3 Ginger Snaps

Assinaboine Park is enormous. Sports fields of all shapes and sizes. Gardens. A working model steam train to ride. Demonstration gardens. And so much more that we didn’t see. The Snaps love a good park so a visit to this one was on my to do list from the moment I started learning about Winnipeg. I had no idea it would turn out so well.

I visited the park website late this afternoon to consult the map, figure the best place to park, and come up with a plan for our picnic. Picnics are important to me. To my delight, my research revealed that tonight was Ballet in the Park. Truth be told, I thought it would be an east sell on the home front – it wasn’t. Skeptics all around. But when we arrived at the park, Hil quickly remarked: well you didn’t tell me it was the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. It was.

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is the oldest dance company in Canada and the second oldest in North America. They are performing on three consecutive nights at the park this summer and tonight was one of those nights. We were in for a treat.

Ruby and Arden needed to burn off some steam so we set up camp on the grass – blankets and the picnic basket and headed off to find the children’s garden. It was sensational!!!

Then it was back to the Lyric Theatre where Hil and Charlotte were waiting for us on the grass. Here is what we saw when we got back from the children’s garden:

Apparently people in Winnipeg turn up for this!By my guess, there were at least 1500 people in the park to enjoy the show.

We had 20mins until showtime so picnic.

Then on to the performance. It was truly spectacular with dancing of the highest caliber on stage. We enjoyed scenes from two larger productions: Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz.

And we were totally captivated by the performances