Roller Skating

Growing up, my best friend lived right next door to me. We each had a pair of roller skates and we roller skated all the time. We loved roller skating. I remember mine were white skate with a big orange stopper on the front. Up and down and round and round we'd skate on our street for hours. When we were lucky we'd get to go to the Crofton Roller Rink and go skating on a Friday or Saturday night. Those are really fun memories.

Jessica has really gotten into roller blading lately. They each just bought a pair a few weeks ago and enjoy skating any chance they get. My, how things have changed! When my best friend and I skated we never had any safety equipment. No helmets, no elbow pads, knee pads, or wrist guards. Thankfully, we never got hurt... well, at least no ER visits. When my kids are outside, they've got all the safety equipment on. The wheels on my roller skates were WAY wider than their roller blades. I had way more to balance on than this single skinny strip of wheels they've got now.

Since the weather has been rainy, cooler, and really windy we went to the roller skating rink in town for the first time this afternoon. I tried roller blades for the first time today instead of skates. Roller blades are fun but they took some getting use to. I missed having my wide wheels to balance on and most noticeably missing was the stopper... there were no brakes on those things! We all had a great time skating around the rink today. The first hour we skated with the lights on. The second hour they turned on the black lights and the disco ball. Immediately, after the black lights came on all the kids let out shrieks, screams, and cheers. The rink was filled with young kids and families. As I skated around I remembered going to the rink with my mom once when I was really young and she fell and broke her arm/wrist. For a minute I thought, "Lord, please don't let me fall and break something. Scott is out of town and hurting myself would be really inconvenient today." It was a fun day and brought back many good memories from my childhood and time spent with my best friend. Today, my kids and I made some fun memories of our own.

And,nobody broke anything.

I get to see my best friend in a few weeks. Her brother is getting married in Vegas and we're going up for the wedding. I'm pretty sure we won't be doing any roller skating.