Bad Canadian mother (otherwise known as skating with boys)

I know, I know.... I have carried a heavy guilt over the past 2 years or so.... It breaks my heart. I should have my passport taken away from me. My citizenship should be revoked. I am a bad mother. I am a bad Canadian mother.... Why, you ask? I will be honest and confess: Oliver does not know how to skate. Alexander and Nicklas can.... but they have problems stopping.... AND their skates don't even fit!!!! Ugh!
OK... If you are Canadian, you will get this. If you come from almost every other country, you must think that I am a nutbar ;) The thing is that skating is a Canadian birthright. We come pretty close to being born with skates on. Heck, hockey is a religion which surpasses football/soccer (shocking for everyone else on the planet... this will be another post- I promise). I grew up at the local outdoor rink, where we spent every minute, every winter. We went when the ice was melting, when it was -20C, when it was snowing (with a shovel, of course) and whenever we had a spare minute. Unfortunately, those kind of rinks are not as common anymore. Now, the hockey players are desperately trying to get to the same ice. Now, many of the parks don't even have rinks anymore. Sad.
Anyway, getting back to the boys: Over Christmas, I decided to teach Oliver how to skate. I also vowed to get the other boys back on their skates again. I decided to buy them skates that fit and were ready to go. Problem was that, over the holidays, it went from +14C to 40cm of snow so my idea was in the toilet! Change of plans: I was going to get them skating this spring break. So, when I found out that our local arena had free family skate times this week, I made up my mind. We were going to do this!
We had fun.... Oliver can now stand up on his skates (which is 1000000000000000 times better than when we first got there), Nicklas can stop and Alexander can skate backwards (a little bit). We are going back on Thursday :)

Now for the spam!