Merry Christmas!  After all the gift-opening and socializing with family and friends, I got my son all geared up and headed out to check on my work.  The parts that were slushy two days ago have frozen over partially, though the temps yesterday hovered in the mid-30’s.  They’ve been sitting at about 30 degrees today, which gave me hope that the ice would be skateable.  My son, obviously, loved it.  We walked back and forth across the frozen end as my dad watched from the side.  My wife stood on the deck and took pictures.  We were in boots, and where I still didn’t trust myself on skates without the rink being fully frozen, my son and his 35-pound frame were supported just fine.  So I summoned my wife to get his skates, and we put them on.  He was delighted.  For weeks we’ve been telling him about “his rink,”, and my story of “RJ the amazing hockey player, the player who has his own rink” has been a staple story of bedtime for three weeks now.  To have him in his size 6 Bauers, wobbling around on his own sheet, holding my hands so tight while Pepere looks on from the snowy sidelines…I made sure to make a mental note of how awesome this was.  He’s been on the ice before in a rink, but I know I’ll look back on Christmas Day 2008 as our first skate together on our backyard rink.  Considering the shape the ice was in two days ago, it’s a true Christmas miracle.

Temps for tonight are cold, and I’m planning on coming out and working on the snowy/slushy end again tonight, hoping to get some more ice before a major thaw this weekend.