The Last Day but One

Yesterday was our last day but one, and what a day we had.  Finally, not really leaving it to the last minute or anything, I skied the cliff, my aim complete...and actually it was not as scary as I thought as long as you don't spend too much time looking over the edge before you start.  Ned and Charlie both did it too helped by some lovely friends....Marc to help the boys and Don to guide me down! Many thanks to them both. In the afternoon all the children wanted to go to ski school and so we took a bottle of wine and some cheese and crackers up the mountain and had the most picturesque picnic ever.

This morning all the children went skiing with their favourite instructor, Charmainiac! (as Charlie calls her).... not in a lesson she just took them off for a morning of free skiing. Here she is burying my children outside ski school.!!

And here are the children with the slightly more sane Adam...another favourite.

So that's it...we fly home tomorrow..the end of our Canadian adventure, and what an amazing time we've all had.  Big thank you to everyone in England who helped...Kerry (especially you) for looking after our house, Tom and Mandy for looking after Chilli, Liz for looking after the chickens (and keeping them alive!), Upottery School for letting us come, to everyone who's kept an eye on our house.  Also, new friends here who have helped us so much...Miss Liebel and Mr G, all the instructors at ski school which is an amazing place, to members of the Bird Family but particularly to Don and Judy who have given their time, their patience and their fun to us on the slopes every day.  Finally, thanks for reading.... xxx

Ice Climbing

Last Thursday the children all went ice climbing with mixed success.  Ned did great managing half way up the ice tower, Charlie made to about a quarter of the way up before getting scared, and Lucy struggled to make it off the ground, she needed a leg up and then couldn't really lift the ice picks never mind stabbing them into the ice, and watching Lucy's arms flailing around with a couple of ice picks in her hands was pretty scary! The photo is deceptive as she was actually hoiked up off the ground for the sake of artistic licence!

The children are now back at school for this week before we come home. On Monday night when I asked Ned whether he had any homework he said he didn't but he did have some for me! I had to write half a page on "Do you think that Elizabeth May should take part in the round table talks". Well...I had to Google the whole thing, not knowing who Elizabeth May was or what round table talks were! As much as the I like the Canadian education system this is taking parental participation a bit far!
Today I went to Ladies Day which is a lesson in the morning followed by a boozy lunch! Because it was the last one of the season it had a 1970's theme so all the instructors were wearing very fetching 1970's jump suits and Kevin Keegan wigs.  Ours wore his tight jeans, a blonde wig and sported a particularly nasty nylon jumper (I think I might have had one similar when I was about 10!)

And this is Mark...singing us a song and playing his ukulele over lunch!!

Mini z's, Telus Park and Dog Sledding

Spring Break has been busy, busy, busy so far.  I've been promising the children they could go on the mini skidoos for ages, but kept thinking of other things to do.. finally I ran out of excuses so off we went.  What a huge mistake that was, Lucy drives a skidoo a bit like she skis...usually looking at what's happening behind her instead of what's going on in front!!! They all had a few laps mostly with me shouting at Lucy 'Look where you're going!!' until she went over the bank, took out a post with some lights on it and nearly tipped the whole thing over.  I ran to the rescue to be met by Charlie coming the other way, also coming to the rescue but had forgotten where the safety switch was and promptly ran me over....Not my best day! This picture was taken before the carnage started!

Yesterday we went to Telus park, a terrain park at Big White with all sorts of things you can do tricks on...a half pipe, a ski cross course which is fantastic fun, but on this day the children wanted to try out the boxes, rails and jumps.....

This morning we went Dog Sledding, which was organised by the school but very kindly donated by the parents of one of the children (good thing too because normally it costs $195 for 20 mins!!!  The children absolutely loved it, they got picked up from a warming hut in the woods before going on a tour and then had an opportunity to play with the dogs and ask questions. 

More sledging!

The boys were really miffed that I didn't post them on their slope outside school, I did mean to but it takes forever to download even the shortest clip and I got bored of waiting.  We're having a morning off this morning though so I've got a bit of time.  The children broke up for Spring Break last Thursday and skied all day Friday, we went to Kelowna on Saturday to an amazing aqua park, called H2O with slides, diving boards, a hot tub, a wave pool, rapids and a surfing pool.  When we got there we found out there was height restrictions on certain things and the children had to be 107m to go on the water slides...no amount of stretching could make Lucy that tall so we had to explain to her why she couldn't go down the slides, as you can imagine she wasn't best pleased!  Ned was the only one tall enough to try out the surfing and loved it, even if it was quite tricky to get the hang of, but his hair's got so long since we got here, at least he looks the surfer dude part, even if he hasn't mastered the surfer bit!
Sunday was Cruz the Blues which we all did together for the first time and so headed over to the far corner of the resort to test Lucy on the very hardest blues, needless to say she skied them fantastically, with only one hitch when Charlie spotted a different route and Lucy followed, out from the bottom of the trees came Charlie going full pelt with no Lucy...she'd got stuck on the top of a 6 foot ledge and he'd just left her!!!!
Here's the sledging....

Spring Break

The children have all broken up for Spring Break and today got their report cards.  As expected Ned and Charlie both did brilliantly, Ned got B's across the board which is defined as Very Good Performance in relation to learning outcomes and Charlie got the same in all subjects except math in which he scored an A which is weird because I always thought he was better at English! Anyway, well done to both boys for working so hard.  Now to Lucy...here are some excerpts from her report card....
-has a hard time staying on task and usually needs reminders
-constantly participates in classroom discussions
-tends to struggle with working in groups and learning how to compromise
-when faced with confrontation has difficulty taking ownership
but the light at the end of the tunnel is...
-has taken great strides from the beginning of the term with sharing and classroom behaviour!!!
Here she is getting ready for the hot tub in her ski socks, slippers and swim suit...butter wouldn't melt!!

Yesterday I took some film of the children outside their school on a sled run they've built.  All the children play on it every recess, lunch and after school and they lovingly tend to it each day, carefully raking and shovelling it after each run! The only condition is that they wear their ski helmets, as a slight deviation from the run and it's head first in to the trees, which surprise surprise Charlie has managed with a very loud thud! 

Charlie and Lucy's teacher has also created a blog about life in their classroom, its got some great pictures on it, check it out at msliebelsclassroom.blogspot.com

We've had 52cm of new snow in the past week, it feels very odd to see no signs of change in the seasons here, nothing changes, it just gets more snowy.  This is the house opposite with some amazing snow formations on the roof...it looks like whipped cream!

The Cliff!

This is The Cliff.  It is a double black diamond and is allegedly the hardest run on the mountain, just the name of it strikes fear into many a skier, although admittedly it doesn't look that scary in this picture but believe me it's pretty steep! It was my goal before we came here for our adventure that I would have improved enough as a skier to get down it without breaking my neck in the process!  So you can imagine how I felt on Friday when I picked up Ned from Ski School to learn that it was him and not me that had been the first member of the Carr family to ski The Cliff.....way to go Ned!  I asked him if he was scared standing at the top looking down and he said that it did look a bit steep but it was too late to back out now!  He also managed to get down without even a stumble... so now the race is on, if I don't get my act together soon and get down it then I'll be beaten by Charlie as well, and that really would be embarrassing!

Farewell to the Kennell Family who made their way back to Blighty yesterday.  We have absolutely loved having you all to stay and do hope you enjoyed your first skiing experience, we will all miss you very much.  As you can see by this photo there is a very important omission....poor Kerry hurt her back in a bad crash on the Tuesday of the second week and it didn't recover in time for her to get back on the slopes.  I really hope it won't put her off as everybody falls over skiing (Jamie more than most!) but it's very unlucky to suffer an injury like that.  We hope you had a safe journey home and in only 6 weeks we will be back there too.
Just to add...Charlie has gone up a skiing group...he is now a High Flier and in the same group as Ned although Ned has only one more thing to complete before he goes up too.  Lucy has made it all the way to the top and is a Junior Hotshot, the highest group in the 4-6 age group, so is very young to have made it this far...congratulations Lucy!

Banff hot Springs and Lake Louise

We woke last Saturday morning to temperatures of -35 and a very frozen Dodge Caravan.  Our poor car had never been exposed to such low temperatures and clearly didn't like it much. After adding gas line anti-freeze to the petrol tank, waiting, adding a bit more, waiting again and then just hoping for the best it finally started.  We decided we really needed to secure underground parking for the following night!  Our activity for the morning was to be Banff Hot Springs.  The mineral springs discovery dates back to 1884 by men working on the railway and then after the famous Banff Springs Hotel was built, a bath house was put up to attract visitors and tourists to the newly created National Park.  The temperature of the water at the source of the spring is 47.3 degrees C in the winter and is cooled to between 37 and 40 to make it comfortable for bathers.  It was certainly a gorgeous temperature when we went in it, just the walk out of the building that was a bit on the chilly side!  We stayed in for about half an hour or until we all started to feel a bit faint, also I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for the other bathers who had come to take the waters and admire the view in peace and quiet and there were our 6 children thinking they were in the local swimming pool!

In the afternoon we went to Lake Louise, about an hour from Banff.  It was absolutely stunning, a lake surrounded by the highest mountains, with the sun just appearing over the top.  So we walked down the lake for some photo opportunities until we all got spooked when our feet started to get wet! We walked back a lot faster than we had walked out!  We bribed the children to get a move on by taking them to see the ice rink and the beautiful ice castle built on the ice by the huge hotel that has been built on the side of the lake, Lucy was in her element!
Back to Big White the next day in not quite the same conditions that we had arrived in, a journey that lasted about 8 hours in treacherous conditions, sub zero temperatures, ice, fog and snow.  Hats off to our children though who all behaved amazingly, so why can't I even get them to Exeter without an argument!

Awesome!!

Here we are at the summit of Sulphur Mountain just outside Banff.  We travelled the 698m on the Banff Gondola to an elevation of 2,281m where there is a viewing platform, restaurants to satisfy hungry children, and a walk along a snow covered decking boardwalk along a mountain ridge to the adjacent summit where there was an old observatory.  The views were absolutely spectacular and we all managed to brave the temperatures so we could experience the beauty.  I came back down with Charlie and Benjamin so I asked them what they thought of the views....awesome, sweet, immense, cool, fantastical!!!! With prompting we then came up with... magnificent, breathtaking, beautiful, stunning and heart beating.  As the guide book says 'more mountains in a moment than most see in a lifetime'.  In the afternoon we walked around the town which is very old colonial in style, had a look at the lovely shops (although we were pre-occupied looking for antifreeze for our useless car that wouldn't start in the cold!) and then headed back to our hotel which has a very child-friendly swimming pool with water slides.  If asked...guess what our children will say when they are asked what was the best bit about Banff!!!

Kennels in Canada

I'm so behind in blogging I can't believe it....the Kennels arrived safe and sound almost a week ago now and have embraced all things snowy with open arms.  Benjamin has already gone up one group and Victoria and Jack have gone up two groups.  Andy and kerry are up the mountain....hurray!!! and can now see Big White and The Monashee Mountains in all their glory...an amazing achievement by the whole family in such a short space of time.
They have all skied non stop since they arrived so today we are taking a few days off to explore The Rockies.  We left Big White at 8.30 this morning and arrived at Banff at 6pm this evening having done one of the most amazing drives of my life, the time just flew by, I had no idea it had taken so long. The beautiful jagged peaks were just breathtaking and now we have 3 days to explore this stunning country some more.  We will have to get used to the real cold though, as we dropped down into Banff, the temperature dropped too and is sitting at a slightly chilly -26 at the moment. According to the weather the temperature is set to drop a bit more tomorrow.  I've never experienced such temperatures before and am wondering just how it will feel and more worryingly if I've brought enough clothes for the children... all I know is that it feels very weird when your nostril hair freezes in your nose!!

Here we go again!

I really underestimated Valentines Day,  I thought it was bad enough having to send a card and sweet to everyone (all bought in Walmart!) but some children handmade all their cards, gave bags of sweets to all the children, some gave presents like little pots of play dough or party favours and one girl had made bracelets for everyone!!! It was so overwhelming, the children came home with bags full of stuff, four days later they are still wading their way through the sweets!  In the afternoon the gym was set up with stations and each group of children moved around each station doing Valentiney activities, painting, sticking and quizzes.  There was Valentines party food and even a 'love punch', then they all watched a movie... it was just like the end of term!

This is Big White Community School before it goes out on a Thursday afternoon, Lucy is sat on a boy called Connor who is the latest object of her affection (he's 13!), Ned and Charlie are behind the right hand stripey girl.  Two hours later came the call from Charlie's teacher saying he was at Ski Patrol with another hurt knee.  He had fallen at the top of the mountain and not satisfied with a skidoo ride this time he was strapped to a stretcher and pulled by a Ski Patrol skier down half the mountain before meeting up with the skidoo and being pulled behind that for the rest of the way!  When I got to him there didn't look to be much wrong except for being completely over-excited about his adventures, what had happened, who'd called who, which run he'd thundered down and at what speed.  Not wanting to think Ski Patrol had wasted their time, his teacher had tried to tell them that she thinks he's lost his confidence in his knee and assumes he's hurt it again badly before fully trying it out, not to mention he is also complete drama queen!
The Kennels arrive tonight...hurray...2 adults, 3 children...and none have skied before...I so, so, so hope they enjoy it, if not, it's going to be Apres ski all day!

Ice tunnels

Today we had gorgeous blue skies although there was a bitterly cold wind at the top of the mountain.  We had a family ski morning, up and down the Bullet chair and then a few runs in and out of the trees at The Black Forest.  The children's skiing improves every day but they still need to put in the miles and practice what they've learnt at ski school.  On one of the ways back to our house Jamie had spotted what he thought was an ice tunnel so this afternoon we went to investigate.  There were two entrances, both quite small which the children immediately dived down, not caring what might be down there and came out saying that someone had built an ice cave at the bottom and that I should look.  I got half way in when I passed the walkie talkie back out to Ned giving him strict instructions to radio Jamie if I got stuck, another few feet in and the claustrophobia set in and I had to get out of there, not feeling the same kind of panic for my children I sent Ned in with my camera to take some photos, you can just see Lucy's feet poking out of the tunnel (I would have definitely got stuck down there!)

Also this afternoon the children have been writing their Valentines.  This is huge over here, they have to send a card to everyone in the school (lucky there are only 30ish children) and attach a sweet to each.  Every child has an envelope on their desk to collect them in and then they have an activity afternoon when the children's families are invited to participate in Valentines arts and crafts and party tea...I'll know more about how this will pan out on Monday.

Happy Birthaday Jamie

Yesterday was Jamie's birthday so we took a tour on a snow mobile into the forest.  There were 5 people in total each with their own snow mobile and a guide.  We followed old trappers trails that led over 30 kms deep into the forest and reached speeds up to 50 kph.  There had been a huge dump of snow the night before, over a foot of powder which made going pretty hair-raising, we had to follow the tracks made by the guide and match her speed or you were left behind (which I was several times!) It was an amazing and for me, terrifying, experience, I even managed to fall off at one point, and got it stuck in the snow several times which meant literally digging it out with your hands. Luckily they are simple to drive, just an accelerator and brake, which meant I could concentrate on keeping up, not on the controls, but they are really easy to turn over, which our guide reassuringly told us before we set off! Today, though, I am so stiff, I must have been clinging on for dear life more than I thought as my back is killing me, and I thought Pilate's was bad enough!

It's Friday...

We've got past Thursday without a disaster, no skidoo rides, no twisted knees, in fact all three children had really good lessons with their school yesterday.  Well, we're half way through our adventure, eight weeks gone, eight weeks to go and the time has passed so quickly.  The snow keeps coming, the people of this village work tirelessly to keep the snow from building up, it is a constant battle to keep roads, car parks and driveways clear using an army of different snow vehicles for each job. Yesterday, diggers were piling snow on to the back of a lorry and taking it to a site at the bottom of the village, by the childrens school, where there is literally a mountain of snow, the children are sitting on it in the photo. The motto of this village is 'It's the Snow' as they have an average annual snowfall of 24.5 feet, we still have quite a way to go before we get that much!
We've been exploring some of the outer parts of the mountains and have come across old trappers cottages and dog houses, remnants of an age before skiing when animal pelts were a more lucrative market than chalets and pistes!  The skiing is so beautiful beyond the boundaries, the forests are silent and still, all noise is extinguished by the soft snow, the perfect place for a sleeping bear!!!!!  Hope we don't find one..
GRRRRRR!!!!

Boarding

Today the boys wanted to try boarding, they've been pestering us for ages but we wanted them to be really competent on skis first just in case they loved it and decided they were never skiing again! (Also, with our recent record for injuries it didn't seem like the best idea!)  After one morning though there was no chance of Ned turning to the dark side, he absolutely hated it and wouldn't even stay for the afternoon.  Charlie, however, had a great time and has even moved out of the first group after one day, and he didn't sustain any new injuries....result!

I was meant to be taking Lucy on a treat on her own but we had Ned tag along too after his disastrous boarding day! We went on a horse drawn sleigh ride through the forest which was gorgeous and so peaceful.  Ned and Lucy got to have a go steering but we were glad it was only half an hour as we had picked one of the coldest days of the year so far!

Hurray...this time it's not Charlie!!!

I decided to ski with Charlie's school ski group this afternoon...he had lost a bit of his confidence since his fall a week ago and needed a bit of reassurance.  His instructor, a 20 year old kiwi called Charmaine, is completely insane and I'm convinced she was making sure she never has a mum accompany her group again, as she scared the living daylights out of me (at least I think that's what she was doing... if she skies like that all the time then she's a huge worry!)  The children, however, think she's the best... she goes head first shouting 'lets go faster' and whooping and cheering then took us down this ridiculous black called Talon's Grip, well that says it all!  There is clearly nothing wrong with Charlie's knee as he could do all the runs twice as fast as me, which was a bit embarrassing actually so I bailed out and went back to village. I'd been there 10 minutes when a guy in a lovely medics jacket tapped me on the shoulder and asked 'Are you Ned's mum?"  Turns out Ned had skied into some netting marking the edge of the run, his leg had got tangled and stopped but the rest of his body kept going!!  Yet another twisted knee, more bandages and a most importantly another ride on the back of a skidoo!!!  I did warn the medic that I have got one more child so to expect to see us again next week!!

Vancouver

Here we are in Vancouver for the weekend, it's about 450km from Big White and what's weird is when you look at a map there are only two towns in between!  This means no petrol stations, no roadside help and no food which is scary enough but add in The Coquilla Pass, a notoriously treacherous bit of highway at 1244 metres where the weather closes in in minutes, and it becomes quite an adventure.  Our faithful old people carrier made it through though and we had a fantastic weekend.

We started at the aquarium in the middle of Stanley Park which is a huge peninsula that sits at the end of the city jutting out into the harbour.  The creature behind Charlie in the picture is a Beluga Whale, the only ones in the world in captivity.  We then went on a tour of the Park, looking a Lions Gate Bridge and the amazing Totem Poles before heading back to the city for a trip on a sea plane.  This was absolutely breathtaking, Charlie got to sit up front with the pilot and with the rest of us in the back the plane was full! We took off in the harbour and did a tour up the estuary before circling around and headed up the coast following the Sea to Sky highway following the spectacular mountains on our right and the islands on our left. We landed back in the harbour after only 20 minutes but with memories for a lifetime.

The next day we went to Capilano Park.  It absolutely poured the whole time we were there but not discouraged by a bit of rain (we are used to it after all!) we braved the bridge. After paying we realised that to explore the Park you have to go over the suspension bridge and this is when our family of five became four as Jamie's vertigo set in!  He's obviously not the first as the policy of the park is that if you can't get over the bridge in 15 minutes they give you a refund!  So back to the ticket office he went while the four of us battled on!  The bridge sits over a gorge which is a hell of a long way down, I didn't hang around to look too closely, i just wanted to get across, needless to say the children weren't remotely bothered about the height and were messing around trying to get the bridge to sway and bounce which caused a bit of a sense of humour failure on my part!  The other side is rain forest and it's full of trails and lookouts over the gorge, treetop bridges and paths to explore, it was an amazing place but the weather got to us finally.  Soaking wet and with squelching feet we headed back to our trusty Dodge to start our journey home.

Why is it always Charlie?

Lets hope that this is the last time I have to post on a disaster that has happened to Charlie, it's the third so I'm hoping that this is it!
Today, I went to help the children get ready for their skiing lesson at school and then walk them up through the village to the ski school.  I safely deposited them with their instructors (or so I thought) and headed home.  I had been home about an hour when the door bell rang and there was Barb, the Fire Chiefs wife, on the doorstep giving Charlie a piggy back!  It turned out he had fallen on practically his first run and when he came to get up again he couldn't put any weight on his left leg.  His instructor skied to the medics hut and they called out the skidoo to go and get Charlie from the slopes and take him to the hut to be checked out.  This was by far the best bit of the whole adventure for Charlie, racing down the slopes at a million miles per hour on the back of a skidoo!!  Anyway to cut a long story short he's absolutely fine... a bit bruised, swollen and now with an oversized bandage and a well practiced limp.

Dancing on Ice it is (not)!!!

It -9 degrees and the children are all skating after school and Lucy is just wearing a T-shirt under her coat!! As you can see Charlie is the only one to have really embraced the Canadian National sport, Lucy just walks around the ice on her skates, and Ned looks more like Bambi!!  The bloke in the video is Ned's teacher Mr G....a real dude!!
The children have been at school 3 weeks now and have all settled in beautifully. The day is longer than in England, starting at 8.30 and with very few breaks in the day until home time at 3.30 to make up for the fact that they only do a 4 day week so that the families here can take advantage of the mountain and ski on Fridays.  They also have homework every night, even Lucy, and not just reading and spellings, they all have maths and Ned has been doing book reviews and essay planning and writing.  I quite like cramming it all into 4 days though knowing that there are 3 days off coming up!
The weather here has been weird, last week it snowed continuously, and the snow just kept piling up on the sides of the roads higher and higher until you couldn't see the buildings behind, then this week when we went to Kelowna it was 12 degrees..positively balmy, it was even 1-2 degrees on the mountain, unheard of in January!
This weekend we're taking a trip to Vancouver, a 4-5 hour drive weather permitting, which is  just down the road to Canadians!  We're all really excited, it's meant to be an amazing and beautiful city.

Another bad day for Charlie

It all started so well, yesterday he was chuffed to bits having been told he could go up a skiing group to High Fliers, which made him the same group as Ned.  So we left him happy as Larry at 9 this morning promising to go and check all had gone well at lunchtime.  So, at noon we walked into ski school only to be greeted by Ned shrieking 'Charlie's been put down a group, his instructor got it all wrong yesterday'.  Charlie was sat at a table sobbing, surrounded by 3 instructors trying to console him, telling him it wasn't his fault, it was Gavin's fault, the snow conditions were terrible etc etc, but nothing was helping, he kept saying he just wanted to go home. Turns out yesterdays instructor had made a huge **** up and put Charlie and 2 others in a group where they were completely out of their depth, he'd been taken down a black run for the first time and fallen apart...poor Charlie, it always seems to be him!
On a plus note, Lucy did go up a group to Racing Raccoons and is now officially allowed poles....our favourite instructor said 'I don't think anyone in that group should really have poles and especially not Lucy'!!  You try telling her that!!  Pink poles here we come!!
Off to Kelowna tomorrow to buy some skates for me...if you can't beat them, join them!

I must be mad...you would think I would know better...but no...yesterday I found myself at a Big White Community School PTFA meeting (or PAC as it's known here, but I'm not sure what it stands for!)  It was all very interesting really, quite reassuring to known that all the red tape that we have to adhere to in the U.K. is just the same over here, risk assessment seems to be a worldwide phenomenon!!  It was all a bit embarrassing, however, when they started talking about the fact that the 'board' had accepted an under age child into Kindergarten without informing the parents first.  I had to come clean that it was my child before the conversation got too heated, also the cut off date here for school entry is the end of Dec not Sept, so she only missed it by a week, and she had already been in full time education since September, that's what I kept telling them (and myself) anyway!
The children are doing a project at school about life cycles, and today 50 Pacific salmon eggs arrived to be stored in a large aquarium in the hall until they hatch in a weeks time.  The children are fascinated by these tiny orange spheres gently swaying on the bottom of the tank and are constantly checking for any developments..to be honest, I'm finding it pretty fascinating myself.

NHL here we come!!

Last Friday the school announced that they children do skating on Monday and Wednesday after school.  They do it on the school tennis court that had been purposefully flooded and frozen with nets either end. So on Saturday we rushed to Kelowna to pick up some second hand skates, hockey skates for the boys and white figure skates for Lucy as they didn't have any hockey skates small enough for her.  The Canadians are absolutely mad on ice hockey, it's their national sport and is always on TV wherever you go, and the children had been watching it being played on the frozen lake at the bottom of the mountain so were keen to have a go.
On Monday afternoon I went down to school to watch as they put on their skates and tentatively took their first few steps on the the ice, luckily they have little zimmer frames for them to hang on to as there were arms and legs everywhere!!  Charlie got the hang of it quite quickly, helped by one of the dads,  I asked the teacher who he was and was told that he was an ex-NHL player, clearly expecting me to be impressed but I had no idea what she was talking about...I've since found out that this stands for National Hockey League and so basically he was a pro!!  Shame he couldn't have quite the same effect on Ned who was much happier holding his zimmer frame or Lucy who's little legs were going too fast for her body.  They were all black and blue by the end of it, but not put off and keen to do it again!
The school has a real emphasis on citizenship and they have a key word each week to work on...respect, diligence, trustworthiness, fairness, loyalty...the list is endless.  Tonight at tea Ned got up from the table to get himself a drink and said 'I'm getting myself a drink, Charlie would you like another drink.'  Charlie, clearly stunned said, 'Is this the real Ned'!!!

Cruz the Blues

Big White Trail Map

This weekend was Cruz the Blues, a bit like letterboxing at Escot but on skis! The idea is that on every blue run on the mountain there is a post with a stamper attached and you have to collect as many stamps as you can.  On Saturday morning Lucy announced that she wanted to go to ski school so Jamie, the boys and I decided to do some of the more tricky blues while she wasn't about and saved the easier ones for when she was with us.  It all finished on Sunday evening with free T-shirts for everyone and a draw.  Luckily it doesn't matter how many stamps you get as we only managed about 15 out of a possible 30 or so, and we got a bit distracted videoing in the hope that in the month we've been here that our skiing has improved!

             

Yesterday, we all skied to school and we were soooo late, we completely underestimated how long it would take.  The ski was gorgeous though it seemed a shame to drop the children off!! The children all spent the morning having their normal lessons but in thermals and then at lunch time I went back to help the teachers get the children ready for their skiing lesson....absolute chaos, each child with skis, boots, poles, balaclava, neck warmers, goggles and gloves.  Luckily the local fire chief had brought down his engine and took all the skis and poles up to the village so we just had to get the children there plus rucksacks and lunch boxes!!  The skiing lessons are donated by the village and there were 3 instructors so 3 groups..Ned confidently put himself in the advanced group (I really wanted to ask him if he was sure but he seemed so keen so I bit my lip) Charlie intermediate and Lucy beginner although none of the children in that group were really beginners.  They all did great and I was so proud of Ned, I think he found it a bit tough but he kept up and didn't complain once, bearing in mind he was skiing with 12/13 yr olds who were born on this mountain.
                                         Today is Lucy's 5th birthday...
                                        HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUCY

We gave her a new party dress and true to form she wore it to school where they did art all afternoon...say no more!!
The children all look half asleep in this picture, it was a bit early!

Carrs at school

The children all started at Big White Community School yesterday and after a very nervous start was a great success.  Ned was so scared I thought he was going to throw up (for those of you who witness Ned on Victorian Day at Upottery will know what I'm talking about!!)  Anyway, when I went to pick them up he was happy as Larry, talking about all the children in his class as if he'd known them years.  There are only two classes, Lucy is in Kindergarten with Charlie who is 2nd Grade and their teacher is Miss Leibel and Ned is in 4th Grade in a class up to 8th Grade (12/13 yr olds) with Mr G as his teacher. They seem to do quite a lot of classes as a whole school, particularly art and P.E. I can't imagine some 13 yr old boy wanting to do P.E. with Lucy but it seems to work for them!  They have lockers, which Ned thinks is great, just like all those American shows he watches on T.V. and after the first day Charlie came home with his agenda for me to look at!  They have already picked up some Canadianisms...everything is sweet or awesome dude and everyone seems to be called Buddy and Ned's bottom is now officially a 'butt'!! 
Today they had a talk by some Irish bloke called Dara who had walked unsupported to The South Pole...he usually gives talks in the U.K. where the children are shocked and amazed by the sub zero temperatures and the amount of clothing needed to keep warm...the children in this school were decidedly unimpressed as they wear all that stuff everyday just to get to school.
Loads of snow today, at least another 8inches and tomorrow we are skiing to school as the children have skiing as part of the curriculum and so go to the village ski school every Thursday.  We're going to have to leave early if we're ever going to make it by 8.30, especially as we have to account for Charlie taking the odd wrong turn!

Bad Day At Big White

The boys had a couple of  bad experiences today while out skiing!!
Ned this morning went out with his favourite instructor Evil Dr Phil. We popped in at lunchtime to see how he was and he skied up absolutely covered in snow, he had  got to what he thought was the top of a small mound expecting to ski down it only  to find it was a massive boulder with a 10 foot sheer drop!! Too late to back out he skied off the top of it and landed only to find the tips of his skis dug into fresh snow and stopped dead. Unfortunately he didn't. His face plant in the snow was witnessed by a patrolling medic who picked him up and massaged his feet, questioned him and pronounced him fit to carry on skiing. When we saw him at lunch he was laughing about it and quite proud of his ability to face plant himself in snow from 10 feet and come out laughing.

Charlie had a moment that only Charlie can have, we picked up Ned and Lucy at the allotted time 3.15pm only to find no Charlie.
By 3.45 we were starting to get worried so Joy got the ski school to radio Charlie's instructor to find out where they were. We are on the lift came the reply and sure enough a few minutes later of came Charlie and his instructor.
It turns out that on the last run of the day down to the village Charlie was at the back of the class when he fell over. No big deal except when Charlie got up he couldn't see any of his class. Being the sensible chap that he is he skied up to an adult and told him what had happened and would he take him down to safety. Meanwhile back at ski school his instructor is shitting bricks that he is 1 Charlie short  of a class full.
Charlie at this time had been taken to the mountain rescue hut where they were able to radio ski school to say had they lost a child and if so that had one going spare!!.
Off goes a very relieved instructor to pick Charlie up and bring him back to his parents. Expecting his parents to be furious with him he proceeded to apologise profusely only to realise that we weren't to bothered and felt happy that Charlie had acted in intelligent manner by asking for help and that we should have mentioned Charlie's appalling sense of direction!!!
 Lucy has spent the last 1 1/2 days in Jumping Joeys having moved up from Eager Elephants and has almost already moved up again to Racing Raccoons. Twice now i have picked her up from ski school to be told by the instructor that they are thinking of putting her up a class. When i have told them that she only went in the class 1 1/2 sessions ago they look at me and say O.K we will leave her in Jumping Joeys one more session. One more day of ski school and then proper school starts on Tuesday so Mum and Dad get to do a bit more skiing from then on.
Can't wait!
The picture is of a sun dog as they call them out here not a snow dog as Joy called it.

It is not very clear but you get the idea. We will post a better one hopefully some when.
Excuse the bear in the picture it's Joys homework from school, she is hoping to get a C+ from her teacher.