Pioneer day
  Alright, one more blog post and I think I am caught up on our current events! Here in Utah we celebrate pioneer day, a state holiday honoring the LDS pioneers who founded this great state. And Americans love celebrating patriotic events with parade, so we joined the festivities. This time we watched the Ogden pioneer parade. My dear friend Casey and her family started off the parade dressed as and honoring the pioneers. Unfortunately we were running a tad late getting all the kids there, so we missed seeing her walk, but I am glad to know she participated any way. She is a pretty amazing lady with a wonderful family and pioneer legacy. Here is one of the many floats made by members of the church honoring the pioneers:

It was a nice blessing that it was a cloudy day so the sun didn't burn us up. But with cloudy days comes a chance of rain, and rain we got. It actually wasn't to bad and rather refreshing. We have had some droughts here in Utah over the summer, and after some dangerous wildfires, many people fasted and prayed for rain. So what do you expect when half the state of Utah fast and pray for rain? Well, you get rain :) Gotta love faith. Anyways, moving on.  Oma, my sister Karina and her kids joined us for the parade (yes, Benson came along as Iron Man, as usual :)

 

One of the highlights of the parade was that Benson and Max got to meet Spiderman. Yes, the actual spiderman in person. That was pretty exciting. As we were walking on the sidewalk to find a spot to sit, we passed spidey waiting to file into the parade, and Benson and max ran over to him and gave him a high five. I could not describe adequately to you their excitement. Benson still talks about it! Here he is passing us in the parade with his loyal fans watching on:

Karsten wasn't a huge fan of the rain and the early morning, so he took a little snoozer on my shoulder (which doesn't happen very often), and Andrew, once again, was a trooper and went along for the parade!

 

After the parade we went back to Oma's house for the kids to nap, and after we went to a community pool in Ogden for a fun afternoon holiday swim. This was Karsten's first time swimming, and it was a hit. My kids don't swim that often (for no particular reason) so we have been working on teaching them to stay afloat in the water with their life jackets. But they are catching on. Benson and Ella were even brave enough to go down the slide, though benson wasn't too happy when Andrew slightly pushed him the first time to get him motivated! He rewarded Andrew by giving him a big slap in the face (partly deserved) once he surfaced :) It was kinda funny.

 As the afternoon rolled on the adults slowly moved to dry ground while the kids were merrily splashing in the shallow end

 

 

After the pool we enjoyed a mexican themed dinner in oma's backyard, of which i took no pictures for some reason :) The night ended with my parents and Andrew and I playing Catch phrase until our bedtime. A great day!