Ice Skating

Kara and I joined a gym together. I've been a member of the Alaska Club for years, but they won't let you share a membership with others in your household. Our new gym will. That's a big bonus. Kara and I share a membership (and so we both save money) and the children are all free.

The club has the usual work out machines (off limits to children) and two pools. One is small lap pool and the other is heated therapy pool. Even the baby can use the pools. In addition there is a racquet ball court at the club which the children can use. Bentley has tried it out and liked it quite a bit. We'll post more on that when Jake gives it a try.

The work out club is in a mall. The mall has a skating rink and bowling alley it in. The skating rink gives free ice time to gym members and the bowling alley gives half off bowling. So we took the trio over to the mall to skate this week.

The trio have never been on ice skates before. Kara is not a skater because of her bad hip. I can ice skate because when I grew up in Anchorage skating was what we did during recess in the winters. We all took lessons. We spent hours on the ice. I played a little intramural hockey in college. Although I hadn't been on the ice in over ten years (and only a handful of times the two decades before that), I could still skate. Amazing. It was like riding a bicycle. Skating is not a frightfully useful skill, but it is a skill nonetheless.

We met Kara's friend Amrita at the rink. Her son Patrick (Jake's age) is on a hockey team, so he can skate quite well for his age. Her daughter Cassidy (Viva's age) has taken two sets of skating lessons, but she hasn't had much time on the ice, so her skills are not as advanced as her twin's. I was impressed how unconcerned she was about falling down repeatedly. She fell and got up over and over.

How did our trio do their first time on ice? Bentley loved it. He went round and round the rink holding on to the sides of the rink. He got to be fairly fast at it. I took him out on the ice a few times and he showed promise. Jake had a good time, too. He enjoyed being on the ice and wants to go back. Viva was a little more adventurous (duh!) and so she left the safety of the rink side and went out on the ice and fell a few times. Consequently she isn't as eager to return to the rink. Kara showed her a video of a figure skater so she could catch the vision.

One of Mark's cousins has a daughter who was a very good figure skater. She competed into her high school years. His side of the family has a ballerina and a figure skater. I can't think of any impressive female athletes in my family. Hmmm....I'm going to go ponder this new train of thought.

Meanwhile, I think we will be scheduling ice skating lessons for the trio. Just in case they need to beef up their resume.