skating lessons

She loves to skate.
She started back at it today again.
I love her confidence.

second year of skating lessons

Lilah started her second year of skating lessons today.

She LOVES to skate! When I signed her up, back in August, she was so so super excited, she was jumping up and down with excitement! A lot has happened between then and now, but when I mentioned it this week, she did the exact same thing, jumped up and down clapping her hands with excitment!

She is back into the kindergliders class, same as last year. However, she is definitely a skill level up this year. I was thinking back to last year, her first time on ice and how she fell a fair amount those first couple of weeks, always with a smile on her face! But towards the end she had gotten quite competent in the skating department and rarely fell! Well, it's obvious that skating is like riding a bike... she just picked up where she left off last year.

She was very proud of herself and was definitely ready to show her little sis, Phebe, how well she could skate.

I love that girl of mine... I'm so proud of all her accomplishments.

[ the flickr set is here ]

first skating lesson - "kinderglider"

Back in August, when the very idea of ice made me shiver, I signed Lilah up for skating lessons - "Kindergliders". It's only taken me 3 years to realize that if you want to book an activity for your child, you have to do it months in advance, not the day before!

Anyway, today was Lilah's fist skating lesson and to say she was SOOO excited would be a complete understatement! She had her skates and helmet all set out and ready for hours beforehand. She was on top of the world!

Her coach is pretty amazing with the children. If you look closely in some of the pictures you can see where he draws on the ice, with a marker, all sorts of little lines and paths for the children to follow, with certain different pictures along the way for the children to copy, like spreading their legs or arms, turning around in a 360, stopping and lying on their tummy, etc. And Lilah, being the eager child that she is, you can see her hanging onto every word the coach is explaining and making every exact move the coach tells her to. She is always the first in the lineup to participate in a challenge. Baba and I are so SO proud of her.

One of the funny moments during her lesson is when at one stage she fell down, she looked over at us and we, being the (terrible) parents that we are, were busy laughing! (She was grinning too so we knew she was fine.) And what did the rascal do? She got back up and fell down again a number of times for our entertainment! I actually thought I was going to die laughing! She has such a funny personality - she totally cracks us up.

When her lesson was over she was gushing about how much she enjoyed it and said she wished she could go back tomorrow, "But probably not", she said, "Because it's Sunday!" When I told her she would be going back every Saturday until Christmas, she got a massive grin on her adorable face.

Man I love that girly. She makes my heart feel like it's going to burst. I adore that first photo I posted below, looking at her coach with that massive grin on her face, she is always so full of joy and life and love. We continually shake our heads and thank God for this beautiful child, we've been blessed beyond our hopes and prayers.

[ the flickr set is here ]

winterlude, celebrating chinese new year

We skated downtown to Confederation Park this morning, primarily to join in and see some of the Winterlude festivities that started just yesterday. From our house the length of the Rideau Canal to the city center is just over 4kms. The weather was absolutely amazing. At about the 2km mark I even had to take my coat and gloves off, because I was so hot.

There's a huge program of places to go and things to see and do during the Winterlude Festival. This weekend we decided to check out the Chinese New Year celebrations, including dance performances, a traditional tea ceremony in an Asian yurt, original sounds created with Asian gongs and crystal bowls, a garden of lanterns, ice sculptures and a whole lot more!

Lilah calls Saturday and Sunday "Family Day". And what a fabulous family day we had together!

[ more pictures here ]

the rideau canal

We went back to the Rideau Canal yesterday, even though the weather was minus 24°C. Yes, freezing! Did you know it's the world's longest skating rink? And if I'm being perfectly honest, I just love taking pictures.

Actually, I was all about hibernating today, but Lilah begged me and I gave in. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but it was beautiful, gorgeous even and refreshing. It goes without saying that Lilah had a fantastic time, once again.

On the walk home we stopped by a new Vietnamese restaurant in our area for lunch. We enjoyed some honey garlic ribs - Lilah calls them 'bones'! She tells me she loves bones. I think she's ridiculously cute!

[ more pictures here ]