Winterluding a little bit

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Ottawa.  It was a high of minus 1 or so and sunny and only a light wind.  I decided it was high time for a skate on the canal since we've stuck to our local outdoor rink thus far.  But when I checked the canal conditions, it looked sketchy.

I had a Plan B: the newly installed Rink of Dreams, still downtown amidst the action, still outdoors, perfectly human-made ice and right in front of City Hall.... beside the canal.  So I packed the kids up - it was unfortunately 4:00 pm by the time we were organized enough to leave the house - and headed downtown.

I parked at the National Arts Centre's underground parking.  It took us a looooong time to find our way to a door that would get us out of the parking garage and I was decidedly grumpy by the time we hit the outdoors.  My mood vastly improved with fresh air though and with the girls' excitement about getting to walk through one of the main Winterlude sites: Confederation Park.  It's the site of the best ice sculptures and other great Winterlude public art.

They (and I) and Henry were not disappointed. They ooed and awwed at the ice sculptures and even got to sit on one (these photos were all iPhone specials (and not the 4GS... so sorry for the quality).

Emily and Hope try out the ice chair... and keep sliding off.

 We loved the lost mitten sculpture (I'm sure that red and white number is mine.... I lost it earlier this winter.  I loved those mitts but I'm not really willing to knit another at this point).

Dancing by the lost mitten sculpture.  Henry is showing that he knows what mittens are.

That red and white one... there!  Mine! (maybe)

More cool public art... hockey related, of course.  This is Ottawa after all.

We stopped for a while to look at the infared wolves.  These were very cool and I think they would be even better in the dark.

Favourite public art.

And finally we made it to the rink.  We stayed in the middle so the kids wouldn't be run over by the speedy gonzaleses whipping around the perimeter and so Henry didn't get in the way in his stroller.  There weren't may people using it (most people were on the canal) and the ice was perfect.  My kids couldn't get over the condition of the ice.  They'd never skated on perfect ice before.  Emily was amazed at how well she was doing.  Wait until I introduce them to an arena.  Their minds will be blown.

Just starting out.  Love Hope's laces.

Henry was content to be pushed around by me.  Didn't like it so much when we stopped.

And with a gorgeous view of Parliament and downtown.

The lights on the boards change colours.  Sounds tacky but actually really funky.

This is a shot I took of the new Convention Centre, which looked amazing all lit up.  Couldn't get it on the iPhone but thought this was a cool effect anyway.

 We headed back to the parking garage after only about 20 minutes of skating (and I realized we parked right around the corner from the door out... I just headed in the wrong direction when we left the first time).  We were hungry and John was waiting for us at home.  This was just a first taste.  We'll certainly be back.  I give a thumbs up to the Rink of Dreams.  We'll definitely head there one day right after school and have a longer skate.  For tomorrow however, it's back to our local outdoor rink where the ice is choppy but the parking is easy.