Checking out the facilities

I am just about to head down to Icehouse from our new apartment.  I decided that I really should do a warmup before I hit the ice, but instead of doing my warmup at the rink, I headed down to the gym in our building with the rest of the family.  As they were checking out the equipment, I headed in to the off-ice room (other people call this the yoga room!) to do my stretches.

I can't wait to move in, then I will be able to practice my on and off-ice stretches all the time!

Love Princess George.

Atoms on ice

It isn't every day that a kid gets to play ice hockey in front of a packed house at Icehouse but luckily for me, that is what happened today.  My second hockey game for the day was a cross-ice demonstration game after the first period of the Melbourne Ice game.

AJ and the atoms in action

It was a little chaotic with heaps of little kids on the ice but pretty good practice to get used to playing in front of crowds.  

When I play for Melbourne Ice, I will be playing in front of crowds like this every week!

Love AJ Pickle

I'm a Pirate

Well I have to say that the long drives to Oakleigh have been well worth it - I am now a Pirate!  Not a pirate with a sword and a hook instead of a hand but a pirate with a hockey stick and a new jersey.

At training this morning my coach said I was ready to play in the game.  I was so excited, I couldn't wait.  Luckily the game was only a few hours after training!

This is me all kitted up ready for my first ever Pee Wee game.

It was pretty awesome playing in a real match.  It was so fast and so competitive, heaps more fun than training or even scrimmage.  I had heaps of ice time and even got an assist with only a minute to play.  The final score was 4 - 4.  

I can't wait until my next game.

Love AJ Pickle

Ice Time

Most kids decide that their favourite sport is something that they can play in the park whenever they want and all they need to practice is a ball of some sort.  Not me, that would be way too easy.  I had to find a favourite sport that involved going somewhere else to practice and train, somewhere cold and at crazy hours of the day.

I've just come home from Development Council in Oakleigh (that's ice hockey training for kids that want to join a PeeWee team).  I only started Council a couple of weeks ago and tonight I was evaluated.

The good news is… I am now ready to play PeeWee Hockey.
The bad news is… I have to get up really really early of a Saturday morning to get to training.

This first week, I will train with a team, then if the coach thinks I am ready, I can play in the team the following week.  So adding PeeWee to my training, let me tell you what a typical Saturday is going to be like.

I will have to get up crazy early, scoff some breakfast and head to the ice where I will spend most of the day.  First off I have training at Oakleigh that starts on the ice at either 6.30am or 7.45am, for peewee training.  Then I have to head in to Docklands for Development League at Icehouse where I have to be ready to jump onto the ice at 10.45am.  My favourite part of the day is what will happen next, the peewee match.  For the match, I will have to be at either Oakleigh or Icehouse by 12.30pm to get ready for the match at 1.15pm.  If the match is at Docklands I can hang around and have another skate with my friends just for fun.

Oh and as I am playing ice hockey all over the place, don't forget that Milla has her figure skating training.  She starts at 7.15am so on the days that I am at Oakleigh at 6.30am, she will have to catch a taxi in to Icehouse with dad!  She skates in classes till about 10.30am then just hangs out with her friends, skating about and having fun until we leave.

Now you would think that by now the day of ice hockey (and figure skating) madness would be done and we could go home and relax but it isn't, there is still heaps more to do.  Some days we (the Atoms - under 11 players) will get to do exhibitions games after the first period of the AIHL game at Icehouse, so that means we have to be getting ready at 4.30pm.  Then after the AIHL match, I have another training session and game at 7.15pm.  By the time that is finished and I peel of my sweaty stinky gear, it is after 8.30pm and I will have been skating around for what feels like a million hours and will feel like a zombie.  I am pretty sure that I will be more than ready to just fall into bed and sleep for a week but no doubt mum will insist that I have a shower first!

So there you have it - we can kiss our free time on Saturday's goodbye.  If you want to catch up with any of us, grab a jacket and head on down to the ice rink!

Love AJ Pickle

How to fill in time

When we were skating today, mum and dad decided to get out of the cold and go for a wander around Docklands.  Somehow that walk became them imagining what it would be like to live at Docklands and they had a look at a few different places that we could live in if we ever decided to move.  When they came back to collect us they decided that instead of going back to our own house for lunch and a rest before going back to watch the opening round of the hockey, we would go out for lunch together.  Of course they told us all about looking at apartments so we wanted to look at some too.  Next thing you know, we are wandering around Docklands looking for display suites to play in.

First stop was The Quays.  We pretended that we wanted to buy a 3 bedroom apartment.  Just our luck, there were 2 available.  We chatted to the sales person and she showed us all the cool things in the building.  We really wished that we were going to live there, it looked freaking awesome!  The apartments themselves looked pretty cool, all shiny and new, with our own bathrooms but the coolest parts were in the 'residents club' - there was a swimming pool, tennis court, gym, library and even a cinema.  Better yet, it would be ready to move into by the end of the year.

When we finished looking at the display suite, mum and dad reminded us that we weren't really moving to Docklands, that we were really just pretending.  They kept on pretending and went to another display suite - New Quay Promenade.  This time the building hadn't even been started and it was pretty hard to imagine living in a place that wouldn't be built for nearly 2 years.  We got to choose who would have each of the bedrooms, had fun exploring the kitchen and the bathroom on display, as well as looking at all the really cool pictures they had.  It looked pretty nice, but it didn't have a cinema so it wasn't as nice as the first one we looked at!

If only we could move in to Docklands, we could easily go home for a few minutes in between ice skating things without any hassle…
Love AJ and Milla

Ice Ice Baby

I am so super excited, I have just come home from my very first private coaching at ice skating. My teacher, Amber, is awesome. She has given me a program (that is figure skating speak for a routine!) to practice and hopefully one day soon I will go in a figure skating competition. How exciting is that!

Well I have to go and practice some of my moves off ice!
Love Princess George

Hockey Camp in the Holidays

Now I had an awesome time hanging out in Yarrawonga but I had to come back last weekend because I had hockey camp.  I can almost hear you thinking, "What is hockey camp?"  Well it is a chance for me to hang out at Icehouse every day and play hours and hours and hours of hockey.  Pretty cool huh!

Ice time

I was there from before 9 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon.  When we weren't skating or playing hockey we would do all kinds of cool things like building parachutes for eggs, playing street hockey and even watch movies about hockey.  As a bonus, we kitted up and headed back out on to the ice for another game of hockey before we went home.  Not a bad way to spend my day!

Posing for a photo or stacks on the coaches?

I can't wait until next holidays when I can go to hockey camp again.

Love AJ Pickle

A Very NOT Typical Start to the Day

Now a typical school morning around here involves sneaking downstairs without waking mum and dad so we can chill out for a bit before the madness begins, having breakfast and getting ready for school.  We have given up on asking to watch TV because there is always something that needs to be done... Have you finished your homework... Have you tidied your room... Have you done insert something else really annoying here?

Well today was a school morning so you can imagine our surprise when instead of being told to stay in bed, we were told to be awake extra early.

There was no nagging to do homework or clean bedrooms, instead it was "Quick grab your skates!" and we were off to Icehouse.

On the ice with our friends

This is me doing the limbo backwards

Then, after skating around with friends and playing games, we were able to chill out and watch a movie.  

Watching Ice Age 4 on the ice

I won a copy of Ice Age 4 and other cool stuff.

All of this and it was still super early in the morning, before school.  

Oh and we were on TV too.  I haven't got a link to the actual footage, but this is us doing the limbo as Emma read out the weather.

Can you believe this actually happened?  I am still in shock about how awesome this morning was!

Love AJ Pickle

AJ at the Ice

Now it is pretty obvious that I LOVE ice hockey and that I go to see my favourite team - the Melbourne Ice play whenever I can.  

Today, not only did I get to see Ice play, I got to do an Atoms training session between periods of the game.

It was awesome training in front of so many people.  

Hopefully one day I will be playing a real game of championship hockey in front of a huge crowd.

Love AJ Pickle

Cooling Off

What do you do on a hot sunny summers day?  You could always cool off by heading in to the ice rink for some fun.

You can hang out with a Yeti... 

Or slide down the ice...

Whatever you do, it is much nicer being inside and cool.

How are you staying cool this summer?

Love Princess George