Princess of City Skate

Greetings friends and family,

Lots of work going on around the Webb house lately.  Home work for the twins means reading lots of books, completing math problems, and conducting mach spelling bees.  We sent them to Easton's room to read and walked in to find them propped up on their elbows as Easton read his Titanic book.

I'm doing career work trying to button up everything for the year so I can take some vacation days starting Thursday.  I'm also doing ministry work of developing the annual budget for the church.  Not a small task considering I'm using new software and making a lot of big decisions all by my "big boy" self.  Kendra and I are doing ministry work together as we build our leadership team for 2015.  The process is deep, but the reward of seeing lives changed makes it worthwhile.  Kendra is doing house work to prepare for the happy flood of family coming into town soon.  We are so excited for family to be here!

Even with all that busyness going on, Kendra and I stopped the world and spent an evening with just Layla.  I can't remember if we ever have done this before.  Many occasions in the past were one parent and one child, but I'll have to search back through the blog to find the time when both of us took one of the twins out for a whole evening.

I found a Groupon for ice skating in downtown Phoenix.  They block off a city street and build a temporary ice rink right there on the street!  Welcome to City Skate.  The ice was in terrible condition.  It was almost like snow 2 inches deep covering the rink.  Layla couldn't even skate backwards because it was like drudging through a blizzard in a snow storm.  Even so, the experience wasn't about the condition of the ice.  Layla was grateful and happy the entire evening.  We even received one of her famous lines of "this is the best day EVER!"

Layla was the belle of the ball with here skating outfit and personal skates.  she was clearly the best ice skater on the entire rink.  There were kids falling all around us the entire time we were skating.  Even one mom who thought she broke her wrist.  Kendra heard her complaining of the pain so she prayed for her right there on the ice.  She has great faith and believes in miracles!

Kendra skated around the rink several times, but wore a blister on her leg from the less-than-padded rental skates.  Kendra is in focus, but Layla is a blur because of her speedy movements.

In the middle of the rink there is a huge tree lit up.  This is my favorite picture of the week because Layla's expression shows just how special she felt.

I skated around with her many times as well and never fell even once!  chalk one up for the old guy.  The two of us skated around holding hands and even throwing in a dual leg-lift swan move to show off a bit.  Hey, confidence is valuable when it's warranted.

I asked Layla if we could get a picture with the rink in the background.  She voluntarily gave me a big kiss on the cheek.  I am the richest person in the world because I have this.

We skated about an hour and then walked next door to Squid Ink Sushi.  The three of us sat at the sushi bar with Layla in the middle.  We talked to the sushi guy who made our night special.  We shared a big plate of raw fish, sashimi.  The sushi guy was impressed how our six-year-old Layla happily ate raw octopus, salmon, and tuna.

He even made a special hand-carved fruit dessert from an orange.  The eyes on the panda bear are suckers from an octopus tentacle.  Layla pulled them off and ate them first!

Easton spent the evening with our friends who have an 8 year old boy.  He was neck deep in legos and pizza.  He was having so much fun that we had to ask a couple of times for him to stop playing and get his gear ready to go home.  The night was a success on so many levels.

Even in the midst of one of the busiest weeks of the year we blocked out time for Layla.  This is a great example of how people take time for what's important.  words simply aren't enough.  They sure help, but our actions are the true gauge of what we believe is important.

Easton's turn is coming up this next week.  :)

See you soon!