Ice Skating

In downtown Salt Lake City, there is an outdoor ice rink in Gallivan Plaza. Every year, they open in mid-November for the winter skating season and the first night is always free to everyone. That's free skate rentals and free skating all day. This year, they also had free hot chocolate! We've been before, not last year but the year before. The kids were really excited this year. It almost didn't happen because Quinn woke up sick this morning and stayed home from school, but he was feeling better by the evening :)

We drove downtown about 5 PM and ate dinner at Lamb's Grill, a Salt Lake staple with yummy food. Then we walked over to the plaza. What surprises me most is that the crowds are not bad considering that it's free. Maybe it isn't well publicized, but I don't care because we take full advantage. James didn't want to skate so that left me with two beginners (and I'm not all that good of a skater myself!). The last time we skated last Christmas, it didn't go well. I didn't have high expectations but after a couple of times around, the kids started to improve. Keely especially seems to be really getting the hang of it, and we were going around at my full speed (again, not too fast because I am not that good) with her asking to go again and again. Quinn is not as natural but got better the last couple of times around. We even got to watch the zambonie (sp?) go around and clean the ice, and then headed over for some hot chocolate. Quinn said it was F-U-N (and yes, he did spell it out) and Keely said more than once that she loved ice skating and could we come back again tomorrow? Well, not tomorrow sweet girl...but I can say we will go again this winter because it was a really fun evening! Here are a few pictures to document it, albeit a little grainy because they were taken with my cell phone camera.