Canmore Winter Carnival

In February it was the Canmore winter Carnival and the town imported snow to Main street for a week of dog sled competitions, cross country ski competitions and lots of winter fun. We started off  by warming up at the  ice coffee bar.

Then we sauntered around to look at the ice carving competition.

Enjoyed warm waffles while we waited.

And then the kids enjoyed an alternative mode of getting around Main street on skis.

And of course as I mentioned before about Finlay's love off hockey....he found a stick and a ball and enjoyed a game of road hockey....Oohhh dear!!!

 

The Winter Carnival ended with a town party on the pond where we skated to music , tried some maple syrup ice pops and hot chocolate and Heather and Finlay enjoyed climbing in the snow fort.

Our weekend finished with more snow fall and then a hunt for snow fairies. 

shwoop shwoop shwoop

 

Finlay has been enjoying his ski lessons  and has come a long way in recent weeks,starting off with learning how to snow plough, he is now managing to turn. Last weekend his instructor took the group up the chair lift and he managed to come down with his instructor.
This is just a few videos of the wee man doing his "pizzas"

Heather is enjoying her lessons too. She is away on the hill for two hours and is managing to do blue runs. She has been up 3 out of the 4 chair lifts on the hill , the only one left is the North American lift which is a double black diamond with moguls. I have heard some parents boasting about how their child can do this run at 5 years old , but we are in no rush......I work in the emergency department and see what can happen even with an instructor .....I am so happy that she is sticking to the blue runs and there is no rush to do the double blacks. Once she leaves for her lesson we don't see her for snow dust until 2 hours later when she returns with a huge smile on her face.

For the month of January Mum had lessons too. The group is called Wicked Woman's Wednesday and we had 4 weeks of 2 hour lessons in the morning followed by lunch at the restaurant included and free drink afterwards...hot chocolate with Brandy optional!!! It was a lovely way to spend a Wednesday morning and a great excuse to get out on my skis on a regular basis. The main objective for me was to improve my skills and confidence in order to keep up with the kids in the very near future.As it turns out Heather and I have done the same runs however I am still just one step ahead and did actually manage to complete my first black run on my last day of the course....no moguls(I want to keep my knees) ...just straight down and I remembered to breathe....at the bottom!!!!. On that same day, lunch was brought up to us in the cabin at the top of the North American chair. There was the option to take your skis up and attempt a descent down the double black diamond with moguls, however I left my skis at the bottom of the chair lift, enjoyed  a lovely lunch beside an open fire, nice and relaxed for a scenic ride back down the mountain with a few others!!!