Golden Days Parade

Here are a few pictures of our local Golden Days Parade that took place this past Saturday. I was unaware until now that this is the largest parade in the state of Alaska. It begin at ten a.m. and lasted about an hour and a half. The parade consisted of the usual: antique cars and tractors, kids sports teams, karate schools, fire trucks -(Noah's favorite), religious organizations, local businesses and  lots of politicians, Lisa Murkowski (State Senator) and Sean Parnell (Governor), to name a couple.

The day started out rainy and D had to work, so it was not without perseverance that I dragged the kids  along behind me through the mud, for milking and the fewest farm chores I could get away with so that we could make it to town in time for the parade. The best part of the experience for me was our location. This year I drove to a friend's house and parked my truck. From there is was only two blocks to this street which was near the start of the parade. We were situated on a green grassy strip not thirty feet from the Chena River, and if that was not enough, my friend had the forethought to set up his tent in case we got too wet. However, lucky for us the rain ceased as the parade began, and the weather cleared up as the morning progressed.

I get a little sentimental thinking about the traditions we are starting as a young family. I'm not much of a fan of parades or fireworks, and I wasn't keen on Noah gleaning several handfuls of candy...but I sure remember being excited about parades (candy), and fireworks when I was a kid. So I guess that is what it is all about, wanting to share some of my childhood memories or rather create similar ones for the kids.

Afternoon at the Ice Park

Last week we had a nice family outing to the Fairbanks Ice Park. Every year we enjoy seeing all the ice carvings. As the children are getting bigger and sturdier I can see us visiting more often and spending more time especially on the slides.

Here are some impressively fast and long ice slides. They work best with sleds which most locals with children know to bring already. Noah tried going down once on his bottom and that worked as well, just slower. Note, keep hands and feet in the sled - you wouldn't want to get snagged at such high speeds. Wider individuals or sleds may not fit in the chute. We all went down several times and had lots of fun. Noah would have sled down this hill all day if we'd let him.

There is an extensive children's ice playground with a large maze, slides for all ages, tunnels to crawl through as Noah is doing here, and ice spinny baskets that kids can climb into and spin around in.

There were so many ice carvings divided into single and multi block carvings. We didn't even see them all as Avery fell asleep on my back and we'd been outside (twenties in the sun) for a few hours.

g