I had some amazing friends growing up. And what’s more amazing is that I am still very close with almost all of them today! Some of these friends were in the nursery with me at the school where our mothers were teachers. We were practically friends from birth, and we made up some awesome games throughout the years.
One game in particular comes to mind 15 years later. Every day during recess, my friends and I would go onto the grassy field and figure skate. This field had a large dirt patch that ran along one side of the fence, and was about 10-12 feet wide. During this time in our lives, Oksana Baiul, Michelle Kwan, Kristi Yamaguchi, and Tara Lipinski were our figure skating idols, and we would choreograph routines and pretend to ice skate on the dirt.
Our favorite move was the triple toe loop. This is where the ice skater will skate backwards gaining speed and then sink her toe into the ice and spin 3 times in the air, landing perfectly with her leg in the air. Of course, none of us could ever even dream of performing this move in real life, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t choreograph it into our routines. Who cares if we were only able to spin half way around in the air. To us, we were professional dirt ice skaters.
While one person performed, the others would sing a song for her to skate to. We didn’t upgrade to an actual sound track until we were at my house, where I was able to bring the stereo out into the garage. We would strap on our roller blades and do our routines in the drive way. At least at home we could actually glide around on our roller blades instead of skimming our tennis shoes across the dirt field.
Ahh, the memories. Of course we are WAY too sophisticated now to make up such a game…..or are we? Girls, anyone up for some dirt figure skating? 🙂
Here’s the whole gang. From left to right: Alexis, Leah, Me, Missy, Renee (front and center), Jessica, and Katie. Oh and there’s Jason Jamal in the white shirt in the background. My elementary school crush. 🙂 Nevermind that I was about a foot taller than him.
