Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village Near Tofield

On the weekend we traveled out just past Elk Island National Park to the Ukrainian Village.  It was a great experience and a lot of fun.

Almost as soon as we entered the village we joined a walking tour that was just starting.  Throughout the day we saw a lot of tours walking around so there must have been quite a few.  One tour we saw was even riding on a horse drawn wagon, unfortunately we didn't have time to try to get on that one  The tour guide was excellent, giving us information about the Village, history of Ukrainian settlers in the region, and information about each building we saw.  By going with a tour guide you were able to enter buildings that were closed (only buildings with a staff member in historical character were open for entrance) which was a nice bonus.  After the tour finished up we wandered around the rest of the village to see the main buildings until the kids were pretty tired and hot and we headed back for some food.  There is a nice area with picnic tables by the big red barn (concession) where we ate some Kielbasa on buns.  I was a little disappointed the only way to get cabbage rolls is to buy a heritage plate, as I wanted to buy one individually.  The Kielbasa was pretty good though.

Admission was $20 for our family, which seemed to be a pretty good value, considering the large number of guides and interesting sights.

Entrance Sign

The Big Red Barn

Train Station and Grain Elevator

Tour Group Walking Over to the Village

Ukrainian Village

 

Family Swim at Commonwealth Rec Centre

This morning we went for a family swim at Commonwealth Rec Centre.  I had taken the kids there before but this was the first time all five of us went.  As always, it was pretty great, it is never crowded, and everything is very new, clean, and well designed.  Cost for a family is $24.50, a little cheaper than Terwillegar and I think pretty good value.  The pool itself is pretty awesome, and admission includes use of the field house and the gymnasium, as long as it is open time (seems to be a majority of the time).

The pool features include:

• large kids pool with lots of fountains and sprayers
• one great water slide
• an aquatic climbing wall
• large hot tub
• swimming lap lanes (3 or 4?)

The kids loved the water slide, I think they went on it ten times or so, and luckily there was no line so they were able to spend all their time sliding and none of their time waiting.  Our youngest loved floating around the kids pool in one of the baby boats and spent some time on the little blue toddler slide.

Commonweallth Rec Centre Pool Waterslide

Resources

• city web page
• montage on YouTube

Root for Trees 2013 - Kids Tree-athlon/Treeathon

Last Saturday the kids participated in a Kids Tree-athlon at Government House Park.  They had to run 500 meters, then plant and water a tree, then run another 500 meters.  They started off strong but grew a little tired by the end, we should have trained more for the race I guess.  It was a lot of fun, but the best thing for the kids was the vast amount of activities (all free) that were available:

• Craft tent - crafts included colouring, bird feeder construction, and preparing a newspaper wrapped bean plant
• Temporary tattoos - excellent tattoos, they had obviously hired a professional and they looked really good
• Face painting - it was kind of the opposite of the St. Albert Children's festival, there was only one person face painting but she was a professional, so she did a really great job but the line/wait was a little long
• Bouncy houses - the kids love bouncy houses, they can never get enough...
• Tons of trees you could take home to plant yourself
• Cake booth - free cake!
• Lots of information booths about planting trees and various other nature themed topics

Registration for the kids was $10 each, which was excellent value for what you got.  Parents could run with the kids to help them as well, for free, which was nice.

Tree-athlon Race Site From Above

Photosphere from the Middle

Poutine Food Truck!

Warm Up and Pre Race Instructions

More Pre-Race Instructions

At the Start Line

Spiderman Tattoo

Bouncy House Fun

Root For Trees Awards

Resources

• City page
• Nature Alberta blog post
• Nature Alberta event pictures

A Visit to the Muttart Conservatory

On the weekend we stopped by the Muttart Conservatory to take some family photos.  It was a great place to do it, it wasn't very crowded so we had lots of time to take pictures without getting in people's way (too much).  It also provided fantastic backgrounds.  It is a little pricy at $36 for a family but it is still a great bit of fun for the kids on a rainy day.  There are four pyramids with vastly different plants, and the kids did seem pretty interested in reading about them all.  As always, I got lots of pictures, and worked on some photospheres too.

The Entrance

The Kids Were Impressed With this Edmonton Pyramid Outside

Muttart Photosphere in Preview Format

Cactii!

Elephant Stump Tree, Pretty Cool?

Pond and Lilly Pads

Foilage

Cool Trees

St Albert Children's Festival

We headed out to St. Albert Children's Festival last Friday evening, and it was a lot of fun.  We didn't go to any shows, but just walked around and checked things out.  It was a pretty fun atmosphere, and there was a ton of stuff for children.  It was a nice atmosphere too, down by the river.

We did the following:

• saw some fairy tale frogs
• stilt walkers!
• kids bounced in the bouncy house
• ate hot dogs from Fat Franks and mini donuts and ice cream
• kids got their faces painted (the festival did a great job at this, there were tons of volunteers ready to paint and no line at all)
• saw a juggler walking around
• there was another show on the main stage, but I don't know what it was...  But it was good!

The Frogs!

The River

Mini Train Giving Kids Rides

Stilt Walkers Playing with Kids

The Festival

Main Stage

Resources

• official site

John Janzen Nature Centre Visit

John Janzen Nature Centre

On the weekend we went to the John Janzen nature centre, down by Fort Edmonton in the river valley.  It is, in essence, a really great kids indoor playground in a cool looking rustic building.  The playground is one of the most impressive indoor playgrounds in Edmonton, there are a lot of really cool well thought out features, including:

• a bee hive encased in a glass window that allows kids to see live bees safely
• lots of great slides and climbing apparatuses
• kids are encouraged to "sort" acorns by dropping them through a hole in the upper level which leads down to a basket in the lower level, kids were running these acorns up constantly while we were there
• a beaver lodge that kids could see inside, with a fountain feature that lets them build play dams on top
• super sized flowers kids could build out of foam
• a really cool glass dome that kids could climb up into from below and look down on from above

In addition to the playground there is a nature room where the kids can do crafts and learn about various Edmonton area animals.  There are also some nice tables for snacks, several rooms that can be rented out, and lots of benches outside for picnics.  Admission was $12 per family, which we thought was pretty reasonable value.  There are also programmed activities such as nature walks/talks and snow shoeing.

Playground Feature

Building a Dam

Nice Bench

Nature Room

Resources

• city website

Hamptons Winter Carnival

The kids and I went to a Winter Carnival event put on by the Hamptons Community League, it was actually a ton of fun.  There was a ton of food (hot dogs, chips, pop, hot chocolate, coffee) and everything was 100% FREE!  They had stations for people to try out cross country skis and snow shoeing that the kids absolutely loved.  All in all, it was great fun, and that it was all free was a refreshing change from so many family events that cost money these days...

Hamptons Community League Winter Carnival

Global TV News Clip: