Igloo

There's a big pile of snow in the back yard. It just kind of builds up around here. It's not going anywhere until it gets a bit warmer.



So the boy decides to dig a bit of a hole in the pile.



Instant igloo :-)



We didn't have a flag handy, but we did have a koala and a stubbie cooler :-)



The igloo even had a window.



The driveway had a bit of a build up of snow and ice, so I decided to get rid of it.
It was about 20cm thick, and chopped nicely into bricks which Delle, Addie and Cayde carried to the igloo. Actually, no longer an igloo but an ICE FORTRESS!





So once the bricks were laid we packed them with snow and then poured some water on them. In the morning they were set solid.

Happy Birthday Addie

Somebody turned eight years old while we were at Canmore.



They had birthday pancakes for breakfast :-)





On the way home, we drove past a roller coaster (it was closed).



And a giant cowboy (he was trying to sell us a car).



Then we went skating at the neighbourhood ice rink.



Birthday dinner consisted of Addison's current favourite - sushi.

Canmore - Sunday

Sunday morning at Canmore. It snowed overnight.



Off Cayde and I went on a snowshoe expedition with the teachers.
Hi ho, hi ho, it's through the snow we go.



A quick stop for lunch.



Ed takes off his snowshoes and jumps into the snow beside the track to show us just how deep it is.



Cayde ponders what would happen if he dived into the hole head first.



Cayde discovers what would happen if he dived into the hole head first.



Teachers snacking.



Peter and Margaret making siamese snow angels.



Hey look, we made it to the top! (No, really we did. There is no way that this is a photo near the bottom of the path, and that we were just claiming to be at the top because no one else saw just how far up the track we got...)



The magnificent view.



You know how in the cartoons a snowball rolling down a hill soon grows into a massive snow boulder the size of a house, smashing everything in its way? That's how it actually works in real life. The next picture is of a little snowball that must have created by a gust of wind or something - it just rolled down the snow bank, growing as it rolled and leaving a trail of the snow it had picked up on its way.



Back down to civilisation.

Canmore - Dogsledding

OK, this was what we went to Canmore for, the dogsledding.





Yes, Kristy Lou was there too.

Two members of the Fowler family, who shall remain nameless, left their snow pants behind. Luckily there was a nice fluffy blanket in the sled to keep them warm :-)




There was only enough room on a sled for three of us (not counting stuffed koalas) so we left the boy behind. The couple behind us had pity on him and took him in as one of their own.



And away we went...



Zooming along the path, the dogs were just busting to run.
The instructors told us that the word to make them go was "Hike!" and the word to make them stop was "Whoa!".
Our dog team completely ignored me - they rock - they would try to start running as soon as the team in front started moving. Good thing the sleds have brakes.
They also completely ignored "Whoa!" - we kept catching up with the team in front, which is not a bad effort when you consider the weight they were towing. (So what if I outweigh Delle and Addie put together - I've got big bones...)
Anyway, we settled into a routine of catching up, stopping, waiting for the team ahead to get further ahead, and then catching them up again.






Here doggie, eat the yummy koala.



At the half way point, we turned around and headed out onto Spray Lake, which was conveniently frozen.









Well, it was mostly frozen...





Oh yeah, what do you get if you cross a Blue Heeler with a Husky?
One of these.

Canmore - Saturday

Last weekend was a long weekend in Alberta - Monday was Family Day.
(A political drug scandal resulting in a public holiday - I like it :-)


The Fowler family decided to take up the offer of the exchange teachers group and set off to Canmore to go dog sledding with the other Aussie teachers.
We hired a minivan since it was a rather long trip and we were giving Anna (an exchange teacher from England) a lift. Poor Bessie - I'm not sure if it was sulking or a sigh of relief I heard when we put her away in the garage :-)

So on Friday afternoon we packed up and headed off to Canmore. The van was a joy to drive compared to Bessie - it had cruise control, electric adjustable driver's seat, electric mirrors (well, just having mirrors was a novelty :-) and remote start.
(Remote start is a big thing in Canada - it lets you start your car and warm it up a couple of minutes before you leave your house/shop/restaurant/whatever)
With a stop for dinner in Red Deer, we finally arrived in Canmore a bit after 11:00. It was dark, we were all tired, and we just collapsed into bed.

When we woke up, this was the view from our room...



And the view from out the front...





I was blown away. The mountains in Canada are phenomenal! awesome! and pretty big too!

After dogsledding (don't worry, there'll be a separate post on that...) we wandered the streets of Canmore, checking out the shops, restaurants and laundromats.



(Ok, the laundromat just happened to be in that photo - I couldn't resist :-)

Oh yeah, all you Sydneysiders out there - you know about the Three Sisters at Katoomba right? Cop some of this - the Three Sisters at Canmore...



While in Canmore, we found the Canmore Civic Centre, where they were holding a bit of a festival thingy.





I think that the whale ice sculpture was a reference to the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy, though I couldn't see a bowl of petunias anywhere.

Now you can't visit the Canadian Rockies without doing some lumberjacking. It was rather convenient that the Civic Centre had a log set up for the kids to cut.



They even let the kids keep the bit they chopped off :-)