Ice Boats

So... due to our abundance of ice and cold and lack of snow Quentin and Joshua decided to build themselves iceboats.  Ever since they've had them made we haven't had any good wind till yesterday so we spent all day out sailing them.  They're a ton of fun.  You can really get going across the lake.  Caleb had to get three stitches yesterday when a big gust of wind hit him while he was trying to turn and knocked the beam into his head.  But he was back out sailing again a couple hours later, tough guy.

Caleb, before he got smacked in the head.

Joshua

Joshua taking Sarah for a ride.

Joshua and Sarah

Quentin and Geronimo putting up the sail on Quentin's boat.

Quentin and Caleb

Deborah

The pretty moon.

Our neighbor Bob, landing his plane on the lake.

Hanukkah Celebration & Caleb's Birthday

The day we left Grandma Effie's happened to be the last day of Hanukkah. Our friends, the Froeses', were having a Hanukkah celebration near Winnipeg.  So, we spent the afternoon and evening celebrating with them.  We spent the afternoon talking about the book of Daniel then we ate supper.

After supper we lit the Hanukkiyas. 

All the kids.

Afterwards we did some dancing.

The next day we started heading up to Alaska, visiting a few more friend on the way.

Benjamin and Sarah

The 31st was Caleb's birthday.  We worked it out to spend his birthday and shabbat in Whitehorse, Canada.

He turned nine and we had cake, snug in our motor home with all the windows frosted over.  

Being as how his birthday is on New Years Eve everyone celebrates his birthday.  The Canada Games Centre celebrated it with a huge New Years party.  Everything was free and they had snacks, games in the soccer field, a dance, an obstacle course set up in the pool, free skates for the ice rink, fire works and a bunch of other stuff.  It was a lot of fun.

The obstacle course was harder then it looks:P

Sarah and Benjamin had trouble with skates.

We even talked dad into going ice skating.

Caleb's 8th Birthday

Caleb turned 8 years old. He's a smart boy and my favorite saying for him is that, "wisdom is more important than knowledge." It is a pleasure to watch that take hold and mature him bit by bit.

He got a gun for hunting with our Wii during our once a week game times.

We recently had our good friends the Davis' from Port Alsworth, the next village up the lake, drop in on us with their super cub. They landed on the lake right by the house. Below is Jackson, one of their five boys.

We had a wonderful visit. The ice was perfect for hockey that day.

Quentin chasing the puck.

They brought along some cookie dough and we all enjoyed eating the cookies the boys made.

Sde Boker, Haircuts and School

Kelly took some good pictures of Abigail and the tent Paul helped put up while they were in Sde Boker. I borrowed a couple from her blog "the Glik Family Journal" you can find it on my right sidebar. Below is Abigail with the Glik's oldest daughter Kai and the Travis' two girls Carmen and Mikki. All of the families Abigail and Paul stayed with while they were in Israel had girls right around Abigail's age. She made many new friends and it made the trip even more special.

Paul and Abigail were able to attend a Father's Heart Conference while they were in Sde Boker. Paul helped Mike set up the tent they held the meetings in.

Paul is the official haircutter in our house. He loves precision work. The boys were in great need of haircuts by the time he got home. Anna wanted to learn to cut hair so Paul is teaching her how. Homeschool Haircutting 101... Joshua was the brave recipient of Anna's first haircut.
It's minus 3 degrees outside as I write this . The ice got thick enough that they marked it. Once they mark it the kids are free to play on it. A pair of ice skates just my size came into the thrift store and the kids talked me into going out with them. It's been a long time since I've been on skates. We didn't do to much of it growing up in North Carolina... I didn't fall down though, Yea!!!
Abigail has been getting back into the routine of our regular schooling, which is not very regular at all, after her wonderful field trip to Israel. She is very much like her Dad in so many ways... The picture below gives a good example of that. Paul loves a nice sharp pencil whenever he has to use one. I had to chuckle and take a picture of Abigail as she was working at the table with seven pencils (count them) all sharpened to a fine point. I asked her why she needed so many and she told me she wouldn't be able to finish her math and science without that many because they got dull so fast.
It's hard to keep good pencils with eight brothers and sisters. The next day I found Abigail working with only four pencils because someone had helped themselves to her stash.

Freeze Up

Every year the ice freezes in the creek first. Below you can see the water still flowing under the ice.As the creek flows into the lake, the frozen portion extends further and further out into the lake. The creek has a nice slope to it, and the kids love sledding and even skating down the creek as far as the ice will allow until the lake freezes. For the Grandmas out there, the water is actually quite shallow where it meets the ice and the kids rarely get too wet.

It got quite cold and the ice got thick fast during a time when there was no precipitation. It made beautiful ice. You could walk on it and see fish swimming right under your feet, very cool!

Below, Paul is demonstrating to Benjamin the finer points of spinning the Honda and making donuts on the smooth ice.

Caleb is examining his reflection in the ice as he works to perfect his ice skating form.

Freeze up also allows Paul to land on the lake and park right by the house. It makes it much easier to heat the plane before flying it. Instead of dragging a generator to the airport he can plug an extension cord into the shop.


The pristine condition of the lake never lasts long and the kids have to get out with shovels and clear off a spot to ice skate.

Making an Ice Rink

The kids decided to make an ice rink this year.  They got a lot of good exercise clearing off the snow.  

They got a submersible pump to try and flood the rink to make it smooth.  However, the ice was so thick this year they had to go a long ways out to get to where the ice wasn't frozen right to the ground.  They made the rink too close to the shore so the bigger hose wouldn't reach.  They attached a garden hose which reached but they couldn't get enough pressure going through and it soon froze. (The submersible pump came in handy though when we lost running water to the house.  Our front loading washing machine needs 5 lbs. of pressure to run.  So, we filled up totes of water and put the pump in them and ran a hose to the washing machine.  We've got good water pressure now, Praise God!  We're supposed to boil it to drink because they are pumping it straight from the lake....  Maybe they'd let us borrow their huge, long hose with the powerful pump:) That would flood the ice rink in no time!)

Anna giving David and Benjamin a wild ride on the ice.

Ice Skating Pictures

Here are the Pictures of us ice skating on the airport ramp :)

Playing hockey with one hockey stick :)

Lots of fun :)