Top 10 Dead Give Aways that we're not REAL Pioneers

We recently celebrated the Mormon Battalion Commemoration down at Old Town. It was such a beautiful San Diego day and all the little activities in the common were a blast for the kids.

Even though we dressed up and looked the part and even participated in the parade, there are a few dead give aways that we're not "real" pioneer stock.

# 10- The rope that the kids made was later used not only to play "ninja" but was also an instrumental prop in one of Avery's story-lines as it suspended "butterfly" Barbie up from the barbie house rafters.

#9- The kids kept referring to these biscuits as "marshmallows." Proof that the only real outdoor cooking exposure they get is making s'mores at the beach.

#8- Austin insisted on checking out the "bomb" that would go off every hour. The closest thing that he could associate with an actual cannon was the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disneyland.

#7- Though Avery did surprisingly well (better than many of us adults who tried) with her first feather plume pen writing experience, all of the hours she's logged with twistable crayons, crayola markers, glitter glue pens and mechanical pencils left her a bit ill-prepared to handle such a sensitive writing implement.

#6- Austin refused to wear the leather hat for the event yet happily complied to strap on his camouflage canteen once Gramma filled it up with raspberry lemonade. Yeah that whole drinking from bug infested swamp water bit?? Never would have happened. Forget dying from consumption, dysentery or a snake bite, we'd probably all be dead from dehydration alone without our lemonade.

#5- Even though my brother Taylor (on the stage to the right) was picked to be in the Color Guard and hold the US flag and did a great job, I'm pretty sure a real battalion member wasn't wearing size 12 Airwalks at the time.

#4- Austin thought the other pioneer games were "boring" and in the absence of an iTouch to play games on, became obsessed with playing this marble game instead.

#3- Though we drove down in a fully air-conditioned car, parked right out front, walked straight in and joined the parade, the kids STILL pooped out before finishing the 2nd lap of the 500 meter parade. Back in the day, we wouldn't have made it outside of the Fort Levenworth after getting supplies before the kiddies would be "so tired" and wanting to hitch a ride in the wagon.

(Best part was a woman walking next to me who saw Chase and kept telling my how "amazing" I was and asking if I was okay or needed any water. It made me wonder if she actually thought I had just birthed him in a patch of grass coming across the plains for real.)

#2- There's a true story of a little boy who wanted to accompany his dad in the battalion and walked on his own for 8 days before he caught up with the company. My little son would have done exactly the same. . .as long as he was promised a cool gun to hold, had a pocket full of fruit snacks, a sippy cup of hot chocolate, and if it was only a 7 minute walk (that might even be pushing it too) on a nice sunny day with the promise of ice cream or a park play date at the end. This little man didn't even make it the 1 lap around with all the kids before bailing and trotting across the center back to his marble game. My little soldier!

#1- The biggest give away that we wouldn't last a day in pioneer shoes? After devouring the backpack's worth of snacks we brought and hitting up the biscuit station multiple times, we were still "STARVING" and headed straight to Costco afterwards to eat our fill of hotdogs, pizza slices and knock down a couple chocolate ice cream bars while we were at it and then going inside to buy our weekly cache of 6 gallons of milk, 3 lbs of cheese, breads and bagels and 2 dozen eggs. Too bad they were fresh out of hard tack. Dang!