Day 1,225 - Ice Ice (Skating) Baby

Today is a sad day. The Olympics are over. After three weeks of jaw-dropping athletic feats in search of shiny gold medals, we are now left in a "sporting void" since baseball probably won't be a thing this year. However, even though the Olympics are over, that doesn't mean that we can't engage in our own pursuit of Olympics-inspired fun. That's exactly what we did on Friday as Ellie, Ethan, and I went ice skating for the very first time.

I know that it seems a little hard to believe but I've never actually been ice skating once in my entire life. In fact, I've probably only been on roller skates two or three times. Therefore, I had two goals when it came to ice skating. Goal number 1 was to do my best Kamila Valieva impression (without the doping) and successfully nail a quad rotation. Goal number 2 (which was slightly more realistic) was to not break anything.

I'm going to look so majestic doing my quad.

 

Our biggest reason for checking out ice skating was that one of our local rinks, the Line Creek Community Center, has "home school" prices in effect each Friday. Therefore, the price for the kids and I with skate rental came out to $8 for an hour and a half of skating. Actually, it ended up being just an hour of skating due to a clothing-induced meltdown from Ellie. We won't talk about that right now though.

Once we arrived at the Community Center and we all had our skates on, it was time to hit the ice. Well, hopefully we wouldn't be hitting the ice but you get my drift. The kids started out cautiously enough with each selecting a kid-sized walker to aid them in their acclimation to ice skating. As for myself, surely my natural athletic ability would be enough to allow me to quickly adapt to the ice. Spoiler alert, it wasn't. I quickly left the rink, clinging to the walls the entire way, and grabbed an adult-sized walker to aid in my quest. Seriously, it had wheels and everything.

Me and my walker. I named it Judy. Actually I didn't do that but now wish I would have.

Obviously, I wasn't going to be much help to the kids in teaching them to ice skate. Lucky for them, our friends, the Loschs, happened to be at the rink that day too. Nathan, who grew up in Canada, took it upon himself to start coaching up Ellie. After about 15 minutes on the ice, Ellie parked her walker and began skating around the ice all by herself. Now, there were plenty of falls on Ellie's part (and one painful looking face plant) but she honestly did an awesome job!

As for Ethan and I, the results weren't nearly as amazing as Ellie's. Ethan never actually graduated from his walker to skating unaided. However, he had a good time clumsily wandering around the ice. As for me, I also never strayed far from my walker. I did reach a point though where I was comfortable not putting all of my weight on the walker and instead relying on it only if I started to fall. I even found the courage to take all of my weight off the walker and snap pictures of the kids as they embarked on the first steps of an extremely likely brother-sister Olympic figure skating medal run. 

Even though no one got hurt or anything, I do have one regret from the day. I never was able to nail my quad rotation. That being said, once I complete my rigorous doping regiment, there will be nothing to stop me from doing so! #DaddyWrite

Day 1,220 - Happy Birthday, Ethan!

I constantly find myself amazed at the passage of time. February marks "Birthday season" in House Holt with Bethany (2-13), Ethan (2-12), and myself (2-1) all having birthdays in a two-week span. While I personally don't find myself feeling any older, the rapid growth of Ethan is very evident especially when one compares a picture from his second birthday to one from his third birthday. Of course, a birthday isn't just for obsessively thinking about what's changed. It's also for celebrating and having fun and that's exactly what we did for Ethan's birthday!

Since Ethan was undeniably aware of his birthday this year, Bethany and I really wanted to make it special for the little man. His day started around 6:30 with a fairly typical breakfast of Honey Bunches of Oats. However, as soon as he was done with breakfast, the fun began as he was allowed to open his birthday gift from us.

For the past couple of years, Ethan has had a gray Royals hat that has been a consistent part of his wardrobe. However, the day finally came for him to outgrow it this year. That didn't stop him from still attempting to wear said hat but it did cause him to look absolutely ludicrous in doing so. Therefore, we decided that the time had come to buy him a new Royals hat. For the record, I found it incredibly difficult to decide on the perfect hat for Ethan since I knew it would be worn so frequently. We ultimately decided on another gray cap with the "KC" logo in blue underneath a golden crown logo. Ethan loved it and immediately put it on his head where it would remain for most of the day to come.

Of course, a little boy deserves more than a new cap for his special day. He also deserves his favorite meal of fried rice with an ice cream sundae bar for dessert. Yes, I know that cake is the traditional birthday dessert of choice. However, Ethan really, really, really likes ice cream so we went that route instead. It also helped that we got to partake in some awesome Spider-Man-themed cupcakes the day before while celebrating with my parents and grandma.

Ethan enjoying some ice cream with Papa Fred!

After lunch, it was time for Ethan to take a short nap before the main event of his birthday, a trip to the circus! Neither Bethany or myself had actually been to a circus since we were kids. In fact, we weren't even 100% certain that there still were circuses. Enter the Carden Circus. I first heard about the Carden Circus via a coupon giveaway on our local Buy Nothing page. Once we realized that the circus would actually take place on Ethan's birthday, we knew that we definitely wanted to attend!

In case you're wondering, the Carden Circus is actually a legitimate three-ring circus of old. There were animal acts including horses, camels, dogs, cats, and elephants (and inexplicable men in bear costumes). There were also danger acts including tightrope walkers, aerialist displays, a human cannonball, and motorcycle acts. While it took Ethan a bit to settle down due to the excitement he was feeling, once he did so, he was absolutely engrossed in everything there was to see. In fact, two days later, he's still talking about the motorcycles and "dancing girls". For the record, "dancing girls" is referring to the aerialists; I know how that sounds.

 

Even though Ethan is growing up super fast, I love the fact that our family is continuing to build memories together that will hopefully last for years to come. In fact, Ethan's personality has really flourished over the past year between his affinity for all things Kansas City Chiefs to his continued love for cows and farming and his undeniable friendship with Ellie. I'm excited to see what the next year will bring when the time comes to snap another picture in the big brown chair in a little under 12 months from now.