Sunday, November 07, 2010

Ice Skating Adventures

During our trip to a nearby city at the beginning of October, we had the opportunity to visit a new ice skating rink! Wow, ice skating! I have hardly been ice skating since that wonderful snowy evening when John proposed to me, fourteen years ago! But that didn't stop us. . . we all gamely worked our feet into the stiff, heavy skates and gave it a go.
Chloe had the most fun when John skated backwards and she got pulled along. She was willing to try moving her feet around a little and did a pretty good job. She fell more than a few times but always got up again. Midway through the morning she was ready to quit, but John encouraged her and by the time we were all ready to go, she wanted to keep on skating!

Clara Anne, on the other hand, tended to get set in one position and simply allow herself to be pulled along by someone else. When we first took to the ice she was pretty scared and wanted to stay right near the edge. She did make progress, though--by the end of our time she was willingly being led around the rink, even out in the middle!
Uncle Kevin and Aunt Becky, too, were very gracious to spend time skating with both of my girls. I even got to do a few rounds holding my hubby's hand, very nice.

Clara Anne also enjoyed the method where I skated backwards and pulled her along. Honestly, her posture in skating reminded me of the sailing scene in What About Bob?, where he says, "Look! I'm sailing! I'm a sailor! I sail! I'm sailing" and on and on when actually all he's doing is sitting in the boat. She let herself be pulled around the ice in one stiff position and then told us all how much she loved ice skating! Made me laugh!

Speaking of making you laugh, how do you like my attempt at gracefulness in the above picture? Nice, huh? I had fun pretending to be a good skater!

The three of us had fun together! At this very moment, Amy's and my ankles were in serious agony, showing our age; Becky, of course, felt fine. My ankles didn't recover fully for about 10 days!

Love these smiles! We all had a great time skating! It was fun to try something new and the skating rink played "we will rock you" about 75 times in the several hours we were there, just adding to the ambience of course. We made some fun memories and enjoyed our time on the ice. The girls were disappointed when Mommy and Daddy simply couldn't keep skating any more for fear of serious injury, they would have stayed even longer. I think skating worked some muscles I didn't know I had--it's harder than it looks! But aside from that, fun times were had by all!

1 comment:

Gretchen said...

Soooo much fun. You made me LOL with the "What about Bob" comment! :) Becky's cute short haircut! Love it!