We are family.

Here in Canada, we don’t celebrate President’s Day. I’m sure that the Canadians have a healthy amount of respect for Presidents Washington and Lincoln, but not enough to take a day off of work. What we do celebrate in the dreary month of February, however, is a day called Family Day. I’m not entirely clear on its origins or anything, but I think it’s basically just a long weekend and you can like, do shit with your family?

We decided that for Family Day this year we’re just going to spend time out on the ice. As much as possible. But today we had to run all over the damn town to find another set of bob skates for Bianca because the online inventory checker thing on Canadian Tire’s website is a BIG FAT LIAR and just because it says that one location has multiple pairs in stock, it does not in fact mean that they will have them in stock. Just in case you were wondering.

But I digress.

After a long day of errand running and then mall wandering (including a LIVE SHOW with MIKE THE KNIGHT which yes, was as horrible and screamy as it sounds like it would be, thank the good lord that after about 4 minutes the girls were just all “He’s too loud, can we go sit on the other side of the food court?”) we finally got home with a new hat for Nate, new skates for Bianca, a new hockey stick for Fiona, and middle child syndrome for poor Violet.

Nate dug the firepit out from underneath a few feet of snow, I made up some hot cocoa, and we hit the ice.

Violet is really loving those double-bladed skates. (She has a pair of regular hockey skates, but sort of appropriated Bianca’s, hence the need for another pair) She’s so much more confident on them, and really gets around the ice.

Fiona is doing a great job in her regular hockey skates, she hardly falls, but when she does she applies the same attitude she brought to the whole bike-riding thing and just stands back up and keeps going. She is thrilled that we found some hockey sticks that are her size. The toy ones we had were too small, and Nate’s obviously too big, but today we located a few that are perfect. She can’t wait to have a friend over to play with her.

Last night when we went skating with the neighbors, Bianca did not yet have blades. So she just toddled around in her boots on the ice. We were shocked at how sure on her feet she was, just sliding around. We figured that would translate well into skating once we got blades on her, but her interest level was minimal this evening. Though that may have had more to do with the fact that she was operating on nothing more than a couple of car naps. But she did love the cocoa breaks.

And wow. I don’t think it would be out of line for me to say that that is the most perfectly adorable family picture we’ve taken in some time. My little hockey/figure skating, crazy/silly/sweet, American-Canadian family. It may be grainy (I mean noisy. I grew up on film, sorry.) and a bit oddly colored due to less than optimal lighting conditions, but I’d still say that one gets a print.

Happy Family Day, everyone.