CHILLED FUN

When COVID-19 cancelled Ryan and Ashley Thorson’s winter getaway to the Bahamas, they figured out a cool way to embrace the chilled Minnesota winter.
With the help of their three young children, the Thorsons created an igloo in the front yard of their Owatonna home. The 6-foot igloo has enough space to fit their entire family inside and then some.
“It was a family project,” said Ashley Thorson. “Once we started building it, we couldn’t stop until we finished it.”
In all, the Thorsons spent about 12 hours over the course of two weeks constructing the mighty snow fortress. They started on Jan. 10 by taking advantage of some warmer temperatures to piece it all together.   
Their young boys, ages 8, 5 and 3, filled up the buckets with water to make ice. They used aluminum trays to create blocks of ice. Food coloring was used to give the ice a colorful look. The colored blocks with red, orange, yellow, green and purple were initially more vibrant, but have since somewhat faded away.
Ashley Thorson estimated it took 250 blocks to make the igloo. “It was a lot,” she laughed. “It was just time consuming.”
While the kids supplied the blocks, Ashley and Ryan carefully pieced the igloo together. “We had some good snow to pack with because it was warmer,” she said, noting the hardest part was putting together the roof because one person had to hold the blocks in place while the other shoved snow in the gaps.
The Thorsons, who both have demanding careers in the healthcare profession, found the igloo to be a welcomed break for them. “It was an escape from reality for a minute,” Ashley Thorson said. “It was a nice change of pace.”
But perhaps most importantly, the Thorsons say, it provided family fun. “The most fun was spending time with the kids,” Ashley Thorson said.
Even when mom and dad were building the igloo on their own at times, Westin helped out by making pizza for everybody. “He felt good about himself,” his father Ryan said. 
Since the igloo went up, it has become the neighborhood sensation. Ashley Thorson sent a photo of the igloo to WCCO-TV just expecting them to use it on the weather. A TV crew came to their home to do a story on the family.
“Shocked,” Ryan Thorson said about the attention they’ve been getting.
The WCCO news story was even played in Westin’s second grade classroom at McKinley Elementary. Westin has been lamenting how he has become famous after being featured on the news, according to his mother.
For the Thorsons, they have found the experience to be uplifting. “Drive by and you can’t help but smile,” Ashley Thorson says. “It’s a feel good story, and I feel there isn’t enough of that these days.”
The Thorsons also hope their family project will help inspire creativity in other children. “Something to shoot for and other kids to build off,” Ryan Thorson said.
As Ashley Thorson looked at the igloo, she said: “It’s so weird, who builds an igloo?”
Ashley Thorson said she actually got the idea a few years ago while looking through some pictures with her sisters. At the time she thought, “This would be cool to do some day.”
Ryan and Ashley Thorson, who grew up in Austin and Le Sueur respectively, are always trying to come up with fun activities to do with the kids. “They can get a little restless on the cold, cold days when you’re cooped up,” she said.
She is confident it was the perfect thing to do for their family, which has lived in Owatonna for seven years. “Making memories as a family is very important,” Ashley Thorson said. “It’s something they will remember.”
While the igloo was a fun family project, the Thorsons are a little worried about what comes next. “We’ll never be able to top that,” Ashley Thorson said. Added Ryan Thorson, “Be careful. We’ve set the bar too high.”
In the meantime, the Thorsons hope to enjoy the igloo as long as possible. They hope it will stick around until at least March. Once it gets a little warmer out, Ryan Thorson plans to have a poker party with some neighborhood friends in the igloo. They have small lanterns to light it up at night.
Five-year-old James wants to spend the night sleeping in the igloo. “We’ll see how warm it gets,” Ashley Thorson quickly said to that idea. “It has to warm up before we spend the night out there.”
As for the Bahamas vacation Ryan and Ashley Thorson had planned to take with some friends, they hope to reschedule it in the near future.
“We weren’t supposed to be here,” Ashley Thorson said. “It’s like making lemonade out of lemons. Obviously, our kids will have more memories of this (igloo).”