Snow Fest

We've kept things pretty low key on the weekends lately. Because, two kids. And taking two kids anywhere further than the local playground is hard work. Actually, even the playground is hard work. (However, I did manage this on my own for the first time last Friday. It was 18 degrees and sunny and I was dying to get out of the house. It went... ok. We managed to stop and get bagels for lunch, and then Ella walked with me while Ollie had a nap in the pram. Of course, the moment the pram stopped moving Ollie woke up, so I ended up putting him in the baby carrier anyway. And then Ella wiped out on the slide, was upset and wanted to lie down in the pram. So I ended up pushing a three year old home in a bassinet. I definitely should have take a picture of this, but at that point I really just wanted to get home. But we managed about an hour an a half out of the house and I think we had fun.)

Anyway. Back to my post. Like I said, we've been staying pretty close to home since Ollie was born. But on Sunday I woke up feeling refreshed as Ollie slept for SEVEN hours straight on Saturday night! Amazing. He went to bed at 8pm and when I woke up for the first time that night at 3am I could not believe my eyes. I wanted to get out of bed and do a happy dance. So, feeling up for the challenge of taking both kids out, we had a search online of something family friendly to do that day. We found the Springvale Snow Fest, which sounded perfect as Ella has been obsessed with snow lately. She loves this show on Netflix called Masha and the Bear, which is a Russian cartoon. It about a little girl who lives with a bear in the forest and it's pretty cute. They do a lot of winter activities which Ella seems pretty interested in, so we thought it would be pretty cool for her to see some real snow. (She did spend her first two Christmases in Toronto and Lake Tahoe, so saw plenty of snow then, but she was too young to remember it.)

We decided to leave after Ollie's first nap. Of course, instead of his usual 40 minute nap he slept for a whole two hours! Once he was finally up and fed, we bundled both kids and all our stuff (parents of young children understand what I mean by "stuff") into the car and headed to Springvale.

Springvale is located in the Dandenongs, south east of Melbourne and about a 45 minute drive from our house. On the way there Ella asked if we were going to Canada. We talk about Canada a lot now that my parents have left, and one of the things we tell her is that there is a lot of snow in Canada. So I guess it makes sense that when we told her we were going to play in the snow she assumed we were going to Canada!

When we got to the festival the first thing Ella spotted was a food truck selling ice cream. It was pretty cold and ridiculously windy out but nothing will stop this girl from wanting an ice cream. I'm cold just looking at this picture:

Once Ella finished her ice cream we walked through the festival, which was basically a street market with two big mounds of snow at each end, and a couple of other snow themed activities in between. We first stopped by a big machine that was blowing out what looked like snow but was actually just bubbles. Even still, Ella thought it was pretty great.

Next was my favourite part, a silent disco inside an inflatable igloo. Andy and I loved it but it took Ella a while to get into it and actually start dancing.

After that we got to pet some Husky sled dogs. You can actually go dog sledding in Australia, in the Victorian Alpine Region!

And then finally we queued up to spend five minutes in one of the snow areas. Ella thought it was pretty great and loved having a snow ball fight.

After that the weather was starting to get pretty bad, high winds with rain on the way, so we headed home. I also needed to feed Ollie but there was no where to go to shelter from the wind so I had to feed him in the car. That's always lots of fun. Then, as we were driving off Ella called out "I have to poo" which are not words you want to hear from your three year old when you are no where near a toilet. Luckily we were close to a shopping centre so Ella and I hopped out so she could do her business. This little detour meant it took us over an hour to get home, but luckily we seem to have two children who don't mind being in the car.

It was nice to get out and do something, and I think we might start being a bit more adventurous with our weekends now that we know we can do it!