Only in Alaska #4

Ice Parks

Who knew? They are a total blast. We went to this one mostly because they had a night that was free for military members and their families. I was blown away by how much fun we all had. We walked through the entry doors and who is the first person we met?

Only the most popular man of the season!

From there we explored some life size ice sculptures that the kids were allowed to play on. for example, there was a sculpture of Santa in his sleigh pulled by two reindeer:

There was also a train and I think a couple of other play sculptures. Of course, there was another area devoted to ice sculptures that were just for display. Everything from angels to Shrek in a Santa hat.

There were large cups made out of ice that would spin on the icy ground--voila! Ice teacup rides!

There was also a maze made entirely from ice. Here you see the kids at the entrance to the maze:

Then, of course, what ice park would be complete without ice slides? My kids spent the majority of their time on smaller slides like this one:

There were two slides that were much larger, but I didn't get a picture of them. While we're on the subject of pictures, I would like to apologize for the extremely poor quality of the ones I've posted above. That's what you get when you use an iPhone in dark settings. But Kelly was at work, so I was trying out this whole experience on my own and I wasn't about to lug around my big camera. As it was, I was worn out from carrying Aralyn around! (Have I mentioned she weighs 27 lbs?!!)

Anyway, this experience was well worth the effort. My understanding is that they will have an even bigger ice park set up in Fairbanks in February as part of the world ice sculpting championships. I am looking forward to it!