Mundt Family Vacation a.k.a Border Days

Well for those of you who do not know or have not read my past posts, Border Days is the annual Fourth of July event for my hometown of Grangeville, Idaho. This was the 97th year! It is home to Idaho's oldest rodeo as well as the largest egg toss event you will EVER see. We celebrate it for a full three days surrounding the 4th. This year, it was the 3rd through the 5th. Brad and I loaded up the car and headed for Grangeville on the 1st. We spent time visiting family and tried to get settled for the upcoming days. Each day of Border Days starts out at 9am with the Street Sports. Here, children and adults of all ages race on the street for money. Pre-school and under kids receive a 50 cent piece for their participation but all other kids and adults are only awarded for placing in the top 3. If you get first you win $3, second you win $2 and third, $1. After all age groups both male and female race, the streets or rather the benches are cleared and the street is full of teams of two getting ready for the Egg Toss. This year, we made a new record with 1400 participants tossing on the 4th...that's a lot of busy chickens to support the throwing of 700 eggs...and that is just one day...remember, there are three days of this stuff!!! My brother Brad and Bradley have ran in the men's open division of the races each year and have participated in the egg toss each year as well. Between the two of them, they always place in the races and have one the egg toss 5 times together.

Brad & Bradley getting ready to "THROW THE EGG"

One of the trick throws...the between the legs hike pass

Unfortunately, they didn't win this year but hey, there's always next year :) Jeylin has ran in the races as long as I can remember however, Jordyn has never wanted to. This year was different however...she had a little persuasion from her Auntie Jo during the Nielson family reunion and therefore ran all three days....taking 3rd place on the last day!!!

Jordyn in her street race debut, July 3rd

Jeylin races this same kid every year...this year, Jeylin made him trip. Don't worry, it was an accident and the kid was just fine.

Jordyn also participated in the egg toss for the first time too but she soon got bored and Jeylin had to step in and help (only because his egg had already broke).

On the night of the 4th, we all head up to the High School football field for the fireworks show!! This year was the first year that we have had an electronic launching system and so the show was to be the best yet. It was shorter than past years since the fireworks could launch faster but the grand finale was the best I've ever seen and I have been going for the past 29 years. Unfortunately, I had turned my video camera off about two minutes prior and missed the entire thing. The kids loved them including Kierra and they also loved the sparklers they had at Nana & Papa's house.

These especially made Kierra laugh...but this is her giggling at the big fireworks on the 4th...

Here are some fireworks shots...sorry they aren't the best quality. It is very hard to capture something like that at night with slow shutter speed and no tripod but oh well, you get the idea.