A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood

Today was one of those glorious bright sunny days that makes us glad we live in a winter city. The snow stopped falling, the sky cleared and the sun shone. The temperature even went a couple degrees above zero. It was great.

So, I told my daughter Amy's kids I needed pictures of them skating on the rink their dad made for them in the back yard.

First on the ice was the strikingly cool looking 3-year old Aidan, protecting his eyes with 3D glasses. He didn't last long, preferring to sit on his pushing chair rather than pushing it in front of him to help him keep his balance while skating. Bernie, the trusty St. Bernard, was there as well making sure that no humans were injured in the creation of this picture blog.



Eight-year old Kenzie showed her style. She's doing very well for one who's just been skating for one season. She knows how to glide on her skates instead of making imitation walking steps.

Five-year old Sydney is learning quickly and seems to be a tireless skater.

Bernie, busy checking up on Kenzie

...who is still doing really well.

With those toenails of his, is it any wonder that Bernie can 'skate' too. A very sure-footed dog.

Curtis decided that the ice should be a bit more clear so he came out and scraped the small layer of loose snow off the ice. Look how deep the snow in the yard is.

And here am I, with feet planted solidly on the ice, watching, laughing and taking pictures. I used to skate but I'm afraid now that if I fell down I wouldn't be able to get up again. The old knees just don't have it anymore.

And the first fall of the day goes to Amy! She had no trouble at all getting up again.

Sydney without her coat. She said it was too hot skating with the coat on. I guess it must have been. After all, it was all of 3 degrees C!

After her fall, Kenzie decided it was too dangerous for her mom to be skating, so she pushed her around on the balance chair.

Beautiful Day - Part 2.

After lunch I had an errand to run in daughter Sara's neighbourhood, so I drove by her house and saw that her front yard was still covered in pristine, unbroken snow. So I went in and demanded to know why there was no snowman out there. Charlie and Elly got excited and bundled up and out we went.

The beautiful part of a warm (relatively) day in winter is that the sun turns our ultra-cold powder snow into sticky, packy, snowball/snowman snow. I wanted to take advantage of that.

But first, the girls had to make snow angels...kind of hard to do in deep sticky snow.

Charlie's angel.

Then we got down to the business of building a snowman. Unfortunately we quickly realized that only the top inch or so of snow was sticky enough to hold together in proper snowman form so we did the best we could with lots of powder and a little sticky snow.

Yes, that's a dark spot on Elly's nose. She had been playing 'kitty' earlier and painted on a nose and whiskers. The marks should be gone by Monday. She loved being out in the snow but it's been too cold this winter for her to enjoy it. She had a good day.

Charlie and the snowman

So that was my fine winter day. It'll keep me going through the storms and cold that are sure to bless our February, part of March, maybe even April. As long as we get these lovely breaks, it's all good. Happy Winter!