Our week in Canada

We left Cancún and headed to Calgary, on American Airlines- never again unless absolutely necessary!!

We had to fly via Dallas and of course because we set foot on US soil they needed our fingerprints and a photo. The kids were most disappointed to be under 14 as they didn’t get to touch the fancy fingerprinting device.

5 hours in Dallas airport seemed to go quite quickly, particularly as Isabel and William came across some Harry Potter inspired Bertie Botts every flavour beans at a shop called “Natalie’s Candy Jar”. For those that are not Harry potter fans the flavours include: boogers, vomit, earthworms, dirt, rotten egg, soap, grass, cinnamon, black pepper, earwax, watermelon, blueberry, cherry, tutti frutti, candy floss, marshmallow, banana, lemon, sausage and green apple. They kept us entertained with a blow by blow description of every flavour!!

Our arrival in Calgary was met with a temperature of -23C! Nearly a 50C temperature change. We donned beanies, scarves, gloves and jumpers before venturing out to pick up our car. We had a choice of 3 vehicles and Simon thought the Jeep Wrangler sounded like a good option. We had to find the car ourselves in the snow, it was so cold no one comes with you. The car was freezing! the soft top wrangler may not have been the best option but by this stage it was 11:30pm and we needed bed! With snow everywhere we took it slowly to our hotel for the night!

The next morning we headed to the Mountain Equipment Co-op to buy warm gear and kit for skiing, and headed off through Banff to Fairmont Hot Spring to meet Geoff and Erin.(while I was more than happy to take on the Mexicans driving I am happy to leave the snow covered roads to Simon). After dinner and a catch up we headed to bed to get some sleep before hitting the ski slopes the next morning.

Fairmont Hot Springs Ski resort and hot springs is only 5 mins down the road so after donning all of our 1000 layers (something we did many times over during the week!) we were off for a morning of skiing and home for lunch. A swim in the hot springs in the afternoon and fireworks in the evening. The boys built a fire in the snow in the back yard so we all sat out and had marshmallows by the fire in -10C!

Christmas morning we opened stockings ( Santa managed to find everyone! ) and then had brunch at Erin’s parents house. We tobogganed in the afternoon which was so much fun !and then back to Erin’s parents for a traditional turkey Christmas dinner with all the trimmings! A true white Christmas.

The next couple of days saw more lessons for the kids to build up their confidence and then they joined us on the slopes for a few runs down the mountain to show us what they could do. Abigail was a rocket with William close behind, Isabel was the sensible skier. It was great being able to ski down the runs with the kids, Simon trying to take them over some jumps and me trying to keep up!

After skiing we could go to the hot springs for a bit of heat therapy. The run from the change rooms to the pool was a little chilly though. We were told that the sign of a true Canadian is to run out, roll in the snow and get back in the pool. Some girls in their bikinis were the first to casually walk about 10m in the snow, sit down at a picnic table (covered in snow) and pretend to eat and then casually walk back to the hot spring. Then a couple of boys got out and rolled in the snow – the old crumbed sausage- and ran back to the pool! The challenge was on! William and Abigail, never ones to shy away from a dare, were the youngest to run out, roll in the snow and sprint back to the pool to the feeling of burning skin!

We also went to some hot springs along side a Rocky Mountain stream, which, Kevin and Camille was a bit reminiscent of Iceland! Although 11 years down the track Simon was not so keen to lie in the mountain stream.

On our drive back to Calgary we took the long road through some amazing scenery to Golden then onto lake Louise and Banff where we met Geoff, Erin and their 3 lovely children Margaret, Natalie and William for lunch and to say our goodbyes.

Kids Corner:
It was my first white Christmas and I loved skiing and tobogganing. Abi
I liked skiing in the powdery snow and going fast on the toboggan. Bella
Skiing is my favourite thing to do therefore this was a big highlight of my trip. Wills