Ice Festival

I can't wipe the smile off my face.

Today was one of those great days, in its entirety, beginning to end, that we are given every once in awhile as a gift from God. We've all had them. They aren't frequent, but they are SO enjoyed. You know, where everything seems seamless and sweet, and you go to bed feeling contented. And you just can't stop smiling. The only thing that could have made today better was sharing it with Adam and Ben.

We woke up late and spent the morning being lazy. The boys played nicely with one another and helped each other out, were polite and obedient with me, and just seemed in great moods. I figured my run for the day, even though the morning was beautiful and I was drooling to get outside, was out since Adam wasn't here. And even though I have the do-not-buy-it treadmill (which is working just fine for me still!), I had opted for lounging rather than getting the run in before Tommy woke up. But when I said I was bummed I wasn't going to get to run, Zac volunteered to entertain Tommy in the basement while I took the treadmill for a spin. It's in the basement bedroom which has french doors, so I can close them to keep Tommy out but still see him. And he's fine with the barrier between us as long as someone is entertaining him and he can walk by, bang a few times on the windows, smile at me when I wave to him, and toddle off again. So I got in four miles (about my max for a treadmill run) and felt great.

We got ready for the day, Zac again volunteered to make his little brothers lunch while I showered, and then I dropped him off at the nearby middle school for his basketball team pictures and pre-game warm up. The rest of the boys and I ran some quick errands, including a stop at the library. I LOVE the library. It's a fact. And came out with Tommy in one arm and a stack of 20 books in the other. One of the parents of the girl scouts selling cookies outside the library doors commented on my large number of books and I told her that the stack I was carrying was exactly why I avoid book stores--at least library books are free! I have a hard time choosing. :)

We arrived back at the middle school with five minutes to tip-off. Zac was able to play three quarters and had a great game. I've never been a huge basketball fan, but I love watching my boys play basketball! Our team won 22 to 19. It was a great, close game! And throughout it I chatted with a very nice woman, a mother of three boys, whose oldest son was on the team opposing Zac's. Their family just moved here from Uganda, where her husband worked for a Christian-idealed company that runs engineering projects mission-style. It was great spending the hour talking with such a kind, interesting woman while cheering for Zac's team.

After the game, the boys settled into their car seats, library books in hand, and we drove for over an hour up into the mountains, to Cripple Creek, CO where we visited the Ice Festival. On the way up we stopped for a snack of happy-hour slushes (50 cents!) and tots from Sonic. Luke talked my ear off, asking questions, singing songs (over and over) and telling me the funniest stories while Josh and Zac plowed through books. After awhile Josh had to stop and close his eyes because he was feeling a little carsick. The road up winds this way and that way; it makes me a little carsick even when I am driving.

Here's Cripple Creek, CO: located behind Pike's Peak, resting at 9,494 feet above sea level. It's a tiny old mining town, now home to about 20 small casinos...and the Ice Festival. Before you head down into the valley where the town is located there is this great viewpoint where you can stop and take a photo. You can hardly even see the town, it blends in with the landscape so well, but I assure you, it's there! And look at the way those gorgeous clouds are reaching down to touch the earth. We really are at the top of the world up there!

The Ice Festival is an ice carving event held for two weekends in February in Cripple Creek. I've seen the commercials for a few months now and thought it would be fun to go, but didn't decide we were going until last night, when I realized that we only had one midday basketball game--and that was it for the entire day. So I thought "What the hay?!" This weekend was the second weekend, and we've had a lot of warm days this week, even up at that elevation, so the carvings from last weekend were a little melty, but you could envision what they had once looked like. There were some new carvings in the works, so we were able to see some crisper, cleaner ice sculptures, as well as the artists' processes to make them. All of the sculptures are made from big blocks of ice that looked like they were about 2.5' by 4' by 1' that could be fused together to make the sculptures as large as the artist desired, or can be cut down to make smaller parts. The theme of this year's Ice Festival was "Story Time," so all the carvings had to incorporate a literary theme.

The first we came upon was the works of Dr. Seuss.

Here is the Cat In The Hat in progress. When we first arrived the artist was chiseling the outlines and some of the details of The Cat with a huge metal chisel. It was really impressive! You can see how the artist cut the large blocks smaller and then stacked them to give the Cat his height and width. Luke was very excited to see The Cat in the Hat, as he is one of The Cat's biggest fans.

He's a little melty, but this is The Grinch, and my boys, on the sleigh that carried the stolen Christmas.

Next up was J.M Barrie's Peter Pan, also from last week so slightly melted. But the boys loved Captain Hook, straddling the crocodile!

And Zac got in on the Lost Boys game of "Following the Leader."

Zac's ultimate favorite...the Star Wars exhibit. I suppose Star Wars is now a series of books, but did it start that way? Hmmm.... Oh well, it may be a literary stretch, but it was a 10-year-old boy pleaser!

It was so cute and dorky how Zac said, "Look Luke! See the Tie Fighter!" Love that boy!
The Lord of the Rings--I wish we had seen it last weekend. It looked like it had been pretty amazing.

I wish I could say I knew exactly what this helmet or crown is from the Lord of the Rings moives or books, but I just don't remember! It looks familiar though! And Josh thought it was cool that you could go inside it.

This was once an incredibly cool carving. It is a Black Rider on one of the Nazgul, wings spread, looking scaaaary! But sadly, with the melting the head had fallen off and was lying on the ground. Not so scary anymore. But Luke thought peeking through the neck and making Tommy laugh was great fun.

As we continued up the street we came upon The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Zac rode in the chariot of the White Witch......While Josh rode on the polar bear's back.This is the White Witch's castle--made of ice. How very appropriate!With the fabulous day we had had so far, I felt a bit like the Queen of the World seated upon the White Witch's throne with my little Ice Princes. However, while I may be witchy from time to time, today was definitely not one of those days! :)

Awww! So cute he just might melt that ice!

Here's Zac going through the beautifully detailed wardrobe door to Narnia...are you seeing any fauns on the other side Zac?

Alice in Wonderland was pretty melted, the more detail the sculptures had the more quickly they melted, and I could tell that the Alice in Wonderland sculptures had once been very detailed. Only Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum were still mostly intact and very obviously their goofy selves. The artists had just added the carving in the picture below. Lovely, no? This is where we saw how the huge blocks of ice were sealed together: using a huge blowtorch melting the blocks together along the seams.

And of course, there was an ice slide. Josh's favorite part of the entire festival!

Tommy could have cared less about the ice, but he found the crowds fascinating and was happy as we walked up and down the street, especially because I had remembered to grab his bottle of milk before we left home.

Zac and Josh needed a little snack half way through our visit. Is that brat LITTLE? Not at all. But they are growing boys! And even after finishing they both said they were still hungry! Yow!

We found a little casino next to the hand-dipped corndog stand (the "snack" Luke asked for) with heat lamps outside the doors and a bench to sit on. Luke was very curious about the odd lamps that the warmth was radiating from and couldn't stop looking at them. We were so happy for the warmth. And so were all the smokers. GAG! I guess a burning stick in your hand and hot smoke in your lungs isn't enough to warm a person up, because it suddenly seemed as if everyone at the festival was smoking. We only stuck around for a few minutes to warm up a bit, and then got away from the cancer-filled air.

And then it started to snow. I hadn't prepared, attire-wise, for snow. We all had jackets, except for Zac, and no one had gloves or hats.
By the end of our visit to the Ice Festival we had traded out our slushes for hot cocoa.
It was getting colder and I was beginning to realize that we had to get ourselves back down the mountain to our house in the snow that was starting to come down hard, so we decided to head back to the car. Along the way I got one more picture of One Fish, Two Fish...and four darling boys!

As we passed The Cat we saw that the artist has exchanged his chisel for a chainsaw, and had used it to remove the ice from around The Cat's hat. You can see him working behind The Cat. It was amazing to see the small cuts he was able to make with that huge tool. We had thought The Cat looked great as a chiseled carving, but hadn't realized that was really just the first step. It was really neat to see the next step in the carving process and how much more detailed it became...using a chainsaw!

We drove through a heavy snow that was slowly collecting on the roadway. Fortunately I was not the only one who felt that driving below the speed limit in a snowstorm is a good idea, so we made our snail's pace way down the mountain without being the only ones annoying the {insane} SUV drivers who think driving fast on frozen roads is fun. Luke chatted the entire way down, just like on the way up, talking about the clouds being so low that they are fog and the snow falling thicker, and that the windshield wipers were making him "boring." He asked, "Do you know what that means, Mama? It means they are making me sweaty." Huh? :)

By the time we arrived in Woodland Park (still in the mountains but lower than Cripple Creek), it was raining...RAINING! I don't think in the three years we've lived here that we have ever seen rainfall between November and mid-April. It's always snow. It's been a crazy winter weather-wise: many record highs, many record lows, very little snow, and rain in winter. I LOVED it! The dark, gray clouds, thick and heavy, giving everything a richness, a coziness. Mmmmm.

I had a coupon for $10 off at Champps, a burger-type restaurant by our house, and since the boys were still hungry, even after those brats, we stopped there for dinner. When we got out of the car, the rain-soaked air smelled delicious! I was in heaven. Dinner was tasty and our waitress was fantastic. I've never asked to speak to a manager in a restaurant before, but after dinner I did just that, and then told her how great our server had been. Once we got home, the boys showered and went to bed easy peasy.

And they said "Thank you for such a great day, Mom!" about 10 times each, on the drive down the mountain, at dinner, and while getting ready for bed. It was so nice. And after such a nice day, I thanked them too.

Yep, still smiling.