Santa Skate

Well, part of living in the mid-west (and something we just really don't have a lot of in Australia) is having ice skating as a part of your life. Near Orchard Downs there is a pond and it has a sign warning not to iceskate - you just can't be certain about the ice thickness. But we don't have to worry about that because we have the U of I's Ice Arena!

Tonight, Family & Graduate Housing sponsored a free skate with Santa Claus - complete with free skate hire, hot chocolate and candy canes! Now Alex and Brett had already spent the morning:
1)doing the laundry
2)sledding down practically the only hill in town "Hackberry Hill" - well Alex pushed Brett down the hill
3)going swimming in the indoor swimming pool at CRCE.

So I was hesitant to have an evening out too - especially given she'd never skated before and Brett and I aren't natural skaters. But Brett convinced me we could just go and watch, to give her an idea of what it's like. Although the Skate went for 2 hours, we arrived for just the last hour.

Anyway - here are the results:
Alex gets her first pair of skates on - and yes I made her wear a helmet having seen a girl knock herself out falling backwards on the ice a couple of years ago - and yes she was the only child there in a helmet.









So it was initially up to me to take her out on the ice - though I hadn't planned on skating. It seemed the best way to introduce her to the ice, was to use the "frame". Though in actual fact my hands are under her armpits and I'm bearing all her weight whilst she "walks" - though she is sure it's all about the frame! Between that and hunching down to her level and skating around the rink, my back is killing me!






So as there were benches with Christmas trees set up in each "corner" of the rink, we skated between them, sat down for a break, then skated to the next one. Although, by the second "break", Alex said to me "I don't want to stop" - and then once sitting on the bench "Ok mummy, break's over, it's time to skate again". My poor back! I guess she was more interested in it than I gave her credit for!





Eventually the Skate-sled was free and Alex got to sit down and I got to stand up properly and skate around the rink - we even managed to pick up a bit of speed! Then I asked her casually whether she wanted to skate with Daddy (he'd asked me to skate with her as he thinks she takes to new activities better if she does them with me)...



"Come on Daddy!" she grabbed his hand and ran (no kidding, I can't run in those skates!) to get him fitted for his skates.







And off they headed (I think Brett was happy she was excited to "show him how" to skate).










So back with the frame - which Brett agreed made life difficult, so after visiting Santa in the middle of the rink (I'll post that photo in another post tomorrow) he deviously avoided getting the frame back...









...and they went it alone! She wasn't overly happy with that - here she's holding the polaroid photo of her and daddy skating as they head over to me.









But all in all, a very successful first outing - no falls (bonus for us!) and we went fast enough that she thought she was doing the skating. Although I tried to show her how to place her feet, she persisted in "walking" them - lucky for her I had her!

Oh, and the Santa part?...