Pioneer Day 2010

Yesterday was Pioneer Day -- something of a holiday (official in Utah, unofficial everywhere else) for the Mormons.  We celebrate the entry of the Mormon pioneers into the valley that forms what is today Salt Lake City.  Although some members of the church today are direct descendants of those who walked to Utah in the 1840s and 1850s, many others have traveled different trails of faith.  Pioneer Day is thus a day to remember the original Mormon pioneers but also to reflect on individual pioneer heritage.

We drove an hour to Kaiserslautern to attend a church-sponsored Pioneer Day picnic.  Calvin found some horseshoes to play with (thankfully they were plastic).

Looks like he got four ringers.  It must be the impeccable technique!

 Baby Sara enjoyed being a lady of leisure.

 Look at those teeth!

We ate lunch -- hot dogs and hamburgers along with chips, deserts, and lots of tasty side dishes.

After the picnic was over, we drove to Ramstein Air Base to go to the "mall".  They were having a blood drive so I stopped in and they took some blood.  I donated blood pretty regularly when we lived in the States (the Red Cross would come to work so it was easy) but this was my first chance to donate blood in Germany.

The blood donor center was based out of nearby Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LRMC).  Many of the soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan are flown to LRMC for treatment.  Hopefully my somewhat-rare AB+ blood will find a good home in another AB+ body (people with AB+ blood can only donate to another person with AB+ blood -- Wikipedia has a compatibility table).

After the blood donation was over, we wandered about the PX for a while (the boys wanted to played with the Wii) and then we headed over the bookstore to find some early reader books for Oscar.

Oscar liked several of the books in the Magic Tree House series.  They seemed to be on his level so I bought a group of 16 (gently used) on eBay when we got home -- it was a lot cheaper than the bookstore.