Sapporo Temple

Aside from the snow festival the second main reason we went to Sapporo was for the temple.  The Tokyo temple is closed so even though it is a plane ride away Sapporo is probably the easiest temple for us to get to.

We even stayed in the patron housing and each night either Bob or I went to do an endowment session.  Bob and Tucker also got to do baptisms together.  

 Scarlett found some icicles on the temple grounds.

The kids are showing how much it snowed in just one night.  They had that bench cleared off the day before.

 I think everything was beautiful covered in snow.  So peaceful.

 I really do miss the snow, especially how it looks on the pine trees.

 Check out the bike.

 The patron housing was really nice.  We stayed in a family room and it was perfect for us. 

Getting snow gear on and off the kids is a crazy amount of work!  It took at least 20 minutes and that is with both Bob and I helping, and the older kids doing it mostly on their own.  The hard part is once someone is ready they are so very hot until everyone is ready to go outside.  We had to let the older kids go out alone before Beatrix and Calista were ready.  Each time Beatrix would scream from the moment she was dressed until she was outside.  It is not surprising though, we had them very bundled up.

The toilet lid would open with a sensor every time you opened the bathroom door.  At first I thought it was pretty cool, but it got old fast.  Everyone kept going in there to change and setting their clothes on the toilet lid only to have them fall off a second later when the lid popped open.

All in all the temple is what really made the trip worth it to Bob and I.  The kids thought it was so fun to just play in the snow.  They didn't really care about the snow sculptures at all.  It is going to be nice once the Tokyo temple opens up again, which will probably be the very end of this year.  I think we need to make a point next year to drive somewhere with the kids to just play in the snow for a day.  They really loved it, and we don't need to get on a plane to get to snow in the winter time.

Sapporo Day #3

We spent most of our third day just playing in the snow.  But first we headed over to the Ice sculpture part of the festival.  Honestly this was our least favorite part.  I think it is something you have to do at night.  During the day the sculptures were all covered with snow.  I think they light them up and dust them off at night.  We had other plans at night so we never got to see that.  The other issue was that it was on kind of a sketchy street.  Every other store was some sort of "gentlemen's club" and they all had big billboards out front.  

So we headed back to do the kids favorite thing, play in the snow.

We stopped for a yummy and cute lunch. 

This was the only time we went out to eat.  The rest of the time we got things from convenience stores to eat.

I don't think Calista was feeling really well because she was really sleepy the third day.  She could have been just really worn out, I'm not sure.  But it was before lunch and in a matter of minutes she went from this, 

to this.

 There was a playground right next to where we were staying.  We spent hours playing there.

It was just so much snow it is hard to even describe.  Calista went down this slide and lost a white snow boot in the process.  Of course it blended in perfectly in the snow and was hard to find.

 Penelope and Scarlett especially loved finding the icicles.

We even had some epic snow ball fights.  The boys built snow forts and even a tunnel.

After a while I had to take Calista and Beatrix back.  Calista literally fell asleep sitting in the snow while everyone else was playing.  So she napped while everyone else played.

Sapporo Day 2

On the second morning we headed to a place where the kids could go sledding.  

 First up was just straight sitting on the ice.  I went down this one with Calista it was pretty fast. 

Next was the small sledding hill.  Calista was the only one who really liked it.  I think she went down it 497 times.

 There were a few different slide/sledding hills there and things to do.

 Including a small snow maze with tunnels in the walls.

 A type of cross country skiing for kids.

 A designated area to burry people.

A bigish tube slide for younger kids.

And a pretty big tube slide for everyone else.

This was the older kids favorite thing to do there.  I think they went down it just a few less times than Calista went down the mini hill.

At around 2pm, which felt like 6pm for some reason, it started snowing hard.  This is a slefie Beatrix and I took. 

 Here we are about five minutes later.

 Beatrix was laughing and laughing about it.

Inside there were some food vendors and I guess a VR thing.  I was feeding Beatrix while Bob and the kids did this part.

 We had a really good time.  And everyone was all sledded out by the time we headed back.