The Harris Family Goes Ice Skating - Part 3

Every winter, our town sets up an ice skating rink.  We love it and go every year.  Wes especially loves the opportunity to get out there and showoff - I mean twirl around - I mean let loose on the ice.  I've blogged in the past about our previous ventures, but I'm going to include some pictures of those anyway.

Here is 2011.  This was our first time going.  Scarlett was 21 months old and she loved it immediately.

Wes is going to hate me for this pic...

Pretty adorable, right?

This is 2012, Scarlett was 2 years and 10 months.  We don't have any of Desmond from this night, but he was 7 months old and enjoyed the music and watching his Dad and sister skate.

Scarlett enjoyed it again, but still let Wes do most of the work.

She did practice standing on the edge by herself, which she was pretty proud of.

For 2013, we met up with our friends, the Valora Family and went again.  Scarlett and Adi are the same age and go to preschool with each other and really love to play with each other.   You may remember Adi from the haircut they gave one another a couple of months ago.  They also have a daughter named Marcy who's a couple of weeks older than Desmond.

Pretty cute group, huh?

Scarlett had been talking about how excited she was to go ice skating for a few days beforehand.  The day of the ice skating trip, she came down in tights and a skirt saying she was wearing that ice skating.  I told her that wasn't really practical for ice skating and she should probably wear pants.  She told me no, because she wanted to be like the little girl that taught Big Bird to ice skate (in Christmas Eve on Sesame Street) and be a dancer.  I got a little worried at this point that she was going to be disappointed when she wasn't able to go out there and twirl her little heart out the way that girl did.  So, I warned her that ice skating is really hard and it takes a lot of practice to get good.

The little girl teaching Big Bird to Ice Skate

So, we got there and Scarlett was pumped!  She was ready to skate and dance!

She got on her little walker we rented her this time and she was off and skating.

She totally loved it and was pretty steady on her feet, too.  I guess skating IS coded into her DNA.  She even tried it without the walker and did a pretty good job!  She loved for Wes to occasionally take her around really fast and twirl her.

Desmond also loved Ice Skating.  He would just go into a sort of stupor as Wes zipped all over the ice with him.  Wes kept asking me if he was smiling and what did his face look like.  I just had to laugh and say I could not even possibly describe it, he just looked like he was relaxed and completely zoned out.

See what I mean?

Wes going so fast, they're just a blur.

Look at those cute little skates!  They just strapped onto his shoes and they had double blades, so he could easily walk on them off the ice.

Despite the ridiculous facial expressions he was pulling on the ice, I know he loved it because as soon as Wes set him down he'd walk over to the ice and start trying to get back in the rink and he'd wail and lift his little arms for Wes to take him back out.  

This is a video of Scarlett trying it without her walker for the first time.  She didn't even warn us or anything.  She just decided I'm going to do this all by myself.

Here's one last video.  I posted on Facebook, too.  So, some of you may have already seen it, but I just love watching her work her way around the rink.  I also love watching Wes and Des glide all over the place.

Well there you have it!  The Harris Family ice skating adventure.  I actually did get on the ice some, but since I was the photographer, there aren't any photos of me.  Too bad we live in Texas, where Scarlett has about 0 chance of reaching her full ice skating potential.  We'll have to hit up the local roller skating rink.  Maybe she'll get into roller derby, instead!