Christmas Eve Parade

Every Christmas Eve there is a big parade through the village of all the different groups of people who work on the mountain....snow hosts, instructors, lifties, snow cat drivers...the list goes on.  This year, for the first time, the school took part. They got their hands on an old school bus that had caterpillar treads and drove it through the village with the children hanging out of the windows throwing candy at the crowds, wearing elf hats and singing Jingle Bells.  The children are all exhausted and should sleep soundly when that special someone comes visiting later tonight, at least they'd better be!!

Christmas Eve

It was the weirdest weather today, almost mystical in quality, the mountain was covered in fog but as we climbed higher, the sun was visible through the clouds but not quite strong enough to break through.  We took advantage of the fact that this is the best visibility we've had for days and went to explore the newly opened Falcon Chair, the highest on the mountain at 7,606 feet. This chair doesn't usually open until February as it need loads of snow to cover the rocks up there, but we've had nearly 10 feet of snow already, almost half of the annual snow fall in the last 3 weeks, hence the foggy days!

Lucy and I were at the bottom of this run last Friday, waiting at the chair lift, when there was a loud whumph sound and an 80 foot tree had landed 6 feet from where we were standing.  What was really frightening was that until it landed I heard nothing, no creaks or shouts, there was no warning at all.  It was also the day the world was supposed to end...it nearly did for us!!
There are trees coming down all over the mountain, the massive snow falls are weighing them down and they can't take the strain.  Also, the snow came so quickly, the roots didn't have a chance to freeze into the ground.  It's going to be a continuous hazard..a bit scary, but lets hope lightening doesn't strike the same place twice!

Last Day of School

Finally, we've reached the end of term, and it has felt like it's gone on forever. Even though the children only go to school four days a week, they don't have a half term and so were all exhausted. I thought I'd escaped that end of term madness but I've now decided it's worldwide! The last day of term at Big White includes their annual school production, this year titled "Summer Vacation", strangely inappropriate considering there's 10 feet of snow outside! I did record it but the bloke in front kept wiggling about so it was really not worth posting on here, but I have got a photo...Ned, Charlie and Lucy were all fishermen!

However, after the production, Lucy's teacher did a presentation called "The best part of me" which was gorgeous, so here it is....

The Longest icicle in the world!

This thing is outside Ned's bedroom window... none of the other houses has one, just us... I think we're honoured! (and my camera missed off the top 2 feet!)

Skiing to school

Today was the first day that the children have been able to ski to school.  The weather has been so changeable, foggy one minute, howling gale the next and it's been snowing practically non stop for 3 weeks.  There are some parts of the route to school that are a bit flat, so if there's a foot of powder then it can make for some tough, time consuming poling.  So, the perfect day arrived and Ned and Charlie skied off on their own into the distance (not Lucy, she had left her ski pants at school the night before and was less than impressed that she had to go in the car!)
As I reached the car park by the school, I waited to watch them ski down the hill (and to check they were OK) after a couple of minutes I couldn't wait any longer as it would make Lucy late, so carried on to school...and there they were...all gloating and proud.  It was like some weird Top Gear challenge...can 2 boys on skiis get to school quicker than their mother in a beaten up Dodge Caravan?  Oh yes they can!!!

What a gorgeous way to get to school!

Hurray...first day of the season.

Today, the mountain officially opened and it was the first day of the ski season.  The children had been told by their teachers that they didn't need to be at school until 10.30 so they could make the most of their snowy environment and try out a few runs before a day of school. Ms Garrod only had 3 children in her class until 10.30!  Gorgeous snow, dodgy weather and definitely a bit murky by the afternoon but no-body cared.  The price you pay for 25 feet of snow over the season is a few snowy days!

 Ned in his new jacket standing outside our house.

Murkiness setting in!

Lucy in the snow

My favourite photo so far....

A face full of freedom...

We've been watching the snow building up and up and yet can't get out there skiing so we've resorted to sledging.  Charlie described it as a 'face full of freedom' and you can see why!! We went to the tubing park and built a jump and this is what happened...classic!

Dry land training

Both Charlie and Ned are hoping to train with the Freestyle ski team this season and every sunday they have been going to dry land training at the Gymnastix Centre in Kelowna where they have been practicing on the trampolines in order to improve their aerial awareness.  The have mastered back flips, front flips and 540's (sort of!), we now just need to see whether they can do any of these tricks on skis!

 Ned on the trampoline

 Charlie's springboard action

Lucy having a go on the parallel bars..until they told her to get off!

Trick or treating and Apres Halloween

 Running for candy

 Charlie with his mountain of treats!

 Apple bobbing

More apple bobbing...or in Lucy's case an excuse to take her clothes off!

Halloween

Halloween is a huge event here, almost as big as Christmas.  The children plan their outfits weeks in advance, the whole day at school is dedicated to it with activities, food, DVD's and even a haunted house and in Kelowna every other shop has a Halloween display and some shops display nothing else. So, it was with some anticipation that I bought the sweets and even found a witchy outfit for myself ready for the big day.  Trick or treating was much more fun than I thought, I've always been a bit anti the idea of knocking on strangers doors asking for sweets, I thought it to be just the opposite of what we had always tried to teach our children about stranger danger, but here anyone willing to participate had to sign up first so they were prepared. Four parents all drove a car full of children to each property, they leapt out with their bags, got their sweets, had to be respectful and say thank you and then on to the next one.  We even had the Fire department as our escort...a very well organised affair.

 Charlie as Frankenstein's monster

 Lucy as a zombie cheerleader princess!

 Ned as the more traditional ghost

The whole school

 Lucy going into the haunted house, pitch black inside with parents throwing spiders and jumping out at them!

Charlie coming out!

iPad Class

The children at school have been having iPad classes and their first attempt was to make trailers on iMovie....I think they're pretty good.

Makin apple juice

The week after the trip to the orchard, the children got the opportunity to make apple juice at school.  I'm not sure who the bloke was that came but he brought all his kit which seemed to comprise of a lot of tubes and a twin tub washing machine!  It was freezing that day but all the children got stuck in and from 4 boxes of apples they made 48 litres of juice, enough for each family to bring a jug home.

Apple Orchards

We were lucky enough to be invited to look round one of the many apple orchards in and around Kelowna.  It is owned by the lovely Marc and his wife Tessa who are Big White skiers and it was Marc that took Ned and Charlie down The Cliff during our season here.  He's an amazing skier, way better than I'll ever be and at 76 is fitter than I'll ever be, which is a bit shameful!  The sides of the Okanagan Lake are covered in orchards and vineyards and their house had one of the most spectacular views of the lake.

Lucy...Fire Chief for the day!

The Fire Department is huge up here. There are several permanent staff plus a whole host of volunteers plus 6 guys called the WEP (Experience Programme)...not quite work experience as we would know it in England...less YTS more umph!  Big White offers one of only 2 on mountain training schemes in British Columbia so these WEP positions are very sought after.  They interview over 250 candidates for only 6 places, and then those that are successful arrive in September, train for 4 months before gaining valuable experience during the ski season.  After they qualify they can pretty much take their pick of jobs, countrywide.  As part of their training they have do a certain amount of hours as part of the community and spend a lot of time down at the school.  During fire prevention week they were at school every day doing activities with the children and they had a draw to chose a child to spend the day with them at the Fire Hall and Lucy won!  Poor WEP!

 They came to pick her up from home...I didn't know which day so for a week we had to be ready just in case...I didn't want to be caught in my Pyjamas!

 Lucy arriving at school in the fire truck 

with the sirens on full blast.

 Just after this picture was taken Lucy said 'My bag is soooo heavy'....so in the next picture.....

They then came and picked her up to take her out for lunch and then she spent the afternoon at the Fire Hall telling them all what to do...I gather they had to do lots of press ups!!   You can tell by the grin on her face that she had a great time (and so did they!)