Ice Fishing with Friends

Usually when we all go ice fishing as a family, we make the kids play together and that's that. Once in a while we let them each bring a friend, and that's what we did a few weekends ago. The prospect of bringing their friends fishing made them pretty happy.

We stopped and picked up Amy (Kate's BFF and our neighbor) first, then drove into town to get Maddie (Emily's buddy).

With six people in the car, Emily had to sit up front with us (which she was quite pleased about as you can tell), but there was unfortunately no room for Molly to come along.

The girls started out by all getting along...

...but they quickly paired off.

While Mom and Mama started setting up the traps...

...the girls all made a beeline for a nearby downed tree, which Em and Kate had named "The Trampoline Tree" on a previous ice fishing trip.

Conflicts between the two pairs began to surface at the tree, where each group fought to access the high branches.

At the start the only kid really interested in fishing was Amy. She helped Mama set up some of the holes, and asked lots of questions about the bait.

We use live bait, and it was while baiting hooks that we realized that Amy is quite fond of ALL fish. She couldn't understand why it was okay to put a hook through a small fish in hopes that a larger fish would come and eat it. In fact it quickly became apparent that Amy's goal was not to catch fish, but to free all the fish. From that point on, we had to really watch her around the bait bucket.

Once the fish started to bite, the girls really got interested. Although we had set up a rotation for whose turn it was to pull the line, they all still wanted to race to every flag.

Although the flags were tipping, the fish weren't staying on the line. We pulled up a lot of empty hooks with stolen bait.

Kate finally landed a pickerel, but we always throw those back, so off he swam.

In between racing after flags, the girls sat around the fire socializing...

...and tossing down oreos (a family ice-fishing tradition).

On one of Maddie's turns she caught a big pickerel...

...which she promptly decided that she wanted to keep. This led to some conflict with Amy, who REALLY wanted the pickerel to be able to swim back to his family under the ice.

The girls were placated with some toasted marshmallows...

...and by the news that Mom had caught a (tiny) brook trout, which she would be keeping despite Amy's protests.

When Mama pulled up yet another pickerel and decided to kill it and leave it on the ice for the eagles (so it wouldn't steal our bait anymore), Amy and Kate set up a shrine for it.

Despite the conflict between the kids, everyone managed to have a pretty good time ice fishing. Maddie's mom was quite surprised when we dropped her off back at home with a big pickerel!

New Cat Climber

It is possible that we now have the most spoiled two cats in Maine.

Hello Flo

At the risk of invading Emily's privacy, the time has come to face the fact that our oldest child is on the cusp of puberty. Some changes are already starting to happen--in the last few months we have been bra shopping, we have endured plenty of mood swings and eye-rolling, and we recently introduced deodorant into her bathroom routine. But the BIG event has yet to start.

We (all of us) really want to be prepared when the time comes, so we went online and found a precious little period starter kit from a company named "Hello Flo". Why didn't they have this when we were pre-teens?

The kit has several different sizes of pads (but no tampons), a discreet bag for carrying them, face lotion, pretty bracelets, some "mood calming" fruit chews,...

...and some literature for her, and also for us. Although we have talked about this subject plenty with both kids, the pamphlets were well-written and aimed right at her level.

We have no idea when the big event will kick off (we know of at least one of her classmates who is already there), but with this little kit tucked away in Emily's closet, we all feel just a little bit more prepared for it.

Watching Football at Nana's

As our faithful blog readers know, we can't watch sporting events at home because we don't have a TV. When the Patriots made it all the way to the AFC Championship game, we just had to watch it, so we invited ourselves over to Nana's house, even though she was out of town.
The girls were excited to watch the game (they are finally starting to understand and be interested in football--yay!) but they also brought plenty of dolls to play with to pass the time.

It turned out that the dolls were interested in football too!

Even though the Pats lost, we still enjoyed watching the game with all of our little friends.

Backyard Skating

This has been a tough year for the backyard rink. Mom has had to travel for work quite a bit, which means that she has not been around to maintain the surface. Mama does a great job, but sometimes shoveling snow off the rink takes a back burner to all the other chores she has to do. Despite all that, we have been able to get some use out of it.

The unseasonably warm start of winter meant that the rink didn't even get filled until January 3rd. With the length extension that Mom added this year, the deep end got REALLY deep (almost 18"!), so the water took a long time to freeze. Mom was quite relieved to find that the tarp could hold it.

Thankfully, the kids haven't needed the ice to be perfect for them to skate on it. They have gone out on it regardless, which Mom loves to see.

Emily's skates from last year don't fit her anymore, but luckily we were able to get her a free pair from our hockey club's "swap" equipment so she can skate too.

It is really fun to watch them play together. They are at the age now where they don't even demand that Mom plays too--at least not every time.

Kate will even skate by herself on occasion. She has been working hard on lifting the puck when she shoots, and now that she has had some success at it, it's all she wants to do if Emily isn't joining in.

Mom has a plan to buy a couple of cowbells and hang them in the upper corners of the goal, so Kate has a target to shoot at--fun!

Mites Tournament in Auburn

Kate's hockey team hasn't had many games this season (it's a long story), but they did get to play in a big 2-day tournament in January. It was in Auburn--which is about an hour south of us--and their first game on Saturday was at 7:10, so Mom and Kate had an early wake-up call and breakfast in the car.

Mom expected Kate to fall asleep on the drive, but who can fall asleep after eating a frosted pop tart? Not Kate or Hunny Bunny.

The tournament was at the Norway Savings Bank Arena, which is a very nice 2-rink facility.

Our faithful blog readers are well aware of the fact that Kate is not a morning person, so it should not surprise anyone that she had some difficulty getting dressed for her first game. Let's just say it was hard to put on her hockey pants over her cranky pants.

She eventually came around to the happy side (a promise of candy after the game helped).

Kate's Mites group has two teams--Black and White. She is on the White team, and Mom is one of the coaches as well.

All the kids were super-excited for their first game, despite the early hour. The structure of the tournament was a round-robin on the first day, followed by two single-elimination brackets on the second day, with the champion taking home a trophy. It was the first time our Mites had ever competed in a tournament that kept score and actually named a winner. There were 28 teams in the tournament, so Mom was (quietly) pretty sure that we wouldn't be bringing home a trophy, but you never know.

The tournament setup was 4 vs. 4 with goalies, and we had ten kids, so that meant that the substitutions were kind of tricky. With one extra skater, and the mandate that everyone should get equal playing time, our lines were constantly changing. One kid had to sit out two shifts in a row each time, and this had to be assigned equally to all the kids, so Mom took charge of tracking it and telling which kid to sit when.

Our first game ended in a loss, and then we had four hours to kill before game #2. Luckily, the facility had a nice warm area upstairs between the rinks that we could hang out in.

Some folks went to the nearby mall to kill time, but Mom had brought a camping sleeping pad, blanket, and pillows so we could make a little "nest" and just hang out. She also brought some snacks and trashy "teen beat" style magazines, which were captivating to Kate.

There were lots of things to do besides snacking and reading. There were plenty of games, so Kate got in on the air hockey with her teammates...

...and she played some table hockey too.

Finally it was time for our second game! Mom's co-coach, Troy, gathered the kids together to talk strategy. Troy is quite a competitive guy, and there was a small conflict between his vision for the day and Mom's. Troy wanted to "stack" the lines and sit out the less-talented kids more, so we would have a better chance to win, while Mom insisted on playing each kid equally.

We ended up agreeing on equal rotations for Saturday, then some minimal line-stacking on sunday (Saturday's games determined seeding, but every team made the playoff bracket on Sunday).

We lost our second game too, and ended up winning just two out of our six games that day.

The kids all really improved a lot--it was kind of amazing to see their development over just one day. Some of the things that we have been working all season to eliminate in practices (like stealing the puck from your own teammate, or throwing a blind pass right up the middle in front of the goal) totally went away during the day of competition.

They really bonded as a team, too. Hanging out between games, sharing "goal-scoring" cookies,...

...and pre-game stretching as a group (not initiated by the coaches, but by the players themselves) all brought them closer together as teammates.

Here is a team photo of the white team, a really nice bunch of kids.

After the final game on Saturday, Mom and Kate had yet another big adventure planned. The Portland Pirates (Maine's minor league pro hockey team) was hosting our youth hockey club for their game that night. The kids would be getting to play a short 5-minute game during the first intermission, and they would get to form a "high five" tunnel for the Pirates during the second intermission. So, despite our exhaustion after playing in the tournament all day, Mom and Kate headed south to Portland for the Pirates game.
Mom had reserved a hotel room right next to the Pirates home arena, so at least we didn't have to worry about parking.

Kate was thrilled with the hotel room (we had a nice view of the harbor), and also with the "fancy" restaurant in the lobby where we ate dinner. The photo below captures the moment when she realized that the small white packets were full of real sugar. She might even have stuffed some of those in her pockets for later.

At the game we were seated with our CMYHA buddies, which was fun.

Kate had become friends with her teammate Elli during the day's games, so she was happy to sit with her to watch the Pirates.

Part way through the first period, we all went down to the locker room to get ready.

After the buzzer sounded, and the Pirates players finished walking to their locker room, the kids got to walk down the long hallway...

...and take the ice! They looked really tiny on that huge ice surface, in that giant arena.

As a coach, Mom got to skate on the big ice too, and she tried to get a lot of pictures. We had decided to let all the kids play at once instead of doing substitutions (since we only had five minutes) so there was quite a crowd of kids out there.

The Pirates announcer was announcing the kids' goals and plays too, which made it really fun. The crowd even got into it, cheering for all the good plays.

Kate said afterwards that she loved playing on the big ice, in front of all those people.

At the end of our ice time we had to stand to the side of the boards while the zamboni came on, and Mom was able to get one quick photo of the whole group.

We went back to our seats to watch the rest of the game, and were surprised by a visit from Salty Pete, the Pirates' mascot!

Our seats were pretty good--we had a great view of the action when it was down in our end.

We got to see a few goals, as the Pirates pulled out a victory.

At the end of the second intermission, the kids got even closer to the Pirates when they made the high five tunnel (Kate is #27 in the foreground of the photo below, right next to Elli). All the kids were surprised at how big the Pirate players were, especially standing in their skates and gear.

We found out during the Pirates game that our White team was seeded 23rd (out of 28 teams), and wouldn't be playing until 10:00 the next morning in Auburn. That meant that in the morning we got to sleep in, which was much-needed rest.

After checking out of the hotel, we stopped at Dunkin Donuts for breakfast (more fun!)...

...and headed back to the rink.

Our expectations were low, because of our results on the first day, but the kids were still happy and excited to be playing.

We started out the day by winning our first game, which was a major upset! We then went on to lose our second game, and thus drop out of the tournament, but the thrill of beating a good team still made it a good memory for our kids.

Kate was happy that besides having fun playing hockey, she also finally made a good friend on the team in Elli. They really hit it off!

We headed north towards home after saying our goodbyes. Kate was chatty for awhile...

...but most of the drive home ended up being pretty quiet.