Return to the Ice Festival

This time we made it! We were so happy to wake up to much warmer temperatures! It was around 34 degrees...and while that may not be too warm, it felt great!
After we parked the car, we started walking and then it hit us that we weren't sure if we were going the right way. Charlie turned to an elderly couple behind us and said, "do you know how to get to the ice festival?" Okay, so those of you who know my sweet husband know that his accent is very east Tennessee-ish so when he said ice it didn't really sound like ice to those poor Canadians. They looked all confused and he repeated himself and they kept looking confused...finally the man looked at his wife and said, "what is he talking about?" and she said, "i don't know. something about an asp festival..?" Don't worry I was able to step in and use my less-east-Tennessee-ish accent to straighten out the whole situation. (This really reminded me of the time Charlie asked some workers in the dollar store if they had any kites and they could not for the life of them understand what he was talking about. And at that time we were still living in Kentucky!!)
Anyway, we got in line to pay and I was surprised when we were told to kick the ice block before entering the park to remove the dirt off our shoes. (You should see the mess that is the roads, parking lots, and sidewalks!)
We were really impressed with the sculptures! They were so intricate!

Buddha...

We took Claire to ride down the little ice slide. Next year we will put her in some ski pants, even though she didn't mind getting her jeans a little wet.

Fun!

Buddhist god...

Lost in the ice maze.

This is a warrior fighting a dragon.

Chinese vase for good luck.

Charlie's favorite...a transformer holding a car.

And next year, Claire will be riding this awesome dragon slide. They had special mats to ride down on and it went super fast. If I wasn't pregnant, I probably would have tried it out!

Neat, huh?

Claire and me in front of a castle gate.

We really enjoyed looking at the ice carvings and just being outside! After we finished we stopped by the farmer's market. It stays open year round and was full of tons of good things to eat!

Hopefully the weather will stay warm so we can spend more time outside next weekend!