Ice hurts and heals

Ice. Slick. Cold. Smooth. Hard.

Lets focus for a moment on the slick aspect of it.

We took the kids and a friend to an ice skating rink today. "What could possibly go wrong?"

Ice skating or "controlled skidding" as I call it, can be fun, IF you understand that if you come in contact with the ice at any speed above tilting a glass to your mouth, it will hurt. In some instances I have seen the glass with ice wreak havoc as well.

If you are a 7 year old and/or don't have a good grasp on physics this is a hard(pun intended) lesson to learn.

Today Felex found out what happens when you meet, for all intents and purposes, an immovable object at the speed of falling off your ice skates. Face first.

Blood stains ice. Noses are softer than skating ice and possibly regular ice as well. Once you are on your butt or face, it is hard to get your feet back under you. This only makes the situation much much worse.

The good side is that we avoided losing any of the permanent teeth. The last face plant on concrete cost both upper front teeth and lots and lots and lots of tears.

Oddly enough when I went to the office for some ice(ha ha) they gave me a chemical pack. I could not understand, with all the snow and ice around why they gave me this. They said that it cooled rapidly and stayed cold longer than ice. I said that there is ice all over and it is already cold and I could just about keep myself in a constant supply if I just had a plastic bag. It took all 4 people in the office to try to break the contents of the bag so that it would give off the wonderful cold that was needed. Whatever...

Well, since I wasn't skating(someone had to be able to drive us to the hospital) I was in charge of the camera. I have some wonderful action, or rather inaction, pictures of the accident. Post face plant, as I was having a discussion with one of the locals lads who was looking for a few extra dollars to stave off the hunger pangs. Any who.... I have some pictures of the poor lad coming off the ice looking to all to be a mighty hockey player that just showed someone how to do a proper hip check, and promptly cleared the benches for a mini-brawl on the ice.

After the nice hard ice we went to a hill with some nice soft snow. The boys were not happy with the "penguin sledding" Dexter thought would be fun. Sliding down the hill on your belly. They found an abandoned metal garbage can lid and decided that would make a good sled. I think the found out why the lid was abandoned.

All in all, there was every imaginable emotion today from the boys from extreme happiness to crying and blaming others for your pain.

Next is skiing.