Scouts Building Edible Structures...For Pioneer Day

How do you help a bunch of cub scouts celebrate Pioneer Day the week before the state holiday?

You help them build mini-log cabins out of pretzels, frosting, and graham crackers, of course.

Thanks to my wife, I was able to keep the attention of several kids under the age of eleven for the entire meeting. We had the pack meeting business, flag ceremony, reciting of scout motto, oath, law, etc., and after the awards, I talked to the scouts, their parents and siblings, and the other scout leaders about pioneers and how important they were in our state culture. If it weren't for the pioneers, much of the western United Sates would be incredibly different.

The top edible shelter is the one I made. I know I could have taken more time, spread the frosting between each pretzel, you know, to eliminate any huge gaps that would allow wind, rain, and/or slow to creep into my structure. But, I wanted to build something a child could build.

I'd say mission accomplished.

I love watching the kids create on their own. It was bound to happen--some of the kids didn't make anything. They just ate the glob of frosting and snapped up the pretzels. Others explained to me what they made, like the kid who explained that his pretzel and frosting house only had three walls because the missing wall was the door and the extra pretzels on the roof helped to divert rain from those who found shelter underneath the roof pretzels. 

Last year I helped the kids build little covered wagons. This year, log cabins. I wonder what amazing edible, buildable things we'll come up with next year.

Days Of 47 Parade...One Century After The Original

Many of my friends are posting on social media today about their ancestors. You see, where I live many of us can trace our family roots to a remarkable group of people who left their homes, their jobs, and many times, other family members to join others of their faith, far away, in the west. 

Today my state celebrates Pioneer Day, which is weird because the 24th of July is not the date our state achieved statehood. It's the day Brigham Young rose from his sick bed and told those with whom he traveled that they have traveled enough. This was the place.

I've always been amazed that the famous church president chose such an amazing place. The weather is is wonderful (except for those days it gets too hot...). There's beauty in the mountains and the plains. It's an incredible place.

A tradition of Pioneer Day is, of course, the Pioneer Day Parade. People begin camping out days in advance to secure a prime viewing location. I once ran a 10K race and we ran along the parade route, so technically, I've been in that parade. As a youth, I participated in the Youth Parade. We dressed as vegetables. I think I was a giant corn or a bean.

But my mother takes the cake when it comes to having a cool parade story.

You see, when she was in high school, her high school marching band was invited to march in the 100 year anniversary of the famous Pioneer Day parade. Though my mom's no longer with us, I do have a couple of pictures. She played the tuba (or baritone or sousaphone...) and I believe you can spot her in the top picture. I think she's on the left, between the two tall men, one playing a sousaphone and the other playing a trombone. Of course, this may not be her, but I like to think it is. Then I can say, "See kids--that's your grandmother! Right there and she's marking in the Pioneer Day Parade in 1947."

And they will agree with me that that's pretty cool.