Ice Castles

Last night I didn’t write a blog post.  It was J.R.R. Tolkien’s birthday so we put on one of the Lord of the Rings movies but I was celebrating a new holiday my mom told me about.  Festival of Sleep Day.  I slept on the couch while the movie was on.

Today, however, our whole family celebrated National Trivia Day.  We went up to the Midway Ice Castles to visit our friend, Brent.  Oh, it was so good to see him.  

He showed us around this year’s ice castle and told us some really neat information about it.  Perfect for the holiday.  We even found a spot that had a piece of trivia on a sign so we could take a picture.  

This was our first time seeing the ice castles at night.  It was so cool with the lights in the ice.

After exploring the ice castles, we got to visit Brent and his wife and youngest daughter.  Oh, it was so good to see all of them.  Brent used to be our home teacher while at the same time his wife was my visiting teaching companion.  Such great people.  We still remember when Brent built an ice castle in his backyard.  After that it really took off.  Now there are massive ice castles in several different states and even one in Canada.

Lucky had never been to an ice castle since the last time our family was able to go was when Lucky was a newborn so he and I stayed home while Jeremy took the other kids.  That was not long after The Piano Guys had filmed their Vivaldi’s Winter/Frozen video there. 

I mentioned that when we went this evening and Lucky kept asking where The Piano Guys were.  He was just sure we were going to see The Piano Guys there.  I had to let him know that they weren’t there but they had filmed a video at another ice castle like this one.  Then when we told him we were going to visit Brent’s house, he latched onto that idea.  “We’re going to visit our friends’ house,” and wouldn’t let us forget it.  He got upset a few times when he thought we weren’t going to go to their house.  We reassured him and he kept mentioning it.  He didn’t want us to forget to go there.  He was so happy.  He even gave Brent a hug when we were about to go home.  It was cute.  He definitely had a good experience tonight. 

I enjoyed it, too.  The last time I was able to visit these friends and go to the ice castles was before Jr. Jr. was born.  That was the first year they were doing it at Midway.  Wow, that was a while ago.

It was a great evening.  And the weather cooperated for us to head up there.  We got some snow yesterday morning and we’re supposed to have a winter storm, but we didn’t have any problems traveling to Midway today.  On the way home, we got a lot more snow through Provo Canyon, but we made it okay.  We just went somewhat slowly.  Jeremy and I both remarked how glad we were that we were able to go.  The ice castles are great and all (read: amazing), but what we really love is to see our friends.

Another Day Off

Well, there was no school again yesterday.  So we took the kids and Nichole's friend again up to Big Springs to play in the snow.  That was fun.

After playing in the snow we went driving around looking for birds.  We found a little bird hiding on the bank of a stream.  It was not one we'd seen before.  Just a tiny thing but it had a long bill.  Hmmm, what could it be?  We tried to get some pictures with the messed up camcorder.  After driving up the road a bit and NOT getting a picture of a brown creeper (those things are fast), we checked the camcorder and realized that the picture of the little bird did not turn out.  Sigh.  Here's what it looked like:

So we went back down the road and turned around again so we could search the stream bank for that bird.  Jeremy has a very good eye for spotting birds so we saw 2 or 3 of those birds this time.
Here are some of the pictures we got:

I also used the binoculars to get a good look at their coloring so we could look them up when we got home.
When we got home we identified the bird as a Wilson's snipe.  So it turns out that when we went searching for that specific bird again, we were on a snipe hunt.  Yep.  And we found some.  They do exist.
We also continued our drive around Deer Creek Reservoir and passed this year's ice castle.

We saw some more birds and when we got home we had hot chocolate.

It was a great family and friend day.

Today, since Jeremy's fortune told us to go birding, we did.  We drove down to Provo, drove around some places, and back home.  The camcorder did let us take a few videos before it stopped working again.  We got a good one of a ring-necked pheasant walking around.  We saw plenty of birds we didn't get pictures of.  There was one point where we passed a tree that had so many starlings in it.  I rolled down my window and got a video with my little point and shoot camera.  Man, those things were so noisy.

Now it's time to take a little break from birding since it seems like we've been going out almost every day.  There are other things to work on, though.  We do have a few days coming up where we will do some birding (National Rationalization Day on February 23 is a good excuse), but for now it's time for a break.  Wish us luck.

Ice Castle

4 years ago I blogged about our family visiting the ice castle in Midway, Utah.  It's become really big over the last few years- both in size and popularity (including for some youtube videos by various artists).

Today, Jeremy took the kids on an outing to the ice castle.  They stopped by Big Springs on the way for a snowball fight.

When they got to Midway, they got to see our friend, Brent.  He's the owner.  He took them into the ice castle where they got to look around.

There are quite a few new things since the last time we went, including a fountain, a slide for the kids to go on,

and lots and lots of ice.  That's not so new.

Look, it's The Piano Guys piano.

Jeremy and the kids had a good time.  It was Jr. Jr.'s first experience with an ice castle.  They came home telling me it was fun, but cold.

Ice Castle

Last winter, our home teacher, Brent Christensen, built an ice castle in his yard. He built it from icicles and slush, using sprinklers and PVC to grow the icicles. It's hard to explain how amazing it was. I think it was taller than his house. We would drive by every so often just to see it. It grew and grew... until the weather got too warm.

This year, he got to build a bigger ice castle, a much much bigger ice castle, at the Zermatt Resort in Midway, Utah. That's close to Heber; less than an hour from us in Pleasant Grove. It's nice that it's so close and another great thing is that it's only $2 per person to go through and see the castle with its amazing towers.


Last week for Family Day, the four of us went for a visit. The roads were nice and clear, and it wasn't too cold (but not too warm either). It was amazing. We took some pictures, but they don't even compare to the real thing. It's huge. The tallest structure (tower, if you will) at the time we went was about 2 stories high, and of course is still growing. Brent actually goes inside and climbs up to build onto it. Amazing.



Here's some information about the ice castle (click on the pictures to make them bigger):

And here are some pictures we took while we were there. Jeremy played with the colors a little bit on some of the pictures (it really is blue in real life), but there's only so much a non-professional photographer can do, especially with a wife who just wants to get the blog post done and is being too picky about how the pictures look at 9:30 at night:

The creator and his daughter

Our family

So you can see how tall the largest tower really is, here's a comparison shot with our 2-year old.

The kids walking along the path

We plan to go back some evening so we can see it in person all lit up, but for now, we're keeping ourselves content with pictures on Brent's Ice Castle blog.