We're on Vacation - Ice Skating Adventure

We are officially on vacation from homeschool! I can't completely let it go... so we are doing Holy Hero's Advent Adventure but the kiddos like it and it is easy for me. We're busy making the ornaments for our Jesse Tree, learning about Advent and the traditions or our church, and even praying a decade of the rosary each day to prepare for Christmas. Other than that, we are doing some fun things that we wouldn't normally do... like ice skating!

A nice man took this picture of our family. It's amazing how well the kids pose when someone else takes their picture. This is a giant Christmas tree on our local "trail of lights."

So... I'm not sure what I was thinking when I came up with the idea to take 3 kiddos, ages 7 and under, to the ice skating rink... It was something along the lines of, "Well, we get two for the price of one on Mondays, so if it goes really bad at least it won't be too expensive." Regardless, I had some doubts about my decision when faced with 3 pairs of ice skates that needed to be laced up to get us going... but it ended up being a lot of fun. We had a ball! Emily went ice skating last year so she knew the basics and was independent enough to go out on her own. David had never been ice skating but as my sweet middle child, he had a good attitude about the challenge and went out by himself with his walker and tore up the ice. I was so proud of him! And Lia, as the baby wanted to do it all because her siblings were doing it... So how did I get her on the ice? Well, it wasn't pretty but she hung on to the walker and I skated behind her, while also hanging onto the walker but hunched over, almost at a 45 degree angle. I didn't get a picture of it... but I can imagine I looked pretty silly. Lia did amazingly well and we managed to scoot around the ice rink really well. It was slow going of course and all the kiddos fell down a lot but everyone agreed it was really fun and they want to come back and do it again with Daddy when he comes home.

Look at my big boy!

Here is Lia when she decided she was ready to do it "all by my own self!" The wet bottom is telling of all the falling down. But by goodness, she kept getting back up. And she kept telling me, "Let's go around again!"

After skating, we checked out the light display. David and Emily liked the gingerbread men.

And this one was Emily's favorite. She had dance practice earlier in the day and told me she wanted to wear it to the ice rink because she'd "look pretty" on the ice. And she did!

The next adventure is bowling. Stay tuned.