Ice Alaska

Fairbanks hosts the World Ice Art Championships, and it worked out wonderfully for us to experience it the other day when Brandon had a dentist appointment in town. We had a fabulous time looking at all the impressive sculptures. On top of that, there was an amazing Kids Ice Park that Kaylee couldn't get enough of. As my mom pointed out, she unfortunately won't remember it but we still enjoyed a family day together and we have pictures/videos to boot.

She loved the slides. We didn't get any videos of her going by herself because one of us was usually busy at the top and the other at the bottom. 

One of the tunnels she went through. 

Can I just say... ingenius!

Kaylee had a lot of fun spinning in these little cups scattered all around the park.

This was a fun one with the turn. 

 Trophy fish

 Indy driver

Ready for Uncle Roll to take her in a real one...

 One of about 30 slides all made of ice

 She liked this train. She could walk through without ducking, but it was slippery!

 One of her favorite places... on Papa's shoulders

 We got to go for a little while during the afternoon and then we came back at night when a lot of the sculptures are all light up. It was beautiful. 

"Teaching Breaching"

Cheese!

Love this one

 This sculpture fascinated me

 They were finishing up the multi-block scupltures while we were there which was super cool to watch. This was one of my favorites. Being the blonde that I am, I thought they made all the ice, until one of the sculptures was explaining how they get it out of the lake. 

"Gone with the Wind"

This was my favorite multi-block. It was so intricate and beautiful. 

The team was from Russia. It took them 6 days. 

The team member who we talked to had never been to the US until this event. 

He didn't speak a lick of English. 

(How I know all this... I have a husband who speaks Russian).

"Ice house"

Winter truly is a time with lots and lots of fun activities and community gatherings up here. Everybody comes together to make it a good time through til spring. The weekend before this, we had a great day with friends at the Nenana Ice Classic Tripod Days. During this event, they place this huge tripod out on the ice and then world-wide, people place bets on the exact day, hour, minute, and second that it will break through the ice and flow down river (usually in late April/May). There's over 600,000 bets entered and part of the entry fee goes towards this fun, small town gathering, with events like toddler races, bubble gum blowing contests, pop scrambles, and dog-pulls, plus a small craft fair. We all enjoyed ourselves and through tears, Kaylee took 3rd in the toddler race (Reason for tears... Mean mom had taken her cheerios from her to lure her in at the finish line). The weather in March has been absolutely amazing (which has meant that some of our "to-do" list projects have been put by the wayside at times), but we are enjoying it. (Amazing=above 0 degrees and lots of sunshine).


And since Brandon just walked in the door, I was able to grab the dog sledding photos off his phone real quick, so here are those pics as well!