Skiing with Owen

We've always enjoyed skiing, but while living on the East Coast, we never spent a lot of time making the effort to drive somewhere to go do it.  Well here in Vancouver we have no excuses as we have no less than 4 ski mountains within an hour of the house.  A few weekends ago I wanted to get Owen out and let him practice some.... it was kindof spur of the moment.. a nice weekend morning, not too cold... and randomly we ran into our neighbors up there so Owen got to ski with some of his friends too.   We had him out for lessons almost 2 years ago now and he didn't get to ski at all last season as we were moving up here to Vancouver.  I was shocked at how fast he picked it up again.  After getting his bearings, and skiing down with me a few times, he was back on his own.  One of two runs by himself and he was turning, stopping and having so much fun.  We had such a great time and I can't wait to get him back out again!

Here we are with the Peregrym's.

Owen riding up the "magic carpet"  It sure beat teaching him how to ride a T-Bar.

The man in action sporting some good form.

Getting ready to ride up to the top again!

Here's a segment of video of Owen skiing.  I hit the stop record button accidentally so it cuts short at the end... he continued down around the group of people and came to a stop like an old pro.

Snow!

Finally some snow in Vancouver!  This was mid-January and as I'm writing this, it's February and beautiful and appears that this may have been the only snow of any significance for this season.  Being closer to the coast, the winter weather is mild at our elevation, rarely getting much below freezing.  We've had a lot of rain (surprise) which has been all snow in the mountains, making a pretty great season for the ski resorts...  Anyhow, we received maybe 5 inches of sticky snow and we spent most of the day outside making snowmen and sledding!

The snow stuck to the trees around the house and was very pretty in the morning.  Unfortunate down-side was a few big branches broke off and fell to the ground.

Molly is always taking pictures of me with her camera when I'm trying to take pictures of her.  She was getting ready to play and Owen was already out on the porch under the watchful eye of Bailey..  :)  She was quite the blast of winter color with her hot pink snowpants!

Owen in action....

Molly was just running around in the snow for a while....

Then she plopped down and started making snow angels.  She's kept saying Daddy look at my angels!

I can't believe she's almost 3.  Where did the time go?

Owen rolling up the start of the snowman!   Later in the afternoon at his friends house, we rolled a huge snow ball, then the boys cut a big hole in the middle so they could slide through it!

This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it.  I wish I could bottle up their laughter sometimes.. it's contagious.

He was so excited to help shovel snow and worked until he wore himself out...... hmmm I wonder how long that enthusiasm will last?

Of course, Molly had to have her shovel too because brother was helping daddy...  she just started working on clearing the lawn.

Later in the weekend, we went sledding with friends over at the community center where their is a nice sledding hill.  Most of the main path was worn down to dirt, but there was still a snow covered run...  Molly was hilarious instructing me...  Daddy, you sit on the sled, then I will sit in your lap, then we will go down the hill... she laughed so hard the whole way down... then of course, it was her idea that I carry her back up the hill because suddenly her legs were tired.  Owen had a blast with his buddies and they were catching air on a little jump in the middle of the hill.

Slightly off topic, here's Miss Molly and her princesses...  Aunt Sarah mailed up a Disney princess dress up kit for Molly for Christmas and she enjoys them so much!  They have a standup cutout and different outfits and accessories that she can stick to them.

She would dress them up and then stand back and say hmmmmm...  the crossed arms and pointy fingers just round out the whole scene.  We laughed a lot watching her, but she was very serious in her efforts.

New Years 2011

We did a variety of things over New Years holiday here in Vancouver...

New Years morning demonstration of how to effectively utilize every surface of a couch!

Owen had his friends Noah and Roman come over and they built an impressive geotrax layout.  Ok, I helped a little with layering the ramps, but they came up with the general idea...  A few strategically placed guardrails to keep all the trains on the tracks and they played for hours...

 

New Years dinner at our friends Greg & Anita's house.  Here's the gang deep in conversation with their party crowns on.

A short movie captured attention for a little while...

Jenga time!

Molly and Allison crashed when we got home, but Owen stayed up until midnight and watched the "ball drop" with me.  He was so excited to do this and thankfully slept in a little on New Years day.  :)

New Years day was the last day for the Canyon lights at Capilano Suspension bridge... so we went over and beat most of the crowd early in the evening.  They had lights everywhere, including the whole treetop adventure area, which was quite pretty.  This is the main entrance from the parking lot.

The bridge itself was lit the entire span. 

Me and the crazy snowbirds...

January 2nd, we visited the Vancouver Aquarium in the afternoon...  They recently re-opened an exhibit and had the boa-constrictor back on display.  Allison cringed at this, but Owen thought he was pretty cool.


Owen and Allison getting ready to watch the Polar Express 4D short movie!

Molly with her starfish

And when it got dark, we went over and rode the Stanley park train through the light exhibit they have set up during the holidays.  The kids really enjoyed this....