I've Got a Brand-New Pair of Rollerskates

Earlier tonight, Mike had to attend a meeting, while Jana was away at Annie (she just landed the role of Grace) rehearsal, so they played the "uncle card" on me, and I ended up taking Kylee, Dallin, and McKenna to Layton Classic Skating. The occasion was a Morgan Elementary School party, and for about three hours I got to chaperone (i.e. keep an eye on) the wee bairns.

It had been far too long since I’d been to a rollerskating rink. Classic Skating - there used to be one closer to home, in Woods Cross - was one of my favorite hangouts in my own elementary school days. My friend Chris Hibberd and I got passes for the summer, and we would carpool together every Saturday for the afternoon skating session. Ahh, the good old days.

Well, tonight I ended up sitting out the session so I could keep an eye on the kids, but they really didn't need much supervising. It was fun to sit and observe them having fun out on the floor, and all three of them, even seven-year-old Kenna, are actually really good skaters.



Kylee and Kenna took a short break to share a snow cone:


Later on, Kylee challenged me to a game of air hockey, and Kenna filled in for me for a couple of points:


Toward the end of the evening, Dallin competed in a two-lap race around the track with the other boys. He was actually holding his own and was in third place until one of the mutant 12-year-old boys, who is as tall as I am, accidentally bumped into him and knocked him over. He was a bit dejected about the outcome:


. . . but I reassured him that he had raced well.

In the girls' race, Kylee, who is already well known for her speed on the soccer field, took second place.


As we were leaving, a roller derby team (as in the movie Whip It) was getting ready to take the floor, and Kylee chatted up one of the girls and asked her all sorts of questions about her team and about the sport. Roller derby girls, it turns out, are actually really cool and friendly in addition to being tattooed and physically very tough. One of the girls, I believe, was competing under the name Dawn Treader (get the Narnia reference?). On the car ride home, in fact, roller derby was all that Kylee could talk about, and she told me that she wants to participate in the sport when she’s older. The scary thing is, she would be quite good at it.

Well, I guess her parents will have to have a good, long talk with her about that. I just hope they don't blame the chaperone.