Ryan and I have been really active and outdoorsy all year and I didn’t want that to stop when the snow started to fall. Admittedly, I do spend more time wrapped up on the couch watching movies in the winter, but we had so much fun together in the early months of 2015 that I needed to recreate some of that magic this winter too.
Back in November we went to 2 tree light-ups, the biggest one in Edmonton and another one in downtown St Albert. We really enjoyed ourselves at both. In Edmonton Santa made an appearance and there was live music. In St Albert we got free cookies and hot chocolate and walked the well-lit streets enjoying the atmosphere and each other’s company.
Across the street from our new apartment is still undeveloped and therefore makes for a nice area to walk. We’ve been over there a few times now and really enjoyed our time. In one area the otherwise empty space has been used to dump snow that is cleared from the roads. We climbed up these impromptu hills one evening to get a better look at this place we now call home. In that same area we were finally blessed with a look at the Northern Lights. Ryan and I have been trying to see them for a year now.
Just after New Year’s we both felt the urge to get outside and hiking was just the ticket. We trekked to the End of the World first and then braved a walk across the ice at Elk Island. Both days we were treated to nice weather and plenty of winter sunshine.
This year Edmonton was introduced to something new, the Freezeway. It's a skating path through the trees in Victoria park and makes for a great little outing. I can't skate at all and therefore do not own a pair of skates with which to attempt it, but Ryan was able to borrow a pair for himself and we took ourselves down to the ice. After a few minutes Ryan got into it and was doing pretty well and I was contently following along on my nice flat boots. He did eventually get me to try out his skates though and I have to admit, I had a lot of fun. I was right in thinking I can't actually skate but as it turns out I am very capable of standing on the ice with skates on so Ryan held my hands and pulled me around the rink. That pretty much counts as skating, right??
For the second year in a row we attended Ice on Whyte, an ice carving festival in Edmonton. I had a lot more fun this year because it was actually cold and icy, last year was too warm. The ice slide takes the cake for most fun, hands down.
Last summer Ryan introduced me to something called Geocaching and I loved it straight away. If you aren't familiar with it, I highly recommend you check it out. It's essentially a treasure hunt except that there isn't much in the way of actual treasure and the best part is the search for it. We hadn't been out in a while but I looked to see if we had any in the area of our apartment and a few popped up within walking distance. Despite the chilly night and the fact that we weren't able to find anything in the dark/snow we had a great little winter time adventure.
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