Donner Party.. of 7

We went to Baby Animal Days last Thursday. Yeah, I know those of you in our beautiful valley are laughing at us right now. It was snowing big, slushy snowflakes the whole time. The streets and walkways had been turned to puddles of muck. They didn't have the pony rides going or the baby chicks and ducklings out since it was such terrible weather. Nevertheless, we dressed in coats, hats, gloves, and snow boots (except Mom, who got to trudge around in soggy tennis shoes all afternoon--duh!) and headed out.

There were hardly any other people there so we got to get right in a get faces painted, ride the train, see the baby bears, hold the baby turtles for as long as we wanted, buy rock candy suckers, and catch a gunfight close-up. The would-be bandits headed to the general mercentile to steal some candy. They brought a bag of full size candy bars out to share with the little onlookers. They had a hard time talking any of our kids into taking one--it was "stolen" after all. :)

After the gunfight we headed out to the grounds to see about the candy cannon that was scheduled for 2pm. Well, you guessed right, the weather made that not possible, so it was cancelled. We had started out across the grounds and decided that we'd just circle around the tipi and other tents rather than backtrack. About halfway around the little kids started whining, crying and complaining about the cold and wet and being tired. In the midst of it all, the head "gunfighter" emerged from a nearby tent and started toward us. He laughed a bit and said we looked like the Donner party. He took Stephen from me and invited us all back into their tent where they had a fire and some hot chocolate.

Their tent was large and filled with other costumed volunteers. They all moved over to let our soaked little guys crowd in around the fireplace to get warm. It was a very unique experience--probably the most realistic pioneer experience we'd ever had out there on the farm.

It was a very cold, wet day, but that night, during bedtime prayers not one of my children left out how thankful they were to be warm or have a dry house. That alone made the whole thing worth it!