Another day at the river

I might have lied earlier - we were back at the river on Family Day.

And it was standing room only at the river that day.

And quite a different day altogether!

Still one of my favorite winter pastimes!

Voyageurs! (You gotta be real careful and make sure you don't mispronounce that one!!)

This year David had the option to go to middle school or stay in elementary but switch to French Immersion.

I'd always wanted him to take french immersion, so I was very happy when he decided to go that route! He's always had a good eye for languages, and he seems to be making the transition quite easily.

They've been learning about Festivale at school, and because they are a French language class, they were able to attend the Voyageur celebration at Fort Langley for free.

First we learned about how Voyageurs (David kept calling them Voyeurs. Hah!) transported their goods, how their goods were considered more valuable than the voyageur's lives, we learned about the kinds of food they ate and how they camped.

Then the kids formed two teams and raced each other to move all their goods to the camp site.

David and Jade were on opposing teams, so I had a hard time choosing which team to cheer for.

FYI, those bales were not the hundred and twentyish pounds a voyageur had to carry on his back.

At our next stop, we learned how to pull taffy. This is something we "kids" attempted to do with our kids the year (2008/9) we got so much snow. Now I know what we were doing wrong that year, so bring on the cold and snow!!

Once we'd learned about maple syrup and how to make the yummy candy, each kid got to try making their own.

It smelled amazing.

Apparently it tasted amazing too!

This guy was amazing. Look at how smiley he was. That's one thing I love about visiting Fort Langley; their volunteers are brilliant. So much fun, so personable, and they make history interesting!

The candy would probably have been a highlight. Except the whole day was fun!

Next we moved on to the boats, and portaging. And also rowing.

I wish I'd gotten video of these kids singing en francais and rowing for their lives. It was hilarious.

There were a few drills to practice rowing only on the right or only on the left, and then some cheering to celebrate their successes.

Next we moved to the party place to PARTY.

We learned a few dance moves.

And what to do if you're not a good dancer (shake the dice!)

And then we moved to the cooperage. We all had to learn weaving.

Voyageurs had to weave their own belts to support their backs when they carried those heavy bales. Apparently most voyageurs succumbed to hernias at a young age.

We met with the blacksmith.

And finally we went up to the big house to learn some traditional songs. And this was probably the highlight for me. Look at how animated this volunteer was.

Thank you for a truly wonderful field trip! What fun!!

Feed the birds at Campbell Valley Park

The kids had...a half day? A day off? I can't remember. All I remember is, they weren't in school and it wasn't raining. And so I phoned up the neighbors and suggested they join us for a stroll through Campbell Valley Park.

Even though it's so close by, we don't seem to go there very often. We need to change that. There are endless trails and each is different. The one we most often take is a short loop through a meadow, a forest and then around a swamp. This is the trail where we tend to see the most wildlife.

Of course there are all sorts of other things to see... like fungus, and lichen, and beautiful trees.

AND, anyone who lives here knows, if you come with bird food (especially black sunflower seeds and peanuts), you can get the birds to eat out of your hands.

In fact, these birds are so well fed, they can afford to be very choosy.

A New Year's tradition

It's become a bit of a tradition for us to head to Derby Reach on New Year's Day for a bonfire. We decided to do it again this year. As you can see, the weather was COLD and misty. Which felt right for January 1st.

Thankfully, Denis suggested that he head down to the river early to secure us a spot. We arrived shortly after at about 10:15. By 11 there weren't any spots to be had. When we first started doing this, the communal pit would fill up, but the sites were pretty empty. I guess the word is out.

Once we got the fire started, I took pictures. I love the moodiness of the river when the mist rolls in. And the ice.

As always, we had LOTS of food. BTW, I totally recommend skipping the chocolate bar and graham crackers when making smores. Buy yourself some milk or dark chocolate hob nobs and you get a nice chewy cookie and melted chocolate AND the roasty marshmallow.

Our site is the one with the log at the end. Mostly because of this:

However, Andrew walked to the end of the campgrounds this time, and it seems like the very last few sites actually get sun (ours never does because the trees are so tall, and the sun is on the other side of the trees.We might have to change our usual site.

Dave showed up for a while.

The kids kept climbing.

And the frost never melted.

It's really cold, can you tell?

Anyway, this is one of our favorite things to do. Good food, smokey fun, and lots of photo ops.
I love it.

We finally made it to the mountain!

Apparently the third time's a charm!

We planned ahead and arrived by 9:30 - considering things don't open till 10 (according to the site anyway), you'd think this would be plenty early. But we still snagged some of the last parking spots and waited an hour to get our passes and get in line for the gondola. You really have to be committed to make this trip!

The first stop of the day was the sliding hill. This is a new thing for the mountain. It's exactly where we thought it would be - which is where the kids used to slide for free. They've made it safer by making sure only two people at a time go, that you're in between the trees and that the way up is comprised of snow stairs which are probably better than trying to climb up ungroomed snow.

For five dollars each you can rent a crazy carpet and go.

So. If all your worried about is safety, this is a good thing. Kandace's kids were mostly pleased with the new sliding area.

My kids on the other hand, not so much. For one thing, you're very restricted in where you can slide. They even control from where you push off. They seemed quite concerned with keeping you in the roped off bit. All very necessary.

But. Too restrictive for my two. So we probably won't bother with this section again.

While the three kids and Denis and Kandace finished sliding, me and David went for a walk. We found the reindeer and shuffled through some deep fresh powder.

Next on our agenda was the sleigh ride. They take you out and around the ski/snowboarding hills. It's quite fun. Even if the sleigh is pulled by, what, a tractor like vehicle?

After a quick stop for lunch, we were on to the skating pond. Elisabeth could hardly wait to start skating.

I noticed how tall David was with his skates on, and Kandace tried to distract me from the fact.

We're not buying it...

So, it'd been a little while and the kids needed to warm up to the skating. But once they got going...

It was like they'd been on skates all winter!

Kandi and her biggest boy.

Me and my boy <3 br="">

I love this face.

Finally, photographic evidence. Soemwhat manipulated, sure, but...

I think the kids could have skated all week.

Then they discovered how much fun it was to push each other around on the bars.

Elisabeth took Griffin around a few times.

And then David and Nate decided to take their little sibs for a few laps.

And they had races.

Which quickly turned into David doing stunts and tricks.

Which clearly they both loved.

Seriously...like 3 hours of this.

We need to live somewhere where it gets cold enough to do this in the backyard.

This one I'm just going to leave here...

Just before we quit skating, David fell and landed on his knees. Pretty hard. They were still hurting so Denis gave him a piggy back.

But then we found these amazing hills and the sliding...and miraculously he felt a bit better.

They stopped for a quick 'drink'.

Okay, it took a bit longer than a quick drink.

We were hoping to walk to the Beaver Tails hut, but apparently you're not allowed to walk on the ski hill. So we continued to where the Light Walk starts.

We followed the trail hoping to get snacks at the hut instead. But it was closed. So then we attempted the zip line.

Even Denis did.

We were an aggressive lot that night.

More snow eating.

And then a quick stroll across the beautiful bridge.

And we were back at the beginning. The reindeer were having a little break.

And then, we thought, why not take the sleigh ride out to the beaver tails hut. After all, it tried to stop and drop us all their the last time we took it.

Apparently they don't do that. But they did for us. Which meant we got to go on the sleigh by ourselves.

I think we were starting to get tired at this point.

And we finally got our Beaver Tails. I had the cinnamon sugar with lemon. Which was heavenly.

This is tradition:

We did some more sliding (in a non-safe, non groomed area) and then we made our way to the theatre to watch the films. Surprisingly, I didn't take any pictures of that part.

A seriously good day, and worth the effort it took to get here.