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This past week we discovered that the Elementary School in White Salmon has roller skating in the gymnasium in the winter. It lasts for an hour on Thursday nights and they provide skates and music. Anders has never been skating before - either ice or roller - but this was a good way to get him started.

By about 5 minutes in, the gymnasium was full of kids spinning and falling. Anders really had no idea how to handle skates. We took turns basically holding him up while he floundered around.

Such form!

He took a few spills but he continued in good spirits.

This one didn't end well.

Being there with his friends Lauren and Bridger definitely kept him more engaged and motivated through the spills and frustrations.

By the end of the hour, Anders was still very unstable but had made some progress and didn't need quite as much support.

On the drive home, Anders surprised us both with his optimistic view of roller skating.

I'm going to learn how to do tricks. On my roller skates!

Then, a little later:

We should also buy some ramps, so that I can do tricks. Then we can make a whole show!

Looks like there may be more roller skating in our future. Hopefully his balance and control will get better with practice, because his parents are still sore from leaning over and holding him up for an hour!

Sometime in the past year or so, Anders has decided that his favorite food is cheese pizza. (It's a far cry from what he had previously declared: "green beans.") It was time for Anders to help make it himself.

We have made dough with him several times recently. I try to keep it educational and still interesting with little bits of wisdom along the way. I don't think he will ever forget that "the holes in bread are caused by yeast tooting."

He also learned several other important lessons:
1. He likes pepperoni, despite his protestations to the contrary prior to tasting it.
2. Pepperoni pizza is just cheese pizza with pepperoni on it.

Another milestone was passed this week: Anders watched his first complete movie that was made in the last 50 years. He is a sensitive person and has a particularly hard time with mean people in movies. Prior to this weekend, the only movies¹ that Anders has watched in their entirety were: It's A Pleasure (1945), Royal Wedding (1951), and White Christmas (1954). We have attempted several others - Mary Poppins, Aristocats, Cars - but all required some skipping ahead or, in the case of the last one, having to stop entirely after only the first 5 minutes.

We can now happily report that we all thoroughly enjoyed Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, all the way through. Not only was the movie made in the last 50 years, it was made this century!

This was a big week of athletic firsts for Anders. In addition to roller skating, he also went to his first youth basketball event at the Trout Lake School. Anders has never played basketball before, but he was really excited to go. For an hour and a half, a group of about 20 kids around his age learned how to pass, dribble, and shoot. Or at least they received some instruction on those topics.

Anders has undoubtedly seen people play basketball before, but I guess he wasn't paying very close attention. When he was asked to dribble the ball, he dropped it to the floor and kicked it around just like he learned at soccer camp this past summer.

Shooting came relatively easily to him. He made his first shot attempt and had pretty reasonable form.

His dribbling, passing and catching skills, on the other hand, could use more practice.

Believe it or not, he actually did catch this one.

Between roller skating and basketball, Anders is going to get a good workout over the next few months!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

¹ Technically, we also all watched Follow That Bird, but that hardly counts as a real movie.