Family Alive

Today we had another fun adventure – ice skating! We had errands to run in Rice Lake (about 20 miles away), so we worked it out for me to bike down there on some nice backroads for a good 32 mile ride. It was COLD. The air temps were in the lower teens, but the wind was just unbelievable. I only had Kristine’s iphone with me to take these pictures, otherwise I would have taken video of the snow blowing across the road at 20mph. The outdoor ice skating pond was in not so good shape after the rain on Christmas day. It has been super cold since then, but the ice wasn’t very even.

Ice Skating Princesses

	My favorite picture of Analise and Kristine, the ice princesses
	Analise the ballerina ice skater
	We didn’t exactly follow instructions, but they were getting ready to take down the signs anyway (we saw a bunch of people ice skating on it after lunch)
	Three clips together here … Analise and Kristine almost wipe out at the end.
	Refueling at a midwestern favorite – Culver’s
	Josiah and me
	In Wisconsin – cheese is an art!

Mountain Biking Adventure

	Here’s the annotated topocreator route.
	Lots of long straight flat icy snowy roads – the challenge is finding a smooth line and riding as fast as you can without falling
	Some curvy roads too
	Some very icy roads – this is the stuff you want to avoid
	A huge snow plow for Walker (part 1 of 3)
	A huge snow plow for Walker (part 2 of 3)
	A huge snow plow for Walker (part 3 of 3)
	The view from the high point of the ride
	Blowing snow – the windchill was incredible. There was one part of the ride where the wind was blowing hard from the side and being funneled right into my eye by my sunglasses. I had to turn to look into the wind because my eyeball felt like it was starting to freeze!
	Snow drifts
	Rice Lake – the cool thing about this picture is the island with a picnic table only in the winter (or by boat in the summer)
	Ski-do anyone?
	My mountain bike at the ice rink
	An icy version of me at the ice rink.

Wind skiing

This was awesome to watch. Unfortunately my batteries died right before this guy took off … literally. He got going very fast and then jumped at least 8 feet in the air with the windsail taking him up and setting him back down. I got a new set of batteries in just in time for him to make it back. How cool!!!