Kids Day Out

Madison was extra nice today - although that is her assignment from Mrs. Pam (extra nice gets an extra gift), she didn't actually think of rewards when she chose to help out a fellow skater who was trying to learn how to skate.  During one break, the two stopped alongside the rink, where Daddy took this nice picture.

Initially Madison herself couldn't skate on her own so much.  This is the story of parenthood in a nutshell though:  two laps with Daddy, and then one with him nearby.  Then he was dismissed.  Yep, just like that.

So as you've probably gathered, today was the big roller skating trip with the church.  A few hundred KidPak kids joined us at the roller skating rink from noon to four o'clock for an afternoon of fun.  There was the usual hokey-pokey, the elimination game, skating in reverse, and cardboard pizza.  This was easily the worst pizza I think I've ever had in my entire life.  But the kids were anxious to get back on the rink anyway, so they endured the 'pizza' and rolled back onto the rink.

Here's Madison with a kind friend who was in turn helping her skate as well.  Later the two were helping that third girl, holding her up as she tried to make her way around the rink.

It was a fun afternoon - Daddy was rollerskating with the staff and volunteers as well, a great circle of friends.  We were all helping kids around, or snapping photos, or just generally helping people out.  Did you know that sixteen laps around the rink equals one mile?  That said, we were going roughly four miles in an hour, as I figured it took about a minute to get around the rink - there were lots of obstacles in the way.

Bottom line, we were all pretty exhausted upon returning to the house.  Add to this the fact that we got there to the church pretty early:  this morning we had Easter production practice.  Mommy was matching costumes with various characters, and largely organizing all the props and Bible robes for a good part of the day.

But we all connected at the end, and came home quite tired.  Madison finished her piano practice early this week, which was just awesome.  She's doing a song, "The Secret Box," which is a lovely little tune we hope to record soon.  Madison is doing well with that song, and hopes to play it for the spring recital.

She played pieces of that - and we've got seven weeks to go until the recital - so if that's the song she's going to play, we're in decent shape.

Tonight, we revisited "Meet the Robinsons" once more.  It's a movie about an orphan, and about time travel, and about "keep moving forward."  It's a great movie.  The director himself was adopted, and there were moments we were wondering about Madison, and if she was relating at all to Lewis' experience being left at an orphanage so long ago.  Neither character remembers that early in life, although Lewis eventually invents a machine that helps him remember that far back.  Madison hasn't quite gotten that far with inventions yet, although we did mention she's good with fractions!

Anyway, it was a nice evening together.  And an early night to bed, given that all the roller skating we did today sort of tired everyone out.  We're up early tomorrow for church - another big day!