As the weather is starting to turn to fall, I have been getting up, getting the girls ready for the day and then taking a shower. Since we haven't turned our heat on yet, and I tend to wear shorts and no socks, my hands and feet get pretty cold without me really noticing. When I finally have time to take a shower, I turn on the water, set up a movie for the girls, and then jump in.
Almost immediately when I get in the hot water and me cold hands and feet start warming up, my mind flashes back to Fairmont Hotsprings. Seriously, like EVERY time I take a hot shower and I am cold. It doesn't matter if it is because I have been on a long run in the morning, or starting to get ready in the evening, the memories come flooding down with the water.
I think it is because we would always go to Fairmont around Thanksgiving time. Since it was located in Canada, they do not have the same Thanksgiving day as the United States, so it was never very busy and we felt like we had some of the pools all to ourselves.
Saying we swam a lot while we were there is an understatement. I remember being in those pools and dunking under the water and swimming so long that by the end of the day I couldn't wipe my eyes anymore because they had been rubbed raw. I would have to remind myself that I couldn't go underwater anymore that day till I recovered.
I remember getting up early in the morning, eating a yogurt or bagel and then slipping on these fleece pajamas and sprinting to the "kid" pool. We would usually be wearing our swimsuits, sandals/boots and that cover and that was it. By the time we finally made it into the pool our feet were burning as they hit the water.
Mom and Dad spent a lot of time in the "parent" pool. Sometimes we would visit them over there but we mainly only went over there to try and convince them to come to our pool, because their's was...boring. One time we all went over to the big kid pool. In consisted of a huge regular swimming pool, a deep end pool with a diving board (which was almost always closed due to ice buildup) and a hot pool. They were all heated.
We developed a game were we would make a snowball and then throw it to everyone across a circle. If the snowball melted in your hand and you had nothing left to throw, you had to go and sit in the "snow chair" on the edge of the pool. This is one of my fondest memories because I remember everyone in our family doing it together. After we got tired of that game (probably a few hours) we took turned getting Daddy Dunkers and swimming on each other's backs.
When we had to take some swimming breaks, we would never just nap in the hotel room. Ben, Lesley and I would "roam the halls." We loved it! You would not believe the amazing things we discovered. Sometimes we would hide under the stairwells and listen to conversations and hope that no one found us. We would play hide and seek in the hallways, finding more and more creative places to hide. We would get on the elevator on random floors and then try and find each other again. It seemed like a huge place to play and explore and it felt like it was all ours.
Inside the hotel there was also a very small room with a very hot pool and a very cold pool. When I was younger I hated when Mom and Dad would make us "try" the pools because it felts so good. I thought it was way too hot to even touch back then. When I was a little older I grew to love the experience. You would start in the hot pool and sit till you were so hot you couldn't stand it anymore. Then you would quickly walk up the stairs and dunk under in the very cold pool. It really was so refreshing.
In the long hours we spent in the pool, we would often talk and talk and talk. I think we got to know each other so well and it was a really great sibling bonding experience. I remember talking to Lindsey about High School and being amazed at everything she was experiencing. Ben and I would usually talk sports and kids. Or we would make fun of people in the pool and make sure each other saw every weird or interesting person around. We also made sure to steer clear of questionable characters. Lesley and I would talk about everything, from school, friends, sports, everything! That was pretty normal though.
A special treat at Fairmont was when we got to go and order and ice cream cone. They had a little shop and we would all go and pick our own flavors. It was delicious ice cream and sometimes we would go back for more.
We went to Fairmont one time when Ben was on his mission and I was in college. Lesley and I were in serious training then and had to make sure we were getting in our runs, even though we were still swimming all the time. We would put on our tennis shoes and run down the path by the river till we hit a golf course. Then we would heave our legs up and run through sometimes three feet of powdery snow till we hit the main road. Then we would run up the mountain, past Fairmont Hot springs until we hit the ski resort, which really felt like forever. I will never forget those runs because they were so fun but so hard.
One time we stayed at Fairmont over a Sunday and took a drive to Lake Louise. There we stopped and looked at the incredible hotel and went down to the lake where someone had made ice sculptures of castles, and houses and other amazing things. We could hear the ice cracking as it was cooling off for the evening again and it sounded incredible out in the middle of no where.
When I visited Bigfork this summer, Dad, Brian and I were talking about Clint Eastwood. Dad was saying how much he liked him. Then he went on to say that whenever we went to Fairmont over Thanksgiving, there always seemed to be a Clint Eastwood marathon on. Trust me....I remember.
I love Fairmont. I hope I can either take my children back there to experience it, or find another place just as great to create a closer tight nit family. Thanks Mom and Dad! Anyone feel free to add more memories :)
Lauren
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