Pioneer Day

Beaver, Utah...a place that is very near and dear to my heart. My mom grew up in this small town and we spent a lot of time there when I was a kid. One thing we could always count on was spending the 24th of July in Beaver. Aside from celebrating the pioneers of course, Beaver IS Pioneer day to me. I don't ever remember spending this holiday anywhere else. As we kids got older and moved away from home, it became a little less frequent. But now that we have kids of our own, the tradition is back in full force. Very little has changed as far as what goes down in Beaver on Pioneer day...I absolutely love it. I'm so glad to be able to pass this tradition on to my kids and hope they cherish it as much as I do.

(P.S. I am completely aware that I am still posting stuff from July and it is now October. Yes, I'm a loser)

(P.P.S. I know we always post a billion pictures here at S and E Frazier, but I am a very visual person, so that's just how we roll.)


I love the sense of community that exists in this town and the parade reflects that well.

Max and Cohen get a kick out of each other

My little 2nd cousin Amanda

Amanda and her Uncle Jonny

My cute Aunt Sylvia on her 50th reunion float

Jayne rockin' her silver sandals...she's so festive

My bro Greg with his boy Cohen

This is Jayne's infamous bitter beer face. She spends 3/4 of her day like this

Max gearing up for the foot races

And he's off!

Shane and I participated too. We were in the 20-35 division. We weren't first, but we weren't last either, so job well done. This is Shane and Jonny faking it for me since their race was right after mine and I couldn't get to my camera in time. Upon seeing John Beck there (his grandma lives in Beaver) they were a little nervous to race, but were relieved when he didn't join in the festivities. Jonny actually came in 2nd...not surprising since his legs are as long as I am tall. He won 50 whole cents for his accomplishments...way to go big guy.

The 24th in Beaver wouldn't be complete without a visit to the horse track. If you have never been to a live horse race, GO! It's a blast.

We all waited with bated breath to see if our horse would win

Some, however, did not find it as exciting

As we were waiting to go to dinner, we stopped by this little peacock farm. There were at least 15 of them strutting around and we were lucky that this one decided to put on a real show.

This little rooster was cracking us up. He looked as though someone had put him through a garbage disposal, but he was strutting around behind the peacocks as if he was one of them.

You can't go to Beaver and not visit the Creamery to get some yummy cheese samples and a huge ice cream cone. This was Max's inaugural visit.

And what would the 24th be without lighting off a few fireworks.

My Sister-in-law Amber

I won't go into how grateful I am for the pioneers since I did that a few posts ago, but I love to celebrate them on this day.

Viva Las Vegas

Time for yet another summer catch up post. This time, Las Vegas style. Last year, we went to one of those time share shpills and won a free 3-day trip. We chose San Diego because that is where we spent our honeymoon, so we thought we would celebrate our anniversary there. Come to find out later, there was a huge catch. Our flight would leave Monday at 10:00 p.m. and return at 4:00 a.m. Wednesday. That left us with crappy red-eye flights and only one day in San Diego. What a joke! So I called and they let me switch to Las Vegas. We would drive, so that meant our hotel was upgraded and we got a few other perks (which turned out to be jokes too, but I'll spare you the rest). It was a fun time, but it was a short trip because we wanted to go celebrate the 24th of July with family (post to come). We took our purple goo camera and luckily it came through somehow.

The Bellagio fountains and gardens

M&M Factory

Rocky Balboa and Smokin' Joe Frazier (Funny side note: When Shane was a kid, he thought Rocky looked really tough and would do exercises to try to make his eyes droop like his. I think he is channeling that childhood dream a little with that face he is making)

The dreaded Stratosphere...well dreaded by Shane anyway. I told him we had to go on it and he would love it. I had been on it years earlier. I had no idea he was a little scared of heights until we were shot to the top and he turned to me and said, "I'm going to kill you!" It didn't help that it was really windy up there and they actually were contemplating shutting down the ride until it calmed down. When the ride was over, he looked at the next kid in line and said, "I wouldn't sit in this seat...it may be soiled." He says the darndest things. I think he still had fun though.

Freemont Street. If you've never been there, it is a street with a HUGE t.v. screen that covers it. I bet you are probably wondering who that guy is that Shane is cozying up to...yeah, me too :) As I was taking Shane's picture, this guy was trying to get out of our way and Shane just randomly asked him to be in the picture. "He was all decked out, I had to ask him," Shane told me later. He was very nice and flattered that Shane thought he looked so hot.

Back at our hotel and exhausted. Looks like purple goo decided to finally join us as well, so we'll leave it here. Farewell Vegas with your bright lights and gratuitous porn, farewell.

EWF Photos

Well, since I kind of live behind my camera these days (much to the annoyance of all those around me), I decided to make a little place to put some of the fruits of it. It's nothing fancy nor by any means professional, but just because. Most likely, there will be some repeats from this blog. If you want to check it out, here's the link and there is also a link on my side bar.



ewfphotos.blogspot.com

The Farm

This is the Nelson Family Farm where Shane's mom grew up. Every year, all (well, all that can make it anyway) the Nelson children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren gather here as a family to be together. It is a really beautiful place that rests in the shadow of the Tetons. Well, they're actually pretty far away, but you can still see them. It just sounded better saying in the shadow of the Tetons. :) We had a good time and it was nice to be miles away from civilization, even if there isn't any running water :) We'll just let the pictures do most of the talking.


The Matriarch of it all, sweet Grandma Joyce (always holding a baby as I have mentioned before)
Having fun on the huge swing set

Cousin Thomas

Jayne and her Great Uncle Bruce

I think Bruce had more fun than the kids

Our niece Masey

Kisses for Grandpa Frazier

I absolutely LOVE this old bus and had to get some pictures of it. Shane's grandpa bought it years and years ago and converted it into a camper, complete with a wood-burning stove and chimney. Shane and his family would borrow it every year for their annual Island Park trip, so needless to say, he LOVES it too.
Here are a couple of other cool old vehicles that I thought would be great models. They also belonged to Shane's grandpa.

The kids had a lot of fun when Grandpa Frazier pulled out the butterfly nets.

Kaya got one

Max got one

Then Masey thought, "Nets are for kids." Who knew she was a butterfly whisperer.

These two love holding hands whenever they're together.

My cute sisters-in-law, Patty and Janet

And, of course, the Nelson Family Reunion wouldn't be complete without a trip to Green Canyon Hot Springs. It was Jaynes first time swimming and she loved it and well, it's pretty obvious how Max felt.

65 Years Young

This is my dad, David Malin Wilding. Born July 7, 1944 in Brooklyn, NY. We had a blast honoring him on his 65th birthday this year. We threw an all out surprise party with a New York theme. (Sorry the first picture is so messed up, but he was really surprised)

My Sister-in-law, Amber (who is a genius party planner) came through for us again and made it really special. Each table was a different borough of New York. There was also the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, and Grand Central Station. To make it the complete New York experience, we played a little Frank Sinatra in the background.


The food was amazing too...New York strip steaks, incredible salads and although the appletinis were virgin :), they were delicious! Dessert? New York cheesecake of course.


One of my favorite decorations was all of the pictures of my dad throughout his life. We hung them everywhere.
My dad is the one directly right of the guy in the suit.


This is one of my all time favorites of my dad and all us kids.


My dad has been wanting a work bench for his garage, so Greg and Amber (my bro and his wife) made this awesome miniature version and we put a Home Depot gift card from all the kids in the mini toolbox.

It was such a great night and the best part was when my mom and all us kids got to stand up and pay tribute to my dad. My mom wrote a sweet little poem about their life together that had us all laughing. The kids each got to stand up and express to my dad what he means to us. Among the list of qualities we all talked about (extremely hard worker, great cook, great father and grandfather, ridiculously intelligent, etc.) two themes ran throughout every single one of our speeches: his love of fishing and how meticulous he is about EVERYTHING. We all have wonderful memories of our dad taking us fishing and we continue to make new ones. My dad immersed me in the fishing tradition when I was pretty young and I thank him for that because I'm not so sure Shane would have married me otherwise :). If any of you have ever been fly fishing, you know it can be frustrating at times, especially when you are learning. I talked about what patience my dad has to possess to be willing to take a kid fishing. I hooked him on several occasions and basically pierced his ear once (don't worry, the hook was small and he hardly bled:). As far as being meticulous, my dad is an engineer and he doesn't necessarily leave that title at work. Everything he does is very precise. My brother Greg joked that when you ask my dad a question about how to do something, you better be prepared with your T-square and protractor for the answer. Well put. It's not so much annoying as it is endearing and we always know that everything my dad does will be well thought out and well done. I really don't think my dad realizes how incredible he truly is, so it was fun to be able to bombard him with it :).

I love you dad! Hope you had as much fun as we did!