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!)