Tubing!

Holly & I had fun at the Tubing Park today. We got to ride down "double" (me holding the strap of one tube through the handle of the other) so she wasn't scared at all!

King-Size Bed

We came up to Whistler to meet our friends, Jim & Kris, from California. Holly enjoyed sleeping in the big bed with us... taking up more room than either Mommy or Daddy!

Mackenzie's birthday

Today we went to Mackenzie's 2nd birthday party (on her actual birth day - Valentine's Day!). We had fun with all the other kids playing games and listening to music!














Simon crawling through the hula-hoop tunnel.














The birthday cake - made by a friend of Mimi's (Mackenzie's mom)!



















The birthday girl!



















Yummy birthday cupcake!



















Holly and Isabelle (the 2 monkeys) crawling over Paul. Maybe they'll become a tag-team wrestling team!

Skiing at Manning

This morning, as we were packing up to head home (we had to check out before our scheduled lessons), we noticed a lot of static in the air in our room. Holly's hair kept flying all over so we got her to stand by the wall where it immediately stuck and got a great, funny photo.

The second shot is of Holly skiing with teacher Dad. We had planned to put Holly in a ski lesson here and myself in a snowboard lesson, but 3 of the instructors called in sick this morning and the lodge failed to send our names up to the ski school, so they had no idea we were coming, besides which there were 140 students from a high school up, too! Needless to say, we didn't get our "official" lesson, so we headed to the bunny hill and Paul helped us both out! He did get a couple of hours of snowboarding and skiing in before we headed home!

Manning Park

Today we went to Manning Park for an overnight stay. We got a special at the lodge up there and decided to take a break from the cold..... by taking advantage of the cold and heading up for some skiing/snowboarding/skating.

The lodge was great - and it only took us about 2 hours to get there. Paul did some skiing after we arrived, while Holly and I had lunch, and walked around. We checked out the outdoor skating rink and found some ice sculptures built around the rink... besides the bear with the honey pot and ice house pictured here, there was a dinosaur beside an overturned car, a shark (complete with victim!), and a sinking ship, among others - someone was very creative! When Paul came back, we went for a quick skate and then a dip in the pool and hot tub before dinner. We were all in bed and asleep by 9pm!

Skating

What a busy weekend... skiing and swimming on Friday, ballet on Saturday, and skating today!

It's been nearly a year since we took Holly skating, but she picked it up in about an hour! At first, one of us had to skate behind her in case she fell, but after falling a couple of times, she was fine. By the end of the hour, she was walking on the skates by herself and not even waiting for us! I've included a video - not the greatest quality, as it was taken with my phone...

First ski lesson

Holly went for her first ski lesson today. I had to work, so Paul took her to the class. There were some tears during the class, even though Paul stuck around to watch for the first 1/2. She's been crying sometimes at swimming, too and we don't know why. We always stay and watch the classes, but for some reason she cries and can't tell us why - the strange thing is that we don't get to go into her ballet class (we wait outside in the hall), but she's fine there!

She seemed to get the hang of balancing on the skis, though!

With the other kids, getting warmed up (Holly is at the end in purple with the red helmet).














Ready with the skis on!














Skiing!














Riding up the magic carpet.














A couple of videos - pretty good for just 3 hours on skis!

Mount Seymour

Today Daddy went with Uncle Laci, Uncle Tim, and Uncle Tim's dog, Mocha, showshoeing on Mt. Seymour. There was a weather inversion, so the temperature was about 2 degrees celsius at home and about 18 at the top of the mountain! Mommy and I went to ballet in the fog, but Daddy got some great shots in the clear sunshine at the top of the mountain . . . . . you can see just a few of the tall buildings in a couple of the pictures.

H - O - L - L - Y

Holly knows how to spell her name - she's been saying it for quite a while. Sometimes when she's spelling it out, she adds an extra "L" - "H-O-L-L-L-Y", but lately she's been exactly right all the time.

Today, we made a card for Auntie Alison for her birthday - Holly decided on all the stickers like she usually does and drew her favourite happy face on the back. She even signed her name all by herself..... a little help from me with the "L"s because she sometimes writes them backwards, but she did the rest by herself!

Happy New Year!

After getting up and having breakfast, we decided it would be fun to go sledding again. It wasn't snowing, so the weather was perfect - just cold. We thought it would be a zoo at the park, but when we got there, there was only 2 other people there... turns out it was Caitlin and Jeremy - 3rd time we've seen them there in about 2 weeks!

We spent just over an hour there and had lots of fun with them - we made a couple of snowmen, and tried to flatten out the run so it was faster (too powdery, so it wasn't all that fast at first). By the time we left there were still only us and two other families there - I guess the other moms and dads weren't up to going out after celebrating the new year. . . . ?!