Our trial year of ice skating is done.  I think that in order for Job to get good we would have to devote our life to being at the rink.  We would need to join the figure skating club, take extra lessons and live at the rink.  It was a great experiment though.  He got some things out of it.  He moved up levels from basic 4 to basic 6.  He learned lots of stuff and had fun.  The down side to ice skating is that there is ice and coldness involved.  We once went down right at 2:30 and ice skated until 4:30, then had a break while the Zamboni was out and then had lessons.  At the end he was in tears because he was so cold.  He has no way to keep warm, no fat cells in his body.  That was the last time we did that. I even pack toe warmers for him so he can stay warm.  Even with that he says he loves ice skating.  I don't get that but hey, he's Job.  Another thing that interests him is speed ice skating.  I wonder if we might try that out  next year.

On our way home after church one day, Lona said that she wanted to have a recital for some of her friends.  It turned out that they were taking music lesson for both the piano and the violin but didn't have recitals so there wasn't as much motivation for practicing.  Heck, if I don't have to perform or have a dead line I wouldn't get things done and neither would my kids.  That is totally understandable.  Lona decided though that it couldn't be that hard to put on a recital.  She called the church and scheduled a day.  Then she made a list of her friends who she knew were taking music lessons.  She emailed them about the recital.  She contacted the person in charge of sound who happened to be her dad.  She made a list of everything that needed to get done.  I helped with that part.  She emailed her friends again, and again, and again.  Then she started to call everyone.  She needed definite answers.  She put together a program with names of participants and their instruments, and song titles.  She wrote a speech for both the opening remarks and the closing remarks.  We made a trip into Bellingham to purchase refreshments and cookies for the evening.  Then at the end, she had everyone sing to her friend who's birthday was that day.  Lona was hoping for 30 people but it was just the families of the participants.  Thats ok though.
Here are her speeches:

Job just cracks us up sometimes.

This year Job needed a science project for 6th grade.  His question was does weight affect the speed of a boat?  His hypothesis was the more weight the boat has the faster it will travel down stream because there would be more water pushing on more of the boat.  This was our family's first science fair project.  We had a lot to learn.  It was a project that spanned from November to March.  There were due dates along the way and Job had to turn things in a couple of time to learn what was expected with each deadline.  Over Christmas break, John took Job to the Lynden City Park to run his experiment.  They grabbed everything they needed and headed off down the road only to return a few minutes later to get his "boat", a two-litre coke bottle.  They spent a couple of hours sending his boat down the stream and timing it.  The last part of the experiement was making a display board about his experiment.  John helped with the experiment part by wading in the water and catching the boat,  I helped by purchasing the display board, spell checking and proof reading his work.  Job did everything else.  There were a few tears over the whole project but in the end it worked out even though his hypothesis was proven a bust, which in itself is a great lesson.

On a Monday, Job, Lona and I headed up the mountain for some skiing/snowboarding.  It was such a beautiful day and possibly the last time we could go that we had Job skip school.  We weren't disappointed either.  It was a beautiful sunny warm day.   Job and I ski about at the same level and Lona pushes herself.  She loved the black diamond runs.  It isn't pretty but she makes it down and is learning and getting better each time and most importantly she loves it.  Job and I just enjoy being on the mountain and having fun.  Taking these two was a blast. They just get along so well and it helps that they take care of each other. There were a couple of times that I went into the lodge and sent them up the mountain without me.  They slept most of the way home. This was the second time that I brought my nice camera with me.  It is such a contrast with home and I had ideas of photos that I wanted to capture.  I wanted black and white photos of the snow and the trees.  I wanted to capture the kids in an activity that we do a couple of times.  I wanted to capture the sun and the snow because at home it just feels grey. 

The other day Lona just breezed through her school work or so it seemed to me but she started an hour earlier than normal.  So by 11 am she was mostly done and we packed up the little bit of math, her knitting, my camera, and my knitting and hurried out the door to our local coffee shop.  She ordered a Sobe and I a tea (I'm trying to kick the caffeine habit) and found the perfect spot by the window.  The perfect spot because I wanted to recreate a shot I had taken a couple of years earlier and because it was raining and the light was beautiful there.  She finished her math and took out her project. We started it all over and she quickly caught up to where she was in the first place but the stitches were easier to work with since they were looser on the needle. I love the concentration she has when working on her project.  She's knitting a hat for her oldest brother.  He had asked if she would make him a hat in his favorite color with ear flaps so she searched Ravelry.com for a pattern and printed out this one.  She really does like knitting.
I love the lighting in here on a rainy grey day.  The colors of the yarn, the colors of the wall, the side lighting just make magic for me.  She's so willing to help me out and it helps to have her occupied with something else.

Lona gets so into the theme nights at Awana. It's her thing. The best nights though are crazy hair night which means that I need to come up with something crazy. Enter pinterest. A while back Lona was looking through the pinterest board (I can see a future addiction for her) and came across a site about crazy hair.  She pinned it. Hmmm. Anyhow months later, she informs me that it's crazy hair night and she wants to put cones in her hair and have her hair stick out. We found her pin, went to Michaels and within 20 minutes had her hair up and ready to go. We had about 10 minutes for a photo shoot then out the door for Awana. I wish I had better photos.  I may have to have her do this again and really work on the photos. Unfortunately that hairstyle tends to be a little painful when her hair is bumped, it pulls on her hair. The upside to this was that she won for crazy hair night.  Apparently her hair stuck out more than anyone else. She had to go through the doors sideways.  I'm wondering if this might be a fun thing to do at a birthday party.  I'll have to put that in my brain and save it for later, mull on it and think it through.