Ice, Lots of Ice...

As it turns out I didn't get a moment's peace yesterday so the tutorial will have to wait. So today I thought I'd share a little bit of our weekend with you!

Every winter there is an ice festival in our little town. Ice sculptors come from all over the world and carve amazing ice sculptures. For the four winters we've been here, we've looked forward to it. We certainly don't have anything like this back home!

It was held last weekend. Last weekend that was in the minus 30's and 40's with the windchill. It was not only extremely cold, but my husband worked all weekend. I was too much of a wimp to bear it with the kids alone in that cold, so we skipped it.

The great thing about an ice festival and living somewhere that is cold, is that long after the ice festival is over and the sculptors have gone home, the sculptures live on.

This weekend was much warmer, barely freezing temps. The warmest it has been this winter, and to celebrate we went to see the ice sculptures in our bikinis (ok, who am I kidding, my bikini days are over). My point is, by this weekend the weather was warm enough to be out in it (some of the sculptures were even starting to melt).

Some nice folks told us that this used to be a Pegasus.

This one, a frog, jumping out of a pond trying to catch a fly (the fly is long gone). It is hard to tell from the photos but these sculptures are huge. I can't imagine the dedication and love for the art form it must take for crafters to sit and carve away for two days to create these in such extreme cold. I read in the paper that this was the coldest ice festival in history.
It seems even the young and mischievous in town can appreciate the hard work that goes into the ice festival. Even now, over a week later, some of the sculptures have melted and changed from the weather yet none look vandalized from what I could tell.

Along with the sculptures (I've only shown you a few) they always make an array of ice slides for the kids. Last weekend would have been too cold to enjoy them, but this weekend the weather was perfect!

Does that not look fun? :)

Not many children get to experience something like this.

Have you ever sat on an ice throne?

These paintings were beautiful. All carved from ice and then painted.

All I could think was all of the hours spent outside carving these. If you have ever felt minus 30, that's all you would be thinking about too! Unbelievable! One sculptor this year was sent to hospital with very bad frostbite.

There were a few snow sculptures as well. Little Dude enjoyed this one.

It was a great day. Days like this make you forget the bitter cold that keeps you stuck inside for days on end.
But then again, if I wasn't stuck inside for days on end, I probably wouldn't get much sewing done. :)