Trip to Winter Resort in Canada Feb 19 - 21, 2005

Us and KayCee with her daughters Winnie and Annie left on Saturday morning (Louis, Kaycee's husband will be joining them Monday night due to some urgent business in Ann Arbor on Monday morning). We left with our van around 10.30 am. In about half an hour we were at the border at the enormous Ambassador Bridge crossing:



After driving for five hours (with stops) on Highway 401 we got to Toronto a little after 4 pm. We mistakenly got on Highway 407 which is a Toll highway and you are supposed to have a sensor in your car. If you don't they videotape your car license plate and signs told us that they will be billing out of province drivers...We now wonder if they will bill us all the way to Michigan. We will find out soon I guess. When we got to Toronto we drove to the famous Pacific Mall, a huge mall full of Oriental shops and food. Here is Kostas checking out a Ford Thundebird which was on display:

here is Mommy and the kids posing inside the Pacific Mall:


We left Toronto around 7 pm and drove north on Highway 400 and got to the Carriage Hills Resort. This is a timeshare property built next to other two resorts at the bottom and the middle of some incredible skiing/snowboarding and other winter fun. We had unit 2241 in the Concord Building, this is how it looked from the outside:

and the other units next to ours:

The kids went right into the very nice jaccuzi:


Sunday morning we checked out the main swimming pool:




After the swimming fun, we checked out the resort a little bit, here are some shots of the hills:




In late afternoon and early evening we took the kids to Thunder Valley, a tubing hill.

You sit inside a tube that hooks to a cable which takes you to the top of the hill and then you just go down SUPER FAST, it is a blast!

Here are the kids about to go up the hill with the cable:

Going up the hill now:

Here is Kostas going down FAST!:

almost to the end:

At the end of the hill:

I am going again!

Going again with Winnie:

Dad and Kostas after another run:

Mommy and Sophia in safer lower grounds:



On Monday morning we signed up the kids (except too young Sophia) for 5 hour lessons. They have a special program for kids at the resort, they call it Kids Corral and they do a great job in teaching the kids how to ski and snowboard and do it in a very fun way. Here are the kids in the background getting ready to go out for the lessons and listenig to the instructors:

Kostas all dressed up for the lessons and ready to rumble in the snow!

All kids are outside now and listening to the instructors demonstrating the proper way to ski:



OK, we made it up the hill!

and heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere we go.....yipee!!!!!


In the second half of the lessons, after the kids had lunch, the kids learned how to snowboard. Kostas LOVED snowboarding, he told Dad who asked him "Do you like skiing or snowboarding more?" and he answered: "Snowboarding is harder but it's cooler".
Here he is returning from snowboarding:


Lesson is over, time to undress and get ready to leave, you can tell how tired Kostas is and how dissapointed that it was over, he wanted to do more!


We left Monday around 3.30 pm and got home at 9.30 pm. Kostas was really sad that he had to leave, he told us he wants to go there again and he wants to move to Canada so he can go skiing and snowboarding every day.

Got home, more snow here and our cat Fluffy was so happy to see us.