Wednesday

We hear that the temperature in Ottawa was an insane -39 with windchill today. Well it was pretty cold here, too, approaching -25, but with a couple of extra layers, and some nice full face masks for the girls it was no problem...

The kids took the shuttle bus to their lessons by themselves today - very simple once they have gotten used to the routine. Gave us a little extra time to drop off Orlando (Maritala stayed with him for a bit, but there is really no need... he has loved his time there so far. The staff are great and the kids are always having fun (lots of varied activities). At the end of each day, the staff send home a little report card for each child explaining what the child did, what they ate for their snacks and meals, how often they changed their diapers, how long they slept etc, along with a little comment - very cute and reassuring.

Good lesson today for us. Same instructor as yesterday, we would definitely recommend Frank if you are coming to Smuggs. Of course, who you get for a group lesson can be a bit hit'n'miss, but he (like most instructors) does private lessons too, and I think you could certainly do worse than ask for Frank...

I thought I would add some video files today for fun. If you want to see the Garden Path run down Morse Mountain, then you could check out this 1 minute (randomly-edited by Windows Movie Maker's "intelligent" auto-editing system... it somehow took 4 mins of raw footage and came up with this!) movie. Be warned, the sound is pretty loud, and I don't know how to turn it down!

Gabriella and I went up together at the end of the day - she's coming on really well and here is some proof!