Cave Lake 2016

My friends, Meg and Jess, and I took the kids to Cave Lake for some winter fun. It was the weekend for the Fire & Ice Festival so a bunch of people were building their snow creations for a little friendly competition. It was an overcast day but not too cold. I wanted to spend time with Ava and Isaac so Bryan stayed home and watched Willow.
Sledding would be our first activity of the day......

We rented ice skates in Ely. This was a new activity for the kids. So exciting!
 I hadn't been ice skating in years! We were looking forward to it.....

Ava, Isaac, and Benjamin needed extra help in the beginning. But after an hour they were off on their own with little support. We were so proud of them. Ava was running across the ice..... Haha
Meg was a great help as I was documenting the moment :)

It was nice to be on a rink in the snow covered mountains. So beautiful.

Before we departed Cave Lake, we walked around to see the snow sculptures. Many of them were in great shape already even though the contest wasn't until the next day......

A couple of them had a Star Wars theme going on :)

We had so much fun that we would have returned the next day if we could have. This event hadn't taken place in years because there wasn't enough snow and it was too warm. It was great to be back to experience it.

Here is a throwback of our last experience in 2011.