Winterlude dude

After spending several weeks in Houston, TX, Paul decided it was time to head out and experience some real winter weather in Ottawa. And what better time to do that than during Winterlude, one of the world's largest winter festivals. We bundled up ourselves and the boys and headed out. It wasn't too bad, after a week or two of below -20 it was only -8 or so when we headed downtown. We had a lot of fun and no one even froze to death ;-).

Here is Paul, Peter and David (on Paul's back, you can't see him) standing in front of the Chateau Laurier hotel.


Here they are walking up the street, that is Parliament Hill in the background.

We walked past the National Arts Centre . . .

. . . and more downtown scenery . . .

and we finally got a glimpse of the Rideau Canal, the world's largest skating rink!! Almost 10 kilometres!

You can see all the people skating on the canal . . . we didn't skate this weekend, we thought the boys might be too cold. We're hoping to go down one day this week or next weekend to take Peter skating.

We went to Confederation Park to see some of the world-famous ice sculptures. Artists come from around the world to compete and showcase their talents. They are absolutely amazing in real life!!

We got lucky and got some artists still working on their sculpture. Pete was pretty enthralled with all the saws and chisels they were using to do the carving . . . made his day!