Family Fun Day

Back when I was a kid, growing up in The Homeland of North Dakota, there was huge slough across the road from our farm. When it froze, and in the winter in ND you know that's going to happen, we had a huge pond of ice on which we could skate. It was a lot of fun - the water wasn't terribly deep so we weren't going to drown if the ice broke! It was a good thing if the water froze on a still day; if the day had been windy, well, the ice was rough and that made for rough skating. I don't remember where we got ice skates, but there seemed to be enough to go around. I don't know what we did - I don't recall having hockey sticks or a puck...we probably just chased each other around because that's what we could do.

Now we live in Arizona and Elyse discovered skating. She has taken a few sessions of lessons and she does well - measuring her success by the number of times she falls down. Once upon a time, I bought some passes to Polar Ice for open skating and we swore we would use them this summer. Finally - the last Saturday before school began, we declared a family fun day and we all went skating. Scott and I could not remember the last time we were on skates - and I secretly wondered what I would do if I fell down! Would I be able to get up? How do I catch myself? How silly will I look?! Well, we quickly discovered that it is a little bit like riding a bike: you don't really forget. Once I figured out how to glide along, I was good and then my confidence grew. Scooter and I both decided we needed to work on stopping (he decided that after he took out a little kid). I took Elyse's advice and just grabbed (ran into) the wall. Carolyn stuck close to the wall the whole time no matter how much we tried to coax her to the middle. It was a fun time for us all and we marveled at how much exercise we felt like we were getting. We decided we need to do it again in the summer - it was a wonderful escape from the heat even if it meant digging out a pair of gloves and wearing pants. And a jacket.