Lorden's Big Adventure: Experiment finds child's face ineffective as sledge brake

On Boxing Day (which is an English tradition not celebrated elsewhere, much like Christmas pudding and mince pies - incidentally now that we're far from the mother ship we keep getting asked what mince pies are so we had to look it up, turns out pre-refrigeration people would kill their pig when winter started to set in and there wasn't enough food to keep it alive over winter and then pack it all around with dried fruit and put a pastry crust over it to preserve it . Over time the meat got left out) we had a really warm day and went to do some sledging at Staring Lake Park where they have a 'Sliding Hill', i.e. a hill specially designated for sliding down. We got a family sledge which would fit all of us on it and that was great fun until the last run of the day where we wiped out and poor Becky slid down on her face for a bit which didn't have much of a braking effect. Here are some pictures before the last sledge of the day.

Yesterday got a lot colder again and we decided against getting completely covered in snow and to do some ice-skating instead. Becky didn't have her own skates and Dan needed some new ones so we got them some second hand skates which is very common here, they have 8 second hand sports shops in the twin cities. Becky had never really tried skating by herself and it feels weird that it doesn't feel weird for a 3 year old to start to learn how to skate. Here is Becky starting to get the hang of it.

The roads have been particularly slippery of late and I now know why so many people have 4x4s, its to stop the wheel arches getting covered in with snirt. On our little Honda the snow piles up in the wheel arches so much its actually touching the wheels and makes braking a little random. We cleaned off the underside of the car before putting it away and got a load of snow off