Skiing at Lake Louise

Now that Hudson and Maira can ski without falling down constantly, we decided to try skiing in the mountains on a real ski hill instead of the small ones around Edmonton.

We picked Lake Louise (partly because they're the only resort in the mountains that offers a family pass for lift tickets and partly because we'd never been there, winter or summer, and it's famous for being so beautiful). We were excited to see that there are dozens of green runs as none of us is a very adventurous skiier so the more green runs the better!

Well, it turns out that their idea of a green run involves a lot steeper inclines than anything Maira or Hudson could handle so we ended up spending a lot more time in the kids area (which was great for Hudson and Maira but still pretty boring for the rest of us) than I had expected. I went on one run up the mountain with Maira on what was supposed to be the easiest run on the whole mountain. Well, she ended up having a melt down about halfway down because the steep areas really scared her so she was happy to stick to the kids area after that. I did take her and Hudson up the gondola but we didn't get off at the top to ski, we just rode it back down to the bottom. We did that while we were waiting for Jess and Shae and Connor to get back from exploring the back side of the mountain. They were supposed to see if any of the green runs on the back were less steep but they ended up taking a wrong lift and making some wrong turns and they were gone for 2 hours! They had quite an adventure and ended up on a blue run part of the time but they survived and have quite the experience to remember!

Valentine's Day at the Silver Skate Festival

My birthday fell on a Saturday this year and I decided I wanted to spend the day with my family at the Silver Skate festival. This is a winter festival at Hawrelak Park with skating, cross country skiing, snowshoeing, ice sculptures and all sorts of other activities. We've been there before when there was a Cabane à Sucre but they didn't have one this year for some reason and that was about the only disappointment I had with the day.

We started out in the Heritage village section where Connor enjoyed watching the blacksmithing demonstration and we all roasted some bannock over a fire.

Then we moved over to the kids activity area and we played some ball hockey, tried the ice slides and Connor and Hudson enjoyed some broomball.

Then it was time to strap on our skates and skate around the lake. This is my favourite place in Edmonton to skate because it reminds me of my youth in Ottawa and going skating on the canal.

That evening, we went to the story procession. The story this year was "The Golden Apple" and to start, we made ourselves a torch to carry with us.

Then we listened to the story of the Golden Apple in a warming tent, told to us by the king and queen in the story.

Then, at the appointed time, we joined in a procession where we walked through the setting of the story, full of glowing ice sculptures and people in costume, until we ended up at a tree decorated with golden apples. The golden apples were filled with papers that people had inscribed with sad memories or fears, and the papers were burned when the tree was set on fire and we all watched it burn.

When we got home, I had a two-bite brownie cake and opened presents.

Grapefruit spoons from Shae - somehow in almost 20 years of marriage, we've gotten by without any but I'm so excited to finally have some!

Connor was so excited to hear that I planned to use this vegetable cutter to make noodles out of zucchini.

After dinner, Maira gave me and Shae a tour of her new school that she bought with all her allowance and birthday money she'd been saving up.

And the next night, we went to Spruce Grove to celebrate with my mom and my sister's family.