Skating Day!!!

We finally made it out to the skate rink to take Owen skating for the first time ever!!!! It was soooo much fun. This is how we started out....

Owen was really unsure about the whole thing (his eyes were huge!), but seemed like a natural, the way he could stand up in the skates on the floor!!! Notice Shawnie in the background, that's her getting Dave to tie up her skates. We decided that if for no other reason, the fact that she'd have to go in the men's locker room before each game to have Dave tie her skates was enough to keep her off the Granite hockey team that both Dave and Geoff play on! She cracks me up...Dave has been tying her skates since college, if that doesn't make a good brother-in-law, I don't know what does! ;O)

Here's our support team!! Shawn, Geoff, and Jenna all came out to skate with us. I'm sure that having all of them there was the motivation Owen needed to get out and try it. I was really thankful that they all made it. Owen was especially thrilled to be skating with Jenna, although he never let Geoff get out of sight either.

We started out without a stand for Owen to use to support himself. We tried using a traffic cone instead, but Owen is just too tall for that to be effective. So, this is the method we settled on...or I should say, Geoff and Dave used. He's too heavy for me to support like that for very long!

Here's Owen taking a break in the player's box. That smile was permanently glued on his face the whole time we were there! Definitely a 180 from his original panicked look! He had such a blast and we were so proud of his willingness to get out there and try it, he's definitely a trooper.

Aunt Laurie came to support him too, although she chose to be a cheerleader in the bleachers...you can never have too many cheerleaders!

We weren't on the ice too long before Shawnie talked a little girl into giving up the stand for Owen...leave it to her! ;O) Most of the kids using them, don't need it which is really frustrating to watch. It was a whole lot easier to help Owen with this thing. By the end of the afternoon, Owen was standing up and just had his hands on the bar, it was the perfect height for him. We ended up skating for almost an hour!!!! I figured if we could get him to skate for 20-30 minutes we'd be doing pretty good, but Owen didn't really want to leave even after an hour. He was too exhausted to complain much though. Besides, the zamboni came out about that time and that's really Owen's favorite part anyway! ;O) There's a skating class for 3 year olds that I am going to try to sign him up for beginning in mid-November, but if all else fails, we'll definitely get him signed-up for the December class. He's definitely ready to go. In the meantime, I think Dave and I will make a point to take him out there as much as possible and if I have it my way, it will be cold enough to skate outside very soon!!! We still haven't had any snow down here yet, but it will be any day...I so can't wait!!! In the meantime, pretty much all the leaves are gone and we've had quite a few rainy days, I'm ready to move on!

Our whole day was super busy yesterday, after skating we raced home for Owen to take a nap...he didn't ever go to sleep however, so that was time well spent! Then we headed over to Shannon's house just around the corner for her two littlest's birthday party. Kendall turned one just two weeks before Brady's 2nd birthday...glad it's her and not me!!! We only got to stay for about a half-hour before Dave picked us up and we headed to his game in town. He's only got two games this season that are at a decent hour. So, we definitely didn't want to miss it. Besides, they are on a winning streak! I think this made 5-0. Owen got a big kick out of trying to figure out which one of the players was his dad. He actually did just as well as I do! ;O)
Hope you are all having a great start to your week! I'm home again most of this week and then we'll pick Diana up from the airport Saturday evening. Owen seems to be adjusting well to being at home and his attitude is continuing to improve. I'm hoping he behaves just as well for his Grandma!!