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.