Trying Hockey

I take millions of pictures of my sleeping baby. I can't help it! And then when she smiles, I can't get enough!!

Several weeks ago, I got an e-mail that March 3 was a "Try Hockey for free" event going on across America. The ice ring right up the street from our house was participating and kids ages 4-13 could try hockey for free. Since going to hockey games at the academy and watching the Olympics, the boys have been obsessed with hockey. I asked Eli if he would like to participate and he was so excited. We got to the rink Saturday morning and there were lots of people. It was noisy and crowded and cold. Eli and Aaron rented the equipment and then went into the locker room to change. They came out and Eli wasn't dressed. Aaron had started to dress Eli and then he said he didn't want to do it any more. 

We tried reminding Eli how excited he was for this, but he wasn't convinced so we decided to go. As we were leaving, we ran into Cash Bitter from church. Cash was almost ready to go out into the ice and it convinced Eli to give it a try. Aaron helped him get on the equipment (a win in our eyes!!) and we walked him over to the rink. The volunteers had buckets on the ice that the kids could hold onto to learn to skate. We didn't explain to Eli very well how to hold onto the buckets and then Aaron had forgotten to put on Eli's gloves! Poor kid tried for several times to get up on the ice but was having a hard time. He looked at me with the biggest tears falling from his face and said he wanted to go home. It made me cry!! 

He got off the ice and said he was freezing. It was a learning experience for all of us! As we talked about it once we got home, Eli said, "Mom, did you see how brave I was?" Brave, indeed! We talked about how it's scary to try to new things, but we have to get back up again. We also made a plan to try ice skating a few more times as a family before going back to the ice rink again to try hockey.