ice skating!

On Sunday we went to Ani's 9th birthday party - she's the daughter of one of my friends who lived in Fremont, then in Vancouver for a while where we visited her before one of our Alaska cruises, and who is now back in Fremont. There are probably pictures of her earlier in this blog somewhere!

Ani's party was held at an outdoor ice skating rink in Palo Alto, so it was kind of an adventure for all of us. I don't think I've been on ice skates since maybe high school, and of course Charli's never been. She was super into it, though, and not intimidated at all! We first got on the ice and slipped and slid and almost fell down, and then we just held onto the wall until we got to the next exit, at which point Charli went right back to the entrance and was ready to go around again! By the end of the 2 hours (which included dinner) we were going around without the wall, and she was asking if she could take lessons. Unfortunately we can't, because Palo Alto is 30 minutes away and I really can't commit to that every weekend, but there's a gymnastics club right down the street from us that I've been meaning to check out for ages. I hope that will be a good distraction!