks, Trace for taking Savannah so we could run it!
After stopping at home to freshen up a bit we ventured over to a local park for lunch and some fun festivities. They had some cool birds on display.
We got Aurora some tickets to do some "rides" or play some games. She LOVED this bounce house. She got two minutes to go around as many times as she wanted.
We had to wait in line a couple times for it. It's the only one she wanted to do, but I'm okay with that :)
Just before they closed down for the day she played a few games too.
Rori with her winnings. Cute girl.
One game she played she had to toss 3 balls into certain numbered slots to win a cool prize, otherwise she just got candy. She's an impulse game player like I am and doesn't really think about a move before she makes it. She just tossed the balls one after the other and happened to get a big enough score that she got a big prize. The lady and her kids running the game seemed pretty amazed that she got the score she did. She won a flute. Awesome!
Sister photo shoot in their festive outfits before nap time. Oh, how I love these girls!
Playing her new flute like Moroni's trumpet :)
After naps we waited for Daddy to pick up the flags around the ward, picked up a pizza, and then headed to a different local park for fireworks. The sunset was so beautiful!
Playing with some glow sticks before dark
Savy got in on the glow stick fun too :)
It's really hard to see, but I liked this picture enough to post it anyway.
Aurora snuggled up with Uncle Jared to watch the fireworks.
They were seriously THE. BEST. fireworks I've seen in YEARS, if ever! We didn't get any pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it. They were totally better than the Stadium of Fire fireworks on the 4th. I'm definitely looking forward to these fireworks again next year.
Happy Pioneer Day!
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