Shh, Don't Tell Talisman

Normally, we only get to go ice skating a few times a year if we are lucky (usually it is more like once every two years). We have tried making our own rinks, involving sheets of plastic and a few two-by-fours, but they never worked out very well. Dad dug us a pond once, but there was always a baby keeping Mom inside so she couldn't watch us. There was also grandma and grandpa's pond, but uncle Tom and aunt Linda got a bunch of ducks, which were very cute and fun to feed bread crusts too, but they kept the pond from freezing. So, despite the fact that I live in northern PA where it is below freezing 6-8 months out of the year (okay fine, it's more like 5 months out of the year, but let me exaggerate), I have never had a very regular ice skating experience.

That shall be no more. At least while I'm on Christmas break and don't have deadlines holding me to a computer. Because, you see, the gas company (Talisman) has two containment areas up on the gas pad. Which are not being used. The gas men are only here in little spurts every month, so we have it all to ourselves. Well, those containment areas have filled with water, and Sanna and I discovered that the water--it's a good foot thick--has turned to ice. We immediately thought, "Let's go get the ice skates!" So that is what we have been doing: ice skating. I don't care if it is probably illegal (actually I doubt they would mind), because it is so much fun. And it is fun for free, which is about the only type of fun we can afford right now hahahaha. It's a great space--about 25% of the size of the Corning rink, but it has about 95% less people skating on it, so technically you have more room.

And you don't need to be embarrassed if you fall (which I haven't actually done lol), and you can follow through with that urge to sing a few lines very badly at the top of your lungs from that hymn that suddenly and randomly popped into your head (said hymn happened to be "When We all Get to Heaven").

So here are some pictures:

 Pretty big huh?

 Misha playing in the drifts. The wind is crazy hard! If you stood in one place on the ice facing east, you would move--not just a little, but seriously fast. It was crazy. If only we had some sails, and more ice....that would be fun. Haha, but when you turned around to skate west, it was hard! You had to crouch down and pump your arms to make any headway.

 "One for the album" as Wallace would say.

 Sanna getting towed on the inner tube.

    A leaf under the ice.

Last night we went to Jordan's 18th birthday. Due to the weather the only people there were Andrew, Isaac, Jennifer, Jared, and I. But it was nice that way, I think, because you can actually all interact with each other without bouncing from one person to the next. Mom and Dad were *this close* to not letting us go, because Christmas day a 16 year old girl from the local high school died in a car accident, and the same day some friends of ours, the Kaplinger kids, were in an accident too. The guy my age was driving, and he lost control and ran into one of those big water trucks that haul for the gas people. His sister, just a little older than me, was okay aside from some bruises and a seatbelt burn, but his older brother got knocked up pretty bad, and he himself is still in the ICU. So, if mom and dad ever let me drive again this winter, I will be very surprised.