Skating All Day and Skating All Night!

We don't get much ice time here in the rainforest, so every year or two, when the pond or lake does freeze enough to skate on, we get as much joy out of it as we can. I'm not a good skater at all. I can go forwards, backwards, and around in circles (but not with much control...). However, when I put on skates and fly out under the open sky - especially with the whole lake to myself - I feel a kind of euphoric freedom that I don't believe I've ever known in another situation. It's my happy place. So this year (as usual), we kept the kids home from school and skated from night to day and back to night again. Ahhhhhh...

Bubbles in the surface of the ice - lit by our flashlights in the night.

Flashlighting through the ice to see the dormant lilies and lake-bottom, below.

By the next morning there was a centimeter of fresh fluffy snow on the ice!

Those who skate together stay together! ...or something. It does take a fair amount of coordination and in-the-moment correction to manage skating together when neither of us actually skates very well, but it's wonderful to share the moment!

My favourite sport shoes. :-)

My favourite man.

  

My favourite boy.

My favourite girl.

My favourite place to go flying in the wind!

We had to share the same two pairs of skates between the four of us, so unskated people made things like footprint art.

...and more footprint art. We wonder if people in airplanes saw it.

And we borrowed somebody's hockey equipment - thank you, whoever you are!!!

Part of the joy of skating is the silly awkwardness of getting geared up and un-geared up. :-)

Back for another night-skate... with headlamps.

Orion watching.

Headlamp and snow-shovel art by Adrian and Tali.

Tali's spiral headlamp and flashlight art.

...and more of the gorgeous ice bubbles.

Happy winter! May skating bring you joy, as well!