Take It to the Ice!

The gym where I go during my lunch hour also doubles as an ice skating rink for local hockey teams.  This week I noticed a flyer for open skating and Friday night just happened to be a Susan G. Komen fundraiser event so the women's hockey team was to be there, giveaways, raffle items, etc.

Haylee was having an absolute meltdown when we arrived, it started at 8:00 which is normally her bedtime so that was bad and when we walked in the GVSU mascot was pretty scary too.  So while I tried to calm her down, Jon got the boys out on the ice (without actually going out himself because "falling would hurt") but thankfully one of the hockey players scooped Ryan right up and skated with him for quite a while.

David of course was a pro, he's done the ice skating thing before.  He could go front, back, sideways, upside down and with his eyes closed.  When Jon finally sent Ryan out on the ice alone I ran up to the glass to take some pictures (with Haylee hanging off my leg, ripping the pony tail out of her hair, still bawling her face off for twenty minutes at least) and when I saw the fear on his face, tears started streaming down mine.

{No Fear Here, Only Crazy Eyes}

Ryan fell down quite a few times but David was right there to help him back up.  It was honestly very hard to watch him struggle, his face looked so scared when he would fall and I know that ice was hard enough to crack his head open.  I just kept trying to encourage him when all I really wanted was for him to come back off the ice and sit down!

After about the first hour of watching them skate, Jon finally got Haylee calmed down with some popcorn and Ryan was venturing out on his own...not in the one little corner anymore but all the way around the rink like everyone else and the falls came less and less.  He was pushing around his little cheater bar like a pro!  Jon said that was the point he felt like crying (though of course he didn't) that Ryan had overcome the falls without even thinking about quitting and coming off the ice.

The hockey player chick that toted him around when we got there stopped to tell us she had never seen anyone do so good on their first time out which made us so proud!

{Backwards?  Got It.}

 {Popcorn?  Got It.}

Let me say though his style of skating for the most part was not skating, it was more like running five miles per hour in place and only moving at 1/2 mile per hour doing it.  It looked EXHAUSTING!  He did get better as the night went on and two hours later when it was time to go home, he dropped the bar and skated over to us with no help.  I nearly cried a second time...