We chose the evening of Thursday, December 14th to go because Chris had taken off work that day. This was the same day that we spent several hours at the school eating holiday lunch with Brenson and Brianna, then volunteering during the other lunch shifts. After a restful nap that afternoon and picking up the big kids from school, we picked up a small (early) dinner then headed over the Winterland. It opened at 5:30pm, and I'm pretty sure we got there about one minute before it opened!
The ice skating rink was our primary focus for our visit, so that's the first thing we did when we got there.
The whole family ready to try our hand at ice skating!
Chris and I had both ice skated before, but it had been YEARS. And, I'm pretty sure Chris's last ice skating experience ended with stitches in his chin!
I wasn't sure if there would be ice skates available in Brooke and Brecklyn's size, but there was! The children were SO very excited to ice skate, and I was SO very relieved that there were little skating helpers available for them!
Brooke and Brianna . . . ready to go!
Brecklyn and Brenson . . . also ready!
As I mentioned above, this was synthetic ice skating rink. To me, it was like a roller skating floor that was wet. It wasn't cold to the touch, but it was certainly slick! I had no idea how the children would do on it, but three out of four really enjoyed themselves.
Brooke was a natural on the skates. It didn't take her long at all to decide she didn't need the skating helper. She tends to be fearless, which really played to her advantage in this case. She did fall a few times, but she always got right up and kept going!
Out of all the children, I was probably the most surprised at Brenson. He is typically more cautious when it comes to activities like this, but he was also fearless this day! Just like Brooke, he abandoned the skating helper almost immediately and was doing a fantastic job skating. I even saw him skate backwards several times. I didn't expect it to come so easy for him, but it did!
These two had a great time skating together!
Brecklyn responded to skating just as I predicted she would. She was excited about it at first, but after falling a few times, she decided that was enough! Chris really tried to work with her and encourage her to keep trying, but she just wasn't interested. And she certainly wasn't letting go of the skating helper!
Chris was trying hard not to enjoy himself too much, and even sat out for a while. However, these two made sure he didn't sit down too long!
Brianna was her fearless little self from the minute she stepped onto the "ice". She took quite a few spills at first simply because she was being kind of crazy, but once she calmed down a bit she did much better. She really wanted to twirl, but we didn't quite get there during this visit.
I tried to take it pretty slow and easy (I didn't want to fall and break something!), but I really enjoyed myself. The atmosphere was just beautiful, and when the sun started to go down we were dazzled with a gorgeous sunset! There was a group there singing and with all the beautiful lights it felt pretty magical. I adore these photos, and I think this will stand out as one of my favorite activities we did this season!
One of the best things about this activity was that the skating was in 45 minute sessions. We had to purchase tickets for us to skate (but the price was very reasonable), and once our session was over, that was it. It was the perfect amount of time to have fun and get a little experience on the skates, but not long enough to have sore ankles or blisters. Also, since we weren't the ones telling the kids it was time to go, they didn't cry, argue, or fuss about being done with the skating. Win-win!
After we finished skating, we walked around and looked at the little light displays and just enjoyed the atmosphere. It wasn't too cold that night, and since we had been active none of us were in a hurry to get somewhere warmer. After we left, we drove around for a little bit looking at Christmas lights, then headed home. I was so glad we decided to give the West Bend Winterland a try!
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