Aaron and some dad friends built an ice skating rink in our back yard--after much internet research and many email exchanges. The back patio, which is almost completely enclosed and flat, was the perfect base for the plastic and wooden rink. They built the frame and then turned on the hose and hoped for the best. A couple of day of freezing cold weather and it worked! After three days, we had a back yard ice rink just in time for Abraham's 5th birthday. And we are some of the very few people who actually get excited when the temperature gets to the single digits.
Having ice so close to home does nothing to put the damper on Abraham (or Aaron's) obsession with hockey and skating but it is making some pretty darn good skaters out of both the kids. Angelo is permanently assigned to the position of goalie, a job he takes very seriously while Abraham mainly works on puck handling and taking shots. I get to skate in between "time periods" because that's when the figure skaters come on.
Here's the rink in action:
