Figure Eights

I'm so sad that I missed this Christmas tradition this year, but I'm gonna write about it anyway!

Sunday evening was the annual ice skating party. Every year a near-by congregation rents out the rink and invites the two closest church branches (that's us!) to join them in an evening of freezing ears and scraped hands. I love this event 'cause I love ice skating. I rooted for nine years for Michelle Kwan to win the gold. Never happened, but it totally hooked me on this sport.

That is not to say I know how to skate.

At all.

When I was in junior high a friend's grandma wanted her to learn to skate. The grandma took my friend each Saturday to the rink to practice, but it was no fun on her own. So I was invited to come along and learn as well.

That was... well, more years ago than I'd like to remember.

But that doesn't stop my sister and I from trying out all our tricks on the ice. Fancy stuff, like, not falling down. Skating on one foot. Or spinning each other till we fall down. Not that's tricky.

And this Sunday we had yucky weather and some other complications that kept us from our friends and skinned knees.

But this is still a tradition I love.