Blast from the Past

I have been looking forward to today all week. This morning Priya and I went to a ROLLER SKATING PARTY! Not to brag, but I was quite the skater back in the day, zipping around the rink fast enough to make my Farrah Faucet hair whip luxuriously in the breeze. I think my friends and I were at the rink every weekend in Middle School. What made today's skating adventure even better was that the party was at the exact same rink I grew up skating at! And, no, it hadn't changed a bit...right down to the rank smell of feet and the old, OLD, OLD! carpet. The cartoon characters on the wall were even the same, although they had been "brightened" with some fresh paint. It was a total blast, and Priya insisted on doing most of it herself...holding on for dear life to the wall...but independent nonetheless. She can't wait to go back.

I love this look Priya shoots me when she's about to fall. She hung to the wall for most of the time, but she was totally independent on the carpet where she declared that she was "getting really good at skating!"

Priya and Brooke were such sports when their moms kept taking picture after picture of them. Priya informed me later that her "cheeks hurt" from smiling so big.

My poor little point-and-shoot doesn't capture the true gaudiness of it all, but these lights and decorations were truly Griswald-worthy. The kids loved them.

Roller skating is kinda like riding a bicycle. Not in the sense of how easy it is to pick it up when you haven't done it in awhile...but in the sense that if you fall doing either one, well, it really HURTS!

This smile melts my heart. And, she flashed it after she'd just fallen for the umpteenth time. I was so impressed with her "if you fall down just brush yourself off and get back up again" tenacity.

So even after the multiple spills and attempts to sprain or break her wrists, Priya cannot stop talking about her first time roller-skating. She had such a great time...and I was transported back to the carefree days when all that mattered was what color the pom-poms were on your skates and which boy asked you to "slow skate" with him. Nothing like a little Lionel Richie singing "3 Times a Lady" to spark some 7th grade romance.