Ice Skating in San Diego

What's the saying, you can take the girl out of Canada but you can't take the Canadian out of the girl???? Or something like that ;-) After a 7 year hiatus from ice skating I got back on the ice last Christmas when we visited my fam in Peterborough http://fennelladventures.blogspot.com/2011/01/canadian-christmas-trip.html. It was really, really fun. Greg discovered that he can actually skate and we discovered that Kai was pretty determined to learn too. We managed a few more outings on two blades last winter and Kai did really well.

San Diego is an unlikely place to continue Kai's skating tutelage but he is half Canadian after all so he's gotta be prepared! Several outdoor rinks opened up to celebrate Christmas so we decided to check them out. The first one we hit was in downtown San Diego. It was small and covered with a layer of water and more non-skaters than you've ever seen on one rink. There were two referees (for lack of a better word) skating around and scooping people up when they fell before they got too wet or caused a major skater pile up. This was quite a change for me b/c I'm used to those folks enforcing speed control during public skating at Canadian rinks. The boards around the side were covered in human barnacles, some of them wearing shorts. I actually had to shepherd some of them around Kai when my back needed a break and we were hanging out on the boards ourselves. And these people paid good money to do this, really, really good money. Kai was a complete trooper and was intent on getting around that rink again and again with a little help from Mom.

The week after Christmas we went again with Granddad. This time we headed to the island of Coronado where the fanciest hotel there had set up a beachfront rink. The scenario was pretty much the same: watery ice and lots of barnacles. It was expensive, stupid expensive, so Granddad decided to pass and took some photos of Kai and I making our way around the rink.

Kai had fun and we only got a little bit wet and kept our toes intact. It never occurred to me that flip flops were not a good foot wear choice for skating until I saw the sign "No open toed shoes beyond this point." This is not a problem I'm used to having. But seeing as we had driven all the way over there we weren't about to turn back so we carefully, and thankfully, safely picked our way through the people on skates stumbling everywhere.

After we were finished lacing up, we went shoeless on the beach to catch the sunset.

And I'm adding this photo b/c I think it is simply my favorite Christmas photo this year.