"Bailey & Alex see the big red dog butt from a distance." or.... "What in the [BEEP] were we thinking when this sounded like a good idea??"
First of all both kids were great and well behaved during the entire day (wish I could have said that about some of the other kids there) they had a blast. If anyone was grumpy, whinny and crying it was James and I.
Our little adventure begins with...
From 10 am to 2 pm bring your kid down and they'll get to skate with Clifford the Big Red Dog for free down at the Crown Center. It sounded like a fun thing to do so we invited Bailey's friend Alex to come along. It was a little chilly on Saturday but the sun was out and for once this year, it wasn't snowing. So we start off our little adventure with breakfast for the kids at Chick-Fil-A and after a few minutes of play time we're off to go skating.
We arrived at 10:30 and got into line to rent skates. We waited and waited. We could see the ice rink in the distance with tons of people skating around but no big red dog in sight.
45 minutes in line and Bailey & Alex are still smiling for the camera...James, not so much smiling happening.
An hour in line and we hadn't moved since we first arrived.After waiting for an hour and half we finally got into the skate rental area only to find out we had to be put on a waiting list for kid skates. Something that was suppose to be $12 ending up costing us $24 for ice skates rental for the 4 of us plus a skating charge for James and I. This locker room/rental area was insanely packed full of parents and kids trying to put on ice skates along with people returning the wet skates so seating was hard to find as you walked around in your socks on wet floors. Alex and I got our skates on and were waiting for James (poor Bailey was on the list for shoes) to finish getting his skates on. I'm not sure if the person behind the counter didn't hear James shoe size correctly or didn't tell him that ice skates came in whole sizes but he ended up with skates that didn't fit. As he was trying to take the skates off the hook on the boot caught his finger and left a big gash in it. Bleeding and in pain his last button had been pushed from this poorly planned skating event. I could tell James had enough of Clifford's Ice Skating party. In the television show The Incredible Hulk, at the breaking point of pure frustration and filled with rage...something was muttered "not liking me when I'm angry" a guy would turn green, rip off his shirt and start smashing stuff. Well James didn't turn green and start screaming "James...SMASH!!..stomp, stomp, stomp..." but I could tell he wasn't going to last much longer so I offered to take both kids on the ice rink and allowed him to take pictures of me falling on my butt.
At this point in the story, I should mention that neither James or myself have ever ice skated before. We both have memories of roller skating in our younger days and thought we should be able to handle it. No difference between the two forms of skating, right? Well it's Sunday night and my knees have finally stopped hurting. By the time we managed to walked our way up to the rink my feet, ankles and knees were hurting so bad that I wouldn't have cared one bit if I had to walk back down to the rental area in just my socks. First up was Alex on the ice although he wasn't to thrilled with the idea of being on it and I couldn't blame him at this point. With wobbly ankles and knees I grabbed a hold of him and the railing thinking I could just drag myself and the child along down to the next door opening. It worked, or it would have worked if I was the only person out there on the ice that didn't trust their legs to do what they're suppose to do. Needless to say I was in the slow lane on the ice rink and that was just fine for Alex. Bailey on the other hand dragged me out away from safety of the railing telling me "Go faster Mommy!!!".
I managed to grab the railing to gain whatever balance I had as Bailey's feet went out from underneath her as she started to pull me down. She got herself back up and yanked me away from the railing once again before heading off the ice. As we were leaving she wanted to go again and I promptly said "No" and wobbled back into the rental area.
Clifford did make his appearance when we were up at the rink but it was impossible to even get near him. Whoever was in the costume didn't know how to skate either. They had to be led out there on the ice and was pretty much mobbed by parents wanting a picture of their kid with the dog. James managed to snap a picture of the dog's butt before we left the ice rink but this is as close as we could get.When we left the rink we decided to take both the kids to Fritz's over in the Crown Center since both kids love trains and this place is a train theme restaurant. The place over in the mall had another line that went and disappeared behind a corner. Neither James or myself wanted anything to do with lines that disappear behind corners so we packed up both the kids and took them over to the Fritz's restaurant that just opened up in Shawnee. No line there but we did have a 25 minute wait just to be seated. It's a cute restaurant where a train will run above your head and deliver food to your table. It was cute. The food sucked, but Bailey & Alex both loved it and that is all that matters.
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