'Winter wonderland': Holland family makes ice rink, igloo in front yard

HOLLAND — What started as a project to give their children an outdoor activity during the pandemic has turned into a yearly tradition for a Holland family.

In December of 2020, Holland resident Matt Adkins and his wife decided to create an ice rink in their yard for their children and neighborhood kids to play.

“My wife and I have three boys that are all under 10 years old and they love being outside,” Adkins said. “Every year, we build an ice rink in our front yard to kind of bring together the community and their school friends.”

During the height of the pandemic, with public spaces and activities shutdown, Adkins realized he needed to find a way for his kids to burn the energy they had from being cooped up in the house. He decided to head to the hardware store to buy supplies to build an ice rink in his front yard.

Adkins bought some plastic liners and boards, made the space and filled it with water. He said the final step to making the ice rink is “praying for some cold weather.”

“We’re a bit of a winter wonderland,” Adkins said. “Thankfully, we’ve got some great neighbors that have appreciated it and it’s sort of an open community invite people can come over and use it.”

This year, the Adkins family added an igloo to their neighborhood winter display. It’s between 6 and 8 feet in circumference and around 5.5 feet tall. It can fit two adults or three small children.

Adkins said he learned how to build the igloo from a YouTube video.

“We just bought about 120 lasagna trays from Sam’s Club, filled them with water and added some different food coloring, had our boys help stir them,” Adkins said. “(We) left them out overnight on one of the 6-degree nights and got up the next morning and we had our 120 blocks.

“So then it was just a matter of assembling those, stacking them using like a wet slush… to be the mortar between each block.”

Adkins said it took around three days to make the igloo and 20 hours to make the ice rink, though most of the time is spent waiting for the water to freeze over. The family plans to keep the tradition going, expanding the size of the ice rink and potentially the igloo as the kids grow.

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Adkins said they drew inspiration from Holland Christian’s Forest School program, in which elementary students do nearly all of their learning outside.

“That’s really the ultimate inspiration, was just trying to make sure our kids are outside even though we’ve had some pretty cold temperatures,” Adkins said.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Holland family makes ice rink, igloo in front yard