I will SURVIVE!

Well, time to conquer the fear of ice and embarrassment. Last night Delta Sig had their Annual Holiday Skate event at East Carolina University, so a few of the Alpha Xi's decided to attend and take me along for the experience. Information of my previous experience on ice was relayed to the group, and I found comfort in the fact that one of the girls going, Stewart, had never been ice skating before. None of us were fully confident in our balancing on blades skills, but Maryellen convinced us all that we could do it! Sure she said that, because as it turns out Maryellen CAN ACTUALLY SKATE! Thank goodness for her talent, because we took turns having her hold our hands as we made it so gracefully around the rink. For starters we stuck to the wall as a comfort and backup plan when our legs and feet failed us. To my surprise there were only 3 wipe-outs among the five of us, and Stewart was safe every time! =) (LOVE you Stewart, and that last one was amazing!)

Despite the slow start, we all eventually made it around several times on our own, without

the wall OR Maryellen! I experienced a moment of weakness when the three year old who was using the walker to skate decided it was time to go home. After the family left, I wobbled over to the walker and debated seriously if it was necessary for me to use such an aide to make my way across the frozen playground. As fun as it would be for me to attempt skating with the walker, my pride decided it was better to fall in embarrassment than to skate with a walker in shame. While I am not the most athletic person alive, I feel confident that I should be able to skate around a rink at least once solo! There were 2 mini pro skaters at the rink last night. They basically skated circles around me and I was throughly impressed with their ability to glide across the ice with such finesse and lack of fear. I should tell you that by "mini" pro I mean that they were around 8 years old, and totally dominated me on the ice. I guess that is to be expected, and I hope they feel I was a worthy opponent. This skate challenge I'm alluding to was only present in my mind, so they had no clue I was competing with them in any way. Had they known about said competition, I would surely have to face their tiny gloating and snickers at my attempt to "go fast". Fortunately they were too busy enjoying themselves to even notice that I was fighting to remain upright on my skates, and furiously making my way back to the exit! We all had such a great time, and I was very impressed with my ability to stay on my feet and not look like a total fool (and if I did look like a total fool, oh well. What's new?)

Here's a picture of the fabulous women who went on this scary/exciting adventure!

Bethany, Stewart, Maryellen, and Abby (Love yall!)