Turning A Frown Upside Down

Olivia has been taking ice skating lessons this winter at the OU ice arena. She has absolutely loved every minute of it. In fact, she quizzes us several times a week about how many days are left until the next lesson. 30 minutes, once a week is just not enough for her. Because we didn't know how much she'd enjoy ice skating we made her a deal. For the first set of lessons (8 weeks) she'd use rental skates. If she liked it and wanted to sign up again we'd buy her ice skates of her own. Because, seriously, those rental skates are not pretty.

Classes are winding down. Next week she'll test to see if she can move up to the next level. It's all very exciting. Except, Except, Except...this is Athens. And the building where the ice skating happens is very old and not well insulated. Which means that they only offer ice skating in the fall and winter. Seriously!?! This was a huge shock and not something I wanted to tell Olivia about. After all, we'd planned on her taking lessons year round and I knew she'd be unhappy with the news. Honestly, I thought the university was just being cheap. However, when we went to yesterday's lesson I got to see firsthand how badly weather affects the arena. It was probably 65 degrees when we arrived at 9:45 and the indoor fog had already set in...

I couldn't believe how hard it was to see in there. No wonder they can't cope with summer lessons! Can you imagine what would happen in 90 degree weather?

So, we needed to decide what to do. Drive 3 hours roundtrip every weekend for a 30 minute lesson in Columbus? Hmm...that was a lot of commitment. But, then, thanks to a suggestion from Noah's friend who is an ice skating fanatic herself we found the solution that made everyone happy.

In-line skates for spring and summer and we'll buy the ice skates in fall. Because she hasn't taken off the skates since we bought them yesterday we're thinking of changing Olivia's name to Tootie...