Nine Down

On the ninth day of Christmas, I took the kids ice skating while my true love stayed home. It was fun and slightly traumatic, which is why there are no pictures.

Ice skating the Saturday after New Year's is a very popular activity. That's a nice way of saying it was crowded. Very, very crowded.  Wait in line for 20 minutes kind of crowded. Remind to not go ice skating on a Saturday in January again.

Then Olivia realized that she  forgot to wear socks.  How do you forget to wear socks EVER in January, let alone when you are gong ice skating?  I left everybody standing in the very long line and ran over to Shopko to buy the forgetful one some socks. I wound up getting her some Christmas cat socks on clearance for 99 cents.  She said they were very comfortable. First crisis averted.

The second crisis was that there were no walker things for Olivia to lean on. This was only her second time ice skating, and the first time had been a very quiet day on the ice, and she had a walker all to herself.  Today it was packed and there were no walkers available, and she had a bit of an anxiety attack over it all.   Olivia has many talents, but balance is not one of them.  She was slipping and sliding every which way, hanging on to me and the wall for dear life  and not happy at all. We spent the first hour inching our way along the wall, all around the ice, with her begging me to go get a walker from SOMEBODY, ANYBODY and me trying to maintain my own balance and patience, all the while telling her what a great job she was doing, and how she was getting better all the time! Finally, the last 10 minutes, she got a walker, and cheered up for a minute before she decided that she had an ingrown toenail.

Audrey and Alicia had a good time. Even Duncan went with us, and he did great, shuffling his way around the rink for quite a while.  And on the way home, we stopped at Swig to spend his gift card, so that made everyone happy.

When we got home, Dan did the Brigham City run to deliver Alicia and get our Will back. Then we had our traditional dinner of ham and beans, using up the rest of the Christmas ham, and now it really feels like New Years.

Also on the ninth day of Christmas we took all our gift cards to Walmart and spent our wad, plus some.  We got a new vacuum, socks and underwear (which that silly Santa forgot to put in the stockings this year), and even a few birthday presents for a couple of quickly approaching birthday boys.  Those birthdays always sneak up on me. This is the first year ever that I am slightly ahead of that game. And I have promised Duncan that the tree will be down before his birthday.