Busy Tuesday Night

Last Tuesday night was busy. It was parent watch night for Lauren's dance classes. She is in ballet and tap, and parents only get to observe once a semester. Evan and I made it to ballet, then Roger made it for tap. She has enjoyed it very much. Their recitals will be in May and we got to see their pretty costumes they will be wearing. The theme this year is movies, and for ballet they will be dancing to a theme from Harry Potter in a velvety nutmeg colored ballet dress. For tap it's a song called Cuban Pete from The Mask in a red almost flapper-like style dress. That's not exactly the right description for it, but it's close. Lauren is in love with her tap dress. I didn't think the dresses were bad at all. The teacher did make a point of pointing out that the dresses do cover up the girls nicely because at their age they still like to be covered up. What?! Does this mean as she matures into a teenager they may have some costumes that may be kind of questionable? I sure hope not! I don't have any pics to show, so you'll have to wait until May.

About 15 minutes into tap class, Evan and I had to leave so I could take him to the ice skating rink where he met up with some of the youth group from church. Since the rink is downtown and there was really no where for me to go, I stayed and chatted with some other moms from church and watched the kids skate. The rink has an observation floor upstairs so we can get a really good view of everything sitting in some chairs and don't have to be in the cold rink itself freezing in the bleachers.

Ice Skating

We went ice skating with our homeschool co-op today. It was my first time EVER and I am excited to say I didn't fall once! Yes, I trepidly stepped onto the ice and clung to the wall for a few minutes, but then I let go and did fine. The kids were excited to get back on the ice--they took lessons for 8 weeks last spring but haven't been back to the rink since. I skated for 1 hour and the kids skated for almost 2. It was fun.

See the gentleman in the white hat? Nobody knows who he was (he wasn't with our group), but he was so nice and wanted to help those of us who needed some help. Here he is helping Lauren to skate backwards, and then later he helped her try to turn in circles. He also helped give me some pointers and skated me around the rink a little when I first got on the ice.

Miss Patti also helped Lauren to skate backwards.

Lauren kept practicing and practicing going backwards for a long period of time. It was so fun to watch her because usually her attention span is short, but she was like the Energizer bunny and kept going and going.

Don't worry--there were some falls with the kids, but they were just fine...see:

This video clip makes me smile because it's just a bunch of boys gathering as a group, but there's always someone falling down.

Evan is getting faster on the ice. And look at one of his friends literally running on the ice instead of gliding.

A lot of friends and a lot of fun (and a lot of blisters, but I didn't get any pics of those)...

Ice Skating Week 5

More ice skating pictures. Lauren got to move up to the next beginner level to practice more things. Evan was practicing skating backwards.

More Ice Skating

Okay, I am having such a good time watching the kids with their ice skating lessons. This was the second week and they both did much better--this means hardly any falling down, and they started to glide more instead of walk on their skates.

Evan decided with a friend he has met in his class to chase some girls around with bean bags and then pool noodles that were light sabers. Who knew that would be the catalyst to get him improving on his ice skating? LOL

Lauren is one of the best in her class. She has befriended a little girl who unfortunately just can't seem to stay up on her skates, but Lauren is patient to wait on her to get back up again.

A couple of adults are also taking lessons and it is fun watching them learn to skate. Maybe the next time the kids have lessons I will take lessons too? I have always wanted to do that.

Ice Skating Lessons

The kids are now taking 8 weeks of ice skating lessons on Tuesdays. They start at 2:00 with 30 minutes of lesson and then get 30 minutes of practice. This is Evan's second time on ice skates, but the first was over a year ago; this is Lauren's first time. Before class we talked about how there would be a lot of falling down, and there was, but they just jumped back up and kept going. They both had a lot of fun, and I had a lot of fun watching them. I've never been on ice skates before, but I think we will all have to go as a family soon.