Atlanta Baby & Child Photographer Blog | Angela Calderon

When I was young my uncle would take my cousin and I to the skating rink at least 1x a week. In fact I was *sooo* super cool that I had my own shiny white roller skates all decked out with colored wheels topped off with the biggest pom poms ever attached to my laces. I would wear my hair in one pony tail TO THE SIDE (who in the world ever thought that was a good idea was clearly out of their head). I could roller skate with the best of them, I could even truck (which is a cool word for being able to do fancy moves with your feet while skating). I was the ultimate roller diva, school skating parties I was so there, church skating parties – yep, slumber skating parties – yep. I remember the skating rink we used to go to loved to play Dirty Laundry by Don Henley over and over.

Fast forward to oh about 25 years later (I’m guessing the last time I roller skated was when I was 10) and my son’s school is having a roller skating night to promote the PTA. Now I think in my entire time in California I only saw one roller skating rink and that was when I worked for Special Olympics and they had a competition there. I guess it’s not a cool thing there, but there are tons of ice skating rinks. So we head over to the skating rink, my kids skated for the first time (more like attempted). “Mommy Mommy skate with us like you did when you were a kid.” Really? Oh man, Mommy is old, tired and well, when grown ups fall on their hiney it’s kinda painful. Ouch, I was having visions of the ambulance carrying me away with a broken leg.

Well I’m a push over so I ended up renting a pair of skates and skating with the kids. I’ll admit I’m very shaky, but I didn’t fall and some of it came back to me, in no time I should be back to roller diva status. Now this is the cool thing, the skating rink has Monday afternoon skating that is .99 and that is admission, skate rental, pizza and one other thing that I can’t remember. What a deal! So I’ve now been talked in to taking the kids back again soon so they can learn and be able to “skate real fast and be cool”.

For all you peeps here in Metro Atlanta, check out Sparkles Skating Rink for a good time with your kids, they have four locations – Hiram, Kennesaw, Smyrna & Gwinnett. My kids loved the playground and next time my son said he wants to play laser tag!

So today, I risked my life… and it was fun.

PS – Happy 40th birthday to my husband, who by the way chose not to try to roller skate tonight, he’s never ever roller skated before and he didn’t want to push his luck on his birthday