Early Morning Skating

Lara has started the next level in the Canadian skating programme, she's moved up from CanSkate to StarSkate. This is something that's decided by the coaches, and they invite children to move up to this level, so this is a promising thing for Lara. It means more commitment, she has to put more hours of practise in, but she gets more one-on-one time with her coach too.  The best way to give Lara the time on the ice to practise, and to fit it in with school during the week and skiing at the weekend, and also to allow us time for Dan too, is for Lara to skate before school.
So now, usually once a week, Lara skates between 6.15 and 8am. This means an alarm call at 5.15, and we have to get Dan up too, so Olga or I take Lara to skating, get her onto the ice, then take Dan to nursery, then back to the rink to watch her. As a treat we take her to her choice of fast food place for breakfast. At the moment that means Subway, which is fine. She's moved on from kid's sandwiches in there to a proper 6" ham sub.
For this week, and the next two Mondays, Lara will be doing pre-school skating twice a week - her usual morning is Thursday. This is because she'll be going to hospital to have her hernia repaired on the 11th February, and will have at least two weeks off all sporting activity, so we want her to make some good progress and get settled into the morning routine. Hopefully she will see the benefit too in doing a lot of skating in the next few weeks (she also has an after-school lesson on Wednesdays) so she is keen to return to action as soon as her surgeon gives her the OK.
Yesterday morning was my first morning session, and Lara's third, having missed last week with her cold. I took a few photos and videos..





We're trying to keep it a fun experience for her, and not pressure her into going. She does enjoy it, and she will only benefit from the ice time, and mixing with the older girls during these morning sessions. Yesterday there was Lara, the coach and three teenage girls, and Lara spent the most time of them all on the ice. The older girls are really nice to Lara, high-fiving her when they get together to do some group practice work, and not belittling her at all. They must remember how they felt when they were Lara's age. The one girl that was left at the end of Lara's ice time helped out with the coaching, which was good for her as well as Lara:



We know Lara isn't a prodigy, but everyone's got to start somewhere, and so long as she wants to go to lessons, we'll try to make sure she goes as often as we can fit in, and she'll reach a standard where she realises that she's actually really good at it, and loves skating, and then early mornings won't be a hassle at all. For her, anyway... :-)

A weekend off

We had an enforced weekend off this weekend, as Lara has come down with a bad cold. It started on Tuesday, she went to school on Wednesday, but by the time Olga picked her up from school to take her to her skating lesson, she was feeling really bad and we decided it wouldn't help her if we made her go skating.
This also meant a lie-in on Thursday, instead of a 5.30am alarm call. Lara has moved up now in to the "StarSkate" program, which means more one-on-one coaching time, and more practice time on the ice, but the easiest way to achieve this is for Lara to practice, and have some coaching time, before school. So she now has a skating session on Thursday mornings from 6.15 to 8am, which involves 15 minutes of one-on-one time with her coach, and some group coaching and some time when Lara can just practice what she needs to work on.
By Saturday afternoon she was still very poorly, and whilst putting a brave face on things, it was clear she wouldn't get any better if we took her out to Nakiska for her skiing lesson, so we had a weekend at home, getting some jobs done, recycling some old clothes and toys, and I even managed to take down the christmas lights from outside the house. The tree had gone to the dump straight after New Year!
I'd already bought some steaks that I had planned to cook on the firepit at the trailer, so the next best thing was to fire up the BBQ here at home and cook them on that. Fortunately the weather is very mild at the moment, above freezing in the daytime and only a little below at night. We can see more grass than snow!

A Christmas break at the trailer

Between Christmas and New Year we had a long weekend at the trailer, arriving on Boxing Day and leaving on the 30th December. It was nice to be able to unpack for a little longer than usual and get settled there, though it was a little colder than we would have liked, varying between -10 and -25 deg C.
Lara had a double session of ski lessons, with a full day on Saturday as well as the usual Sunday lesson, then on Monday we had a change of scene and went to Canmore for brunch, on the way to Lake Louise to do some skating on the lake in front of the chateau hotel. It was -25 out on the ice, and we took it in turns to take Dan into the hotel for a warm up, where he loved the big model railway they have in the reception area. Lara demonstrated some of her developing skating skills, and even I stayed up on my skates for a few circuits. Even the dogs came along for a run about on the lake, although always on their leads - there are too many tasty little animals running around, and at -25 you don't want to be trying to chase down a single-minded terrier through a forest!

We stopped in Canmore again on the way back to the trailer so the kids could use the prepared sledging hill at the nordic centre there. It's free, and there are no queues when it's that cold!

Dan enjoyed kicking his sledge down the slope rather than riding on it, but then Lara liked the challenge of chasing and catching the runaway sledge. So they were both happy!

I was determined to have a campfire no matter how cold it was, until it was time to go inside for a fondue..

Hernia today, gone tomorrow (well, February)

Back to earth with a bump today. After her 7th birthday yesterday, today we booked Lara in for a hernia repair in February. The Alberta Children's Hospital is the brightest, most cheerful looking hospital I've seen though! The inside matches the outside, too.

I'm not sure how it would have worked under the NHS, but once Lara had been assessed today by a surgeon, they agreed it required surgery to resolve, and they commit to scheduling the operation within 3 months. We have a certain amount of say in the matter, and we've picked a date just before Lara breaks up for half term, so she can recuperate at home. She's to avoid exercise for 2 weeks after, and she'll only miss one ski lesson, although she will miss more skating sessions. It's only a day procedure, no overnight stay needed, and Lara gets to choose the smell they'll use to disguise the anaesthetic gas. She's agonising between candy cane and bubblegum at the moment...

Happy 7th Birthday, Lara

Lara turned 7 today, she enjoyed opening her presents before school, with Danil's help - he was a bit confused, and thought it was his birthday too. Grandma joined us via skype for the big unwrapping session. Lara took her cookies to school, and then came home to a little party here. Dan enjoyed helping blow out the candles, and we had to re-light them several times so they could both have a go at blowing them out again.

Yesterday was Lara's school Christmas Concert, which was streamed live on the internet, so Grandma and Baba Luda and Aunty Lucy could watch. Olga and I tuned in too to the afternoon matinee. There's Lara, in the middle row, second from right: