ice skating.

This past Saturday (wow, I'm just getting around to this post almost a week later??), I went ice skating for the first time in years. I've been wanting to all winter, and finally the opportunity arose so I gobbled it up eagerly.

Put on boy's hockey skates that barely fit? Sure!
Fear desperately of the couple-inch-deep water cracking? Of course!
Try not to roll my ankles and topple over like the Abominable Snowman? I'm so there.


(Note: I know skating in a human-made rink in a public park hardly qualifies as ice skating, but it was about 40 degrees and rising quickly, so we didn't want to take our chances. By the time the sun rose fully and we were heading home, there was already a layer of slush across the ice and I was practically running off of it. No, I wasn't afraid of falling into two-inch deep water, but I sure was afraid of falling in, losing my balance, getting my skate stuck, and landing on my ass. And, more importantly, dropping my camera.)

It seems as if we're standing on absolutely nothing in this picture. In actuality, you could see the twigs and leaves frozen on the layer of cold dirt at the bottom, as if we were looking into some amber fossil with a mosquito in it like in Jurassic Park. I don't know why that scared me so much--maybe it just looked too eerie.

I guess I'm going to have to muster up a little more courage if I want to go ice skating in DC when MH and I visit Rachel in February, or gasp! on a real pond!

Do you have any traditions or must-dos for the winter season? I need some ideas to get me through this dark and dreary month!