Swimming at Terwillegar Recreation Center

Terwillegar Rec Centre

Over the Christmas Holidays the kids and I tried to go swimming at as many pools as possible.  The Edmonton area is home to a lot of new fun pools, one of the closest to us is the city run Terwillegar Community Rec Centre.  This is a very good facility, although a little pricey ($23 for 2 kids and an adult).  In addition to a pool it also has full workout facilities, a large indoor track, gymnasiums, a great playground for kids under 10 (best for under 7 probably) and many multi purpose rooms.  And a second cup and DQ/Orange Julius to boot.  The kids love it, and like all of the new city facilities it is bright with well used natural lighting.

The pool features:

• river ride - pretty fast current, keeps the kids entertained for hours
• wave pool - also lots of fun
• baby pool - the kids are getting too old to go here, but it is a nice shallow warm pool with lots of toys
• water slide - kids can't go on when there are two kids and only one adult, but it is pretty fun too
• steam room - can't go to with the kids but it is nice
• hot tub - fairly large, you can watch people diving from it which the kids like
• large pool - there is a 50 m lane swim which can  be (and usually is) broken up into several smaller pools, there is also a very high diving board and several smaller ones

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Resources

• official site
• Edmonton journal photo gallery
• YouTube tour

Festival of Trees

We went to the Festival of Trees the weekend before last, it was a lot of fun for the kids.  It was held at the Shaw Conference Center which is fun for the kids to see in itself.

Shaw Conference Center
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There were a lot of little booths and games for the kids to do activities/crafts at, and live dancing displays, along with TONS of Ginger Bread Houses and elaborately decorated Christmas Trees.  The kids favourite stations were:

• meeting Santa - there was a big line but this one was free, which was nice
• making a miniature Christmas tree - they couldn't put on all of the ornaments themselves, but they loved making a craft
• decorating a gingerbread man - there weren't a ton of toppings but the kids loved putting on the icing and m & m's and chowing down

Resources

• Festival Website
• Flickr Stream

On the Way Down to the Festival

Trees

Miniature Craft Tree the Kids Made

Gingerbread Man

Green Tree

Red Tree

More Trees

Tobogganing By Ormsby School

Took the kids tobogganing/sledding at the hill by Ormsby School today.  It isn't a huge hill (about 15 seconds sledding top to bottom), but has a large square plateau shaped area with four sides that can be used for sledding.  It is not too busy, but is used enough that there are some good well tread runs for the kids to sled down.  There is good parking at the school, and the hill is just north of the school.

Walking to the Hill

View From the Top of the Hill

Resources

• City Recommended Hills
• Other Options

A Visit to the Calgary Zoo

This weekend we went on a family mini vacation to Calgary and Banff.  Saturday we made the usual trip to the Calgary Zoo and as always it was lots of fun.  It was a pretty pricey entry at $71 for our whole family, but definitely delivers value for money.

The new attraction at the zoo is the Penguin exhibit, right at the entrance of the zoo.  It is pretty impressive, there are penguins outside the exhibit playing you can see close up.  After lining up you can walk through a chilled habitat with several types of penguins playing.  The most impressive aspect of the exhibit is how close you can get to the penguins, literally almost touching distance.  I took one video of the penguins diving into the water, pretty cool.

The rest of the usual areas of the zoo are also still great, the Dinosaur area which contains realistic Dinosaur statues, the Canadian Wilderness with Canadian animals, and areas for Africa, South America, and Asia.  The Gorilla habitat was very cool as was seeing how huge the hippos were close up.

Hippo Under Water

T Rex in the Dinosaur Area

Gorilla Habitat

Resources

• web site

Birthday Party at GalaxyLand

On the weekend we went to a birthday party at West Edmonton Mall in Galaxyland.  The family rented a party room (Cosmo’s Party Launch Pad) to have cake, open presents, and eat a meal.  The kids were also able to go play in the Toddler Play Area, which we thought was called Todderland, but seems to be just "The Play Area."  In the birthday brochure they reference it as Galaxy Kids Playpark.  This area is great for younger kids with several ball pits, climbing structures, a mountain that leads up to long slides and other attractions.  It is good too, as with only one way in and out there is an easy spot for parents to watch without fear of losing their children.

View From the Mountain in the Kids Play Park

Entrance to the Kids Play Park

Kids Play Park

Party Pads - 3 Room You Can Rent for Parties

Resources

• West Edmonton Mall Party Booking Brochure
• Flickr Galaxyland pictures

Edmonton Corn Maze

Our route through the maze (on last years satellite image).

View Corn Maze 9/16/2012 2:49pm in a larger map

On Saturday we took the kids with Nana and Papa to the Edmonton Corn Maze, on the very west end of Edmonton.  It was busy, totally packed to the point you had to drive around and wait for someone to leave just to get parking.  The maze is big enough to make it challenging, but not too tough that we got majorly lost.  Including a large break in the middle for snacks it took us an hour and 38 minutes to make our way through the maze with a total walking distance of 3.07 KM.  The corn is very tall, maybe 8 feet at most places and the kids loved running through the maze.  There are other attractions at the maze too, a hay bale mountain, a petting zoo, a small race track, and a corn cob train, but the most popular seemed to be a giant jumping pillow.  Admission was a little pricy at $10 an adult and $8 for kids older than 5.

Where Getting Lost Means Finding Fun

Start of the Maze

View of the Maze From the Bridge in the Middle of the Maze

Resources

• official web site
• facebook page
• Prairie Gardens has a maze too

Family Hike: Wedgewood Ravine Beavers Are... Gone?!?!

We went on a family hike to see the beavers at the bottom of Wedgewood Ravine today.  Wedgewood Ravine is sandwiched between the Hawkstone area and Cameron Heights.  An old closed road runs through it down to a beaver dam and lodge, and there is a hiking trail running along the creek towards the river too, though that is less ideal for kids.  Usually we hike back up the North side and stop at the playground on the way back to where we park.  This is always a good hike because the kids are guaranteed to see a beaver dam and lodge, and one time we even saw a beaver swimming around, and eventually heard his warning slap...  However, it looks like the city (I am guessing?) has destroyed the dam and drained the beaver pond. Hopefully they come back again next year?

View of the Ravine on the Hike Down

The Destroyed Dam

The Empty Pond and Lodge

Bridge On the Cameron Heights Side