Every Labor Day weekend, our little town of 4,000 literally welcomes the world for Swiss Days! What started as a local harvest festival has grown to 100,000 strong as Midway celebrates the Swiss Mormon pioneers who settled the valley. To put on a production of this magnitude takes hundreds of volunteers and thousands of hours.
I was excited to learn each ward has a booth and ours was in charge of the extremely popular Swiss Taco booth, which looks suspiciously a lot like Navajo tacos (but don’t tell anyone I said that). Since we arrived just before school started and are commuting from Park City, I wasn’t as involved in the preparations as I would have liked but volunteered with food prep in the mornings–just call me the tomato slicer extraordinaire.
I attended my dear friend Lisa’s son Mitch’s wedding in Salt Lake City the day before and we were thrilled when they agreed to let their daughter Alex spend the night with Hadley and attend. Jamie’s sister’s family joined us from Salt Lake City and we had a grand time taking in our first Swiss Days, starting with the charming hometown parade (with plenty of candy) and floats.
Headless Horseman of Soldier Hollow
There were oodles of the most darling craft booths you’d ever seen (Utah Mormon women are homemaking goddesses) and those Swiss Tacos. I majorly failed on taking pictures because, quite frankly, it was all a little bit overwhelming. We waited to visit the booths until after the parade and congestion was wall-to-wall. We were so busy battling the crowds that we missed out on the huge line-up of Swiss entertainment so I’ve vowed to make better use of my time next year.
One of the cutest things ever was stopping by the Swiss Miss booth for my nieces to meet the five “royalty.” Bode would have NOTHING to do with them (he walks to the bus stop with one of the hotties) but my nieces were enraptured when they autographed pictures and posed with them.
From there, we attended the Soldier Hollow Classic Sheepdog Championship where the world’s best border collies competed in a competition to heard sheep.
It was downright fascinating to watch these brilliantly patient dogs guide those sheep through a series of gates and the finish line. When the sheep went astray, it was a painful reminder of motherhood and crazy kids!
On Monday, Bode and I attended the Park City Miner’s Festival where the highlight was the Running of the Balls, one of the town’s biggest fundraisers of the year.
Running of the Balls? I expected a lot more blood and gore but no complaints. Our little corner of the world throws the best Labor Day celebrations ever!
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 