Stake River Walk Festival

Every year our Stake holds a free summer neighborhood event. It is quite a production and totally worth the time to attend if you have a young family. Each year it gets better. The favorite activities remain, while new ones are introduced so the kids are never bored.

This year the kids got to build and shoot their own rockets in the air. This was a popular one with little and big boys alike. I think Todd and our friend Kevin spent a great share of their time at this station: first trying to perfect their rockets and then studying the mechanism used to shoot the rockets. After we got home Todd spent at least another hour looking into how he can build one for us to have.

Another favorite activity was the obstacle course. Carson, like most kids, got stuck at the rope swing. He tried it a couple of times, and dangle there for a while. In the end, he just let go of the rope and continued running to the end.

The girls got their faces painted and played some of the more traditional carnival games. Emilia is getting old enough that she just comes to hang out with her friends. So I hardly saw her while we were there. I was mostly occupied with Andrew, who was ready to go soon after we arrived.

One thing that really upset me was how often people would cut in line. If I was an investigator, learning about the church I would have been put off by all of these people who blatantly just got tired of standing in line behind you and decided to cut in front of you. Of course, every time one person cuts in front of you, it is actually a family with four or more children who join them once you get closer. Finally, after three different people cut in front of me, I had it! I told the last person to please take their place back at the end of the line. They were uncomfortable for being called out, but I was also tired of being polite to a fault. ( You can probably still tell how annoyed I am about it!)

The kids enjoyed their 'healthy' dinner and the younger ones liked riding and chasing after the wagon. Every time anyone participates in any activity they earn raffle tickets, which can be entered into several drawings for prices awarded at the end of the evening.  This year we were one digit off from winning one of the prices- which are all really nice.

My friend Sally and I have decided that next year we're ditching the kids and playing to earn our own tickets. We want to win some of those prices for ourselves :)