It's a Beautiful Day in Our Neighborhood

As Mr. Rogers would say, it is, indeed a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

For whatever reason, that silly show has come to mind a few times today, probably because of the amount of times I've already watched the kids take on and off their shoes, change clothes, and come in and out the door.

My name is Courtney Dunbar and I am the "Skating Mom" of Addison Dunbar. As a parent of an "only" child, I fully expected chaos for this first day of camp, but was pleasantly surprised when all 10 camp participants were out of bed, teeth brushed (well, at least we think they were :), clothes on, fed and out the door by 6:45 a.m. for their first morning of their new beach-side training regime.

Our beach house is located approximately 1/2 mile from their "camp site" and is very nice. We are not actually beach-side, but are literally across the street and have a fabulous view of the ocean from the second floor and loft space. To be nice, we decided to drive them there to start their day out fresh. I was eager to see what they'd be up to, so I offered to drive. With camera in tow, I secretly perched in the sand for a bit to catch a glimpse of training.

There is something entirely unique about the early morning on the beach and this morning was no different. What intrigued me about this group of skaters was their willingness to participate and their camaraderie in the tasks. While I didn't watch the practice for long, it was neat to see their cohesiveness.

We "Moms," Kelly Moor, Brigitte Martineau, Svetlana Mantsorov and me, are learning the ropes, also. Here's what I can tell you about how things work around here, from my perspective:

Practice occurs 3 times per day, from 7:00 a.m.-9:00 a.m., 12:00 -p.m.-2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m.-7:30 p.m. The kids will have logged over 9 miles of running by the end of their first day, alone. Their exercise routines consist of strength and endurance training and, despite the intensity, all of the kids seem to have adjusted well.

Food matters a lot when you're burning a million calories per day, hence, we take our cooking responsibilities very seriously. We've been enjoying preparing meals for the kids.

The kids seem to really like our cooking . . .

. . . and you can just imagine the laundry and cleaning that has to happen in the kids' absence!

The best news I can share is that these kids are having a blast. In between strenuous workouts, eating, changing clothes, changing shoes and getting their 80th layer of sunblock applied, they've figured out how to make time to collect a few seashells, dance in the ocean, play tag and jump in the backyard pool already. Several were asking when it was time to go back to the ocean again for more practice.

So far, so good!