Sapporo Snow and Ice Festival

We hopped on a plane and flew up to Hokkiado, a northern part of Japan, for the Sapporo snow and ice festival.  It was amazing!  

The kids were so excited to play in the snow and even to ride on an airplane again.  We had to get up at 3am that morning but of course everyone was too excited to sleep during any of our traveling.  After landing we had a 45 minute bus ride to where we were staying.  It was a little stressful because Calista kept almost hitting the button on the bus that tells the driver to let us off.  In fact she did hit if one time and the driver pulled over right on the highway.  It was embarrassing.  

I would have had Calista switch seats but she was instant on sitting by the window.  The bus driver already asked us to be quiet one time and I didn't want to risk a tantrum.

Once we got outside it was freezing!  Like -11 celcius.  We put on the rest of our gear and after dropping off our suitcases headed to the snow festival.  We went very very slow.  Every two seconds someone was laying in the snow playing.  Calista kept needed to be down.  In the next picture you can see the kids eating the snow.  Penelope is even feeding Calista while Bob looks up directions.  Behind Bob is a truck full of snow.

 Without seeing the pavement crossing the street even felt strange.

 I'm pretty sure the kids all were in Heaven.  They loved the snow so much!

About one minute before his picture Leon slipped running here and banged his nose on the ice block. 

 The sculptures were huge and amazing!  Seriously it was so much snow!

 Here we are stopped on the side again. 

 There were ice sculptures as well.

 Can't be in Japan without Hello Kitty.

 We saw a few booths selling things and stopped to see the nesting dolls.

 Below are just a few of my favorite sculptures.

 In this next one you can see people sculpting.  That was pretty interesting.

I was worried about Beatrix being cold almost the entire time.  She had a nice ride on my back and every time I checked she was plenty warm.  Except maybe her fingers that she kept managing to get out of her winter suit thing

Tons of Snow

We once again woke up to snow outside our windows!  This has got to be the most snow we've gotten in years. In fact I think we've only had this much snow one other time in the 8 years we've lived here.  It is so fun!

The view from my front porch.  I love our big evergreen trees.

This time the snow was more slushy so we went sledding on a smaller hill across the street instead of the road like we usually do.

Snow angels.

We had to build a snowman.

We even walked down to a neighbors house and played with them for a bit.

Our little library all alone with the giant trees in the snow.

The walk home for hot chocolate.

Snow PIctures

The snow was so pretty on our trip I wanted to share a few more pictures.

Sledding

More snow pictures for your enjoyment.

The view from our family room.

Sledding videos.