2010 World Ice Carving Championships

Over the last two weeks we have been visiting the site of the world ice carving championships, held each year here in Fairbanks. People from all over the world come here for our spectacularly clear lake ice. The carvings pretty spectacular two, but this year we've been spending most of our time in the "kid's park" and less time walking along the paths leading the the competitive artwork.


Yes, this is more our speed this year. A happy turtle greets the families looking for the ice slides.

We met Chayce there for an evening of playing. Here he is with Kieran making their way through an ice tunnel. There are nice holes along the tunnel to peek through, but they are most useful for tickling little tunnel goers.

Kieran in the igloo.

And out of the igloo...weeeeeee. We need to thank Grandpa and Grandma Lee for Kieran's terrific new winter down jacket. He loves it and calls it his "Green". We don't leave home without it :)

The ice park is greatly funded by corporate donors. Do you recognize Ronald McDonald in the background? Not wanting to encourage brand name recognition, we call this the Albert Einstein slide.

We do a lot of chasing Kieran through the ice maze. He laughs so hard he can barely run.

Here are the BIG slides! Lots of people even bring sleds to slide on, making it more of a bobsled run than a slide. We stuck to our snow pants for sliding. On Kieran's first solo run Max sort of dropped Kieran into one of the shutes and let him go. We watched as he bumped from wall to wall, all the way down on his belly. I was sure when he reached the bottom he'd look up at us crying with a "Why did you do THAT?" look on his face. Instead he jumped up an ran as fast as he could back to the top.

Up and ready for another run!

Chayce was less enthusiastic, but didn't let Kieran get in more runs than he did.

After the big slide we took a tour of the competitive sculptures on the "Choo choo". It's the first year for the free passenger service. It was a big hit with the boys, as you might imagine.

Another of the sculptures on the tour.

This is how we ended our evening with Chayce. What a fun night! We'll visit a few more times before warmer temperatures clear the ice, readying the park for summer when it transforms into an RV park.