Well a 100 year birthday only comes around once in a lifetime and this year our little town celebrated its centennial year. To say the least, the town filled up with campers, trailers, vehicles and lots and lots of people. Main street was sectioned off so if we forgot the street was closed, we had to drive through the alley to get to our house... Anyway, it was 3 days of major goings on. Saturday, June 29th was the biggest day. That is the one that brought in even yet more people!
Saturday morning we began with a pancake breakfast, which was very tasty. After breakfast the kids looked around a bit to see what events would be taking place during the day. The next thing of great interest was the parade. Now in a tiny little town like ours that has maybe 16 square blocks, it is quite a feat to fit a parade with 112 entries in it on the parade route without it running back into itself! That is exactly what happened too. It started out with a large birthday cake float and progressed from there.
There were some really neat heritage floats done by families that have been here for generations.
And of course a parade wouldn't be complete without horses...
Old machinery...
And all the rest...
The kids loved the candy throwing that always accompanies a parade.
After the parade we participated in the afternoon activities. It was a super hot day, so the shade of any tree was more than welcome. The kids participated in jump for fun games...
and tractor races that kept them pretty well occupied all afternoon.
There was live entertainment on mainstreet for everyone to enjoy as well.
Naomi, Beth and I even managed to get over to the quilt show at the school. It was pretty amazing. I had anticipated a few quilts hanging on the walls, but the gym was FULL!!! The quilts were all sizes and they were absolutely beautiful!
During the evening the kids went to the outdoor movie at the school and enjoyed watching it until the fireworks began.
Next we had to get through the night... since our town is so small, when the drinking and reveling begin, it's pretty hard not to hear it - especially since it is too hot to not open the windows at night. For two nights our family members struggled to get a good sleep. I woke up every two hours to the same sounds of loud laughing and music. It didn't stop until 6:00 a.m. While I am sure there were many in our little town that had similar struggles with the noise as we did, the overall attitude was that it was OK because of the greatness of the occasion. I would suggest that a monumental birthday should not inhibit the comforts of others - regardless of how you want to celebrate.
Life is like our 100 year celebration. It is full of wonderful fun things to do, opportunities that are extremely enjoyable and good. However, life also offers activities and choices that infringe on the rights of others, things that we are tempted to believe will only affect us, yet in truth, they affect everyone - kind of like the loud music and noise we had to put up with during the night. This weekend has been for me, a reminder of the need to continually review my priorities and make sure that I am involving myself in the most important and wholesome activities I can. As I have thought about this I have come to prioritize my relationships as follows: first comes my relationship with God, my Heavenly Father, His Son, Jesus Christ and also the Holy Ghost. The next most important relationship to me is that of my husband and children. Hence the reason I spent the whole day Saturday, exploring the town and activities we could enjoy as a family. I have to say, it was a LOT of fun!!! The next relationship I then spend time and energy on is that of my parents and parents-in-law, then comes siblings and friends.
I love watching my children play together, stay together, and have fun together. They were a delight to watch, and while I just went from activity to activity with them - getting a nasty sunburn in the process - it was worth it's weight in gold to have that time with my children. What a wonderful weekend we had.
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