Ice Festival

This past weekend was the annual Ice Festival in town.  Nana Margie and Papa John came to visit for the snowy weekend festivities.

I bundled the kiddos up in their snow geared and we all tramped around town checking out the stores, the ice sculptures, and interacting with the visitors.  We lucked out with the weather...just above freezing, no wind, and no additional snow. 
Tamlin was all for it, though Jude had a rough morning and decided that Brown Monster was an essential companion for this excursion.  Note Tam's awesome knit hat, which was mine, brought back from Ecuador back in 2000!

The ice sculptures were awesome looking; I didn't know they could add in color for emphasis.   We saw logos, jumping dolphins, lighthouses, Olaf from the Frozen movie, and even a pair of legs kicking in the air (for a varicose vein company).



We, of course, had to take a photo the YMCA ice sculpture :-)  The boys love going there for daycare / school.  And we all love the teachers who work there.

There were several wintery characters walking around and mingling with the crowds.  The boys got to say hello to Frosty the Snowman (Jude wasn't too sure about him).  They also got hugs from Princess Elsa from Frozen.  We also waved to a wandering penguin.

There were awesomely huge piles of snow that just begged to be conquered.  The boys became mountain-climbers and scaled these tall mountains...only to turn and slide down the slopes after reaching the summit.

We did detour from the snow to the library for the chocolate tasting.  Unfortunately, we arrived on the late side after much of the chocolate had been devoured.  We did manage to snag a few samples of home-made chocolate goodies, including some very yummy chocolate pizzels.  I was glad to see the library so busy and able to raise a good chunk of change with this fund-raiser. 

 This was a recurring theme, as they clambered up more snow piles all around town. Yep.. here's a snow pile that was nearly as tall as the lamppost.

After all this cold walking around, we needed hot beverages.  We stopped at our local coffee/tea shop to warm up.  Their hot chocolate is divine, as is their hot teas.  Yummy!

We had to stop by the beach to admire the cold, frozen, Lake Erie.  I love living here and seeing the Lake go through all of these seasons.  Currently the Lake is frozen, so the littles were able to walk a bit away from the shore.  They had a blast climbing a snow-fort and rolling snowballs around.  The adults hung back on the deck to admire the peaceful, quiet view.

Through the course of the entire morning, Tamlin had been creating a snowball out of scoops of snow he had snagged from any random drift he passed.  He lugged his creation around like it was a precious baby.  He even worried about it breaking or being smashed when he left it outside when we went into shops.  He did have a moment of panic when it had a minor split on the beach...but luckily snow is easily smooshed back together.  I did draw the line at taking his prized snowball in the car to home.  We compromised by finding the perfect spot for it to hang out: near a huge snow pile and fire-hydrant.  The boys insisted on a photo to remember the moment.

Overall, it was a great morning in a great little town.