What do you do during the winter?

For those of you living in the wonderfully warm land of Australia, this is a very legitimate question. What does one do when the daily high temps are below zero and the sidewalks are covered with a thin layer of almost invisible, but nonetheless dangerous ice? The answer is to seek out indoor (or undercover) activities or become a snow bunny. We are fortunate enough to have both of these options on our doorstep.

Our apartment building has an underground carpark that is never busy, but is always dry, out of the wind, and clean – the security guards actually mop it on a regular basis. This provides the prefect place for the kids to practice their skateboarding and roller blading. Harper is becoming quite the little Tony Hawk (he even rides goofy) and is very confident cruising around at great speed – he is even beginning to try a few tricks. Promise got roller blades for Christmas, and after her first attempt I didn’t know if she would ever get the hang of it. She has been going great guns and is now cruising around comfortably on her own – a great relief for Mum and Dad’s backs.

When Jenene’s Mum and Dad were here for Christmas, we discovered that we have a ski resort only 30-40 minutes away – too good an opportunity to pass up. So we bought Harper a snowboard for Christmas and I took him out and gave him a few pointers on how to do it. To my surprise he actually managed to get up and get going after only the second time – in spite of my coaching. Since it has been 11 years since I last stepped on a snowboard, I thought I should head out and see if I could still do it – just like riding a bike. We are now at the stage where we ride the lift up together, I do up his bindings, and he says, “See you at the bottom.” Promise was very jealous about us going into the snow so I bought her some plastic skis to see how she would go. As you can see from the photo she goes pretty well – looks like I’ll be footing the bill for real skis and boots next season. The great thing about this is that we can usually leave home at 8am and be on the lift at 9am when it opens – it takes less time for me to go snowboarding than it use to take to go surfing, especially when Frog had to check out every beach between the spit and Nambucca Heads!

Having interests and activities to keep us busy during the winter certainly makes the time pass by fast – I can’t believe we (read Jenene) are already busy making travel and accommodation plans for our trip back to Australia during June and July. I’m almost excited about winter setting in now!