We're back!! Wednesday 5th September 2012

Due to popular demand the blog is back, so hopefully we will continue to post the events and experiences of our new life in Canada.  We all arrived safely although getting 8 huge bags (including of course, Jamie's golf clubs) to the airport and then collecting them at Toronto before checking them all back in again proved a bit challenging!
We finally arrived in Kelowna to be met by our lovely friends Don and Judy who had kindly offered to take me and the children to their house while Jamie went to sort out his car insurance so we could get up the hill.  Pizza and beer were very welcome while the children relaxed in front of the TV starting their long jet lag recovery.  We finally got to Big White some 24 hours after leaving Upottery and even though it was 10 at night here it was 6 in the morning UK time...time for the children to get up!!!  After lots of persuasion they finally agreed to try to get some sleep, but not for long...jet lag definitely a problem!!

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!