Slip-sliding, or, what happens when a bunch of native Californians contemplate a frozen lake

Both Ryan and I grew up in Northern California.  It snowed my freshman year of high school and that was the only time in my growing up years it was cold enough for water to freeze. 

Here in our town, we have a lake.  Ryan and I were running by it on Christmas Day and noticed a ton of people WALKING ON THE LAKE.  We talked to some different people about it and they told us that “Oh yeah, we took our kids down there.  Even without ice skates, it’s fun to run and slip around on the ice.”  Everyone acted like WE were the weird ones because we were nervous about it, so we decided to take the whole family down.

   

My mom and sister were with us and I’m sure we would have appeared comical to any born-and-raised Northerners, because we were all a little terrified.

Me:  “Wait, wait!  Don’t go out that far!”

Emma:  “Mom!  There are kids playing ice hockey, farther out than us!”

Grandma:  “Why are there all these little fissures in the ice, if it’s so safe?”

Asking every skater, dog walker and sledder that we passed: “You’ve been doing this for a while and you’re sure it’s okay?”

We went to take a group shot and we seriously heard the ice crack.  You should have seen us (the adults) scurry off of that spot, like we were being shot at.  I was, truly, preparing myself for the plunge into the icy depths and imagining how I’d keep Faith above water. 

We were fine.  (And aren’t these pictures cool?)

The kids ran and played.  Seth was our first casualty—I think he was a bad combination of limited coordination but not enough padding.

Faith had plenty of padding and was thrilled with the frozen lake. 

    

And tried to lick the ice constantly.

Emma, after being our most intrepid, fell and had a nasty bruise. 

Grandma and Bekah got cold and, ignoring complaints from Gabe, we headed for home.

  

So we’re getting out our hockey gear and ice skates; we’re true Northerners now, eh?