Thursday, January 31, 2013

Skating

Yesterday was the girls' annual vision field trip to go ice skating. Last year I went with them and had a blast, and this year I decided to check the boys out of school so they could join in the fun. We had so much fun.

Here's Megan. This is her second time skating. She was kind of in tears for the first minute . . . 
  but then this cute volunteer asked her if she wanted to learn how to skate.  Off Megan went and before long she was doing it on her own.
She did still like pushing one of these things around from time to time, but man, she could fly. She was so steady.
 She also liked skating with other grown ups. I like this picture because you can tell that she isn't really needing the help. She loves this field trip and it will be fun to watch her over the coming years.
I still can't believe that this is Liz's seventh time on this field trip. She has gone every year since kindergarten. And what a change.
 She starts off hanging onto the wall, but before long she is all over the ice. She is very comfortable
 So comfortable in fact that she took her camera out on the ice. She was pretty confident that it would be fine, which is was. As we left she said, "I want to make an adventure photobook and put this in it."
This was Mike's first time on skates, and he was a natural. I love this picture because he looks so relaxed as he skates. 
 He was confident and still grins when I tell him he did a great job. 
 all of that being said, it doesn't mean he never fell. In fact, he hit the ice a lot. But he enjoyed it and was so happy when I let him know I got a picture AND video of him falling. He is already asking to go back.
And then there was Nathan. I loved watching Nathan yesterday because I learned a lot about him. Skating was HARD and frustrating for him. I think he fell the most of anyone, and I could tell that he just wanted to glide like he sees hockey players do it. At one point he said, "Mom, it seems so easy for you." 
 I realized that this is probably the first thing (or at least the first thing recently) that has been hard for him. So much comes so easily for him, so I watched closely as he took on this challenge. And you know what? He was amazing. He got back up every time he fell. At times he sat on the bench to take a deep breath and a quick break, but it was never long before he was back out on the ice. 
 He started right by the wall, but by the end he ventured more in the middle. He still fell, but he continued to improve, and throughout the whole experience he was still smiling! What a great kid.
My four cute kiddos. What a fun afternoon we had.


I have some videos too, and maybe those will get posted. We'll see.

2 comments:

Sue said...

You and your kids are amazing! Thanks for sharing! I would have needed one of those "walker things" ALL the time! LOL

Rich and Kim said...

I loved reading about this. Way to go Chantry kids!