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.