Ice is nice!

 When we finally had a freeze, snow came with it. The first ice day had smooth ice on the edges, but the middle, not so much. Nothing some more water couldn't fix. :) I had to pull in the farthest corner where it was too high, so that all the plastic liner could be covered completely in water.

At least it works. :)

Patience

 Wonder if there will be water in the far corner? Will it leak out the side before it gets high enough? How long will it take to freeze.

Soggy snow

 No need for jackets on a warm day when it's raining on top of the snow!

 Um, Mom, I've done this "snow thing" before, you don't need to take pictures.

 The snow is super sticky!

 Ugh! It's heavy!

 Mom, can you help us push?

 "Just push it down the hill!"

 I picked up some used snowshoes. Way back in November or early December. At long last we could try them out!

 They work pretty good Mom! (At least in these snow conditions. ;)

 

 Daniel couldn't find a sweater to wear, so Jennifer loaned him one.

 Little ladies can snowshoe too. And it's cooler to do it with hands in pockets.

 Daniel has been using them a lot, and only got upset once when one got stuck in a rockpile! Matthew had to go fetch it for him!

 See my hopeful set up...if only the temperature drops a little more...

 Mom, I want these off!

 So finally I started filling up the rink. The low spots looked very low and the water filled up very slow.

Waiting a day and a half for it to fill, and hoping against hope that the water will spread out to all the corners before it goes over the boards. Will it, will it? Why oh why didn't I buy that laser level?

Snow fever

 The long awaiting "big snow" arrived. I warned the kids it would melt soon.
You would not believe how fast their school work got done that morning!

 "Let's go sliding!"

 "Where did they go?"

 "I'm coming too!"

 "Woah! Yikes. What is this?"

 Daniel had to come back for something, but was off like a shot once again.

Last but not least. Evelyn tags along to see what is so exciting.

Bad kid, good kid

 Uh, yeah, I'm standing on the couch.
 

 Can you take a picture of what I made out of kapla?

 It has a T on it.

Walking again

We finally got around to showing Daddy our new walking trails. They are very extensive! This is when we saw the otter. Christmas holidays and some of us took off our winter coats during the sunny part of the walk!

Busy at home

 We borrowed Tintin over the holidays at Nathan's request. He wasn't the only one to enjoy the books!

New walking trails

 I wasted an hour or so of my day going to a presentation with the kids. It was at our neighbouring golf course. About their pesticide use. Philip wanted me to ask "If my kids are playing in the water with boats from their spring runoff and the kids' hands turn purple from the water, should we be concerned?" I almost did. But, I had the kids with me. So I had to behave. ;) They did give us permission to walk on the course, snowshoe and ski there (No motors! Stay off the greens!) during the off season.

Since then we have been exploring there. Some of us have eyes only for Golf Berries growing on the sides, but some of us enjoy the nature and wildlife. We saw an otter 1.5 weeks ago! The place is huge though, so with little legs along, we've only seen a small portion of it yet.

Best of all, we don't need to go on the road to get to our new walking trails. :)