Washington Harbour Georgetown - Outdoor Ice Skating Rink

I love Georgetown, DC. The shops, the restaurants, and just walking up and down the streets people watching (very interesting people from all walks of life can be seen). Down at the waterfront, there are restaurants where you can dine al fresco with a lovely view of the Potomac River. At the center of it all is a large fountain, which as of this winter, has been transformed into an outdoor ice skating rink, and will be reopened annually from November until March, every day including holidays. They say this rink is larger than  the one at Rockefeller Center in New York City, but I'm not so sure. It is the largest one I've seen in the area so far though.

I haven't been ice skating in 15 years or more, but I was determined that we were going to go and I was going to skate! The kids and I were excited about going, the husbands...not so much. Parking on the street is always an ordeal so we went straight to a garage ($8 for the evening).

The whole area was lit up for the holidays with shimmering, white lights everywhere. The weather was chilly but not uncomfortable. People were milling around, strolling, dining, having drinks at the outdoor bar, and quite surprisingly, the rink was not too crowded. The Zamboni machine was just finishing up on the ice as we got there, so we got our skates on and headed out to the rink. (One plus....new rink, new skates! Not a fan of wearing the rented skates) My husband and sister-in-law who decided to sit out the skating party, grabbed a couple of drinks and a spot to watch the gang. The kids were gone in a flash while my brother-in-law and I took a few laps to warm up before we put our feet (and bodies) to the test. After a few minutes our ankles were killing us and on the tip of my tongue were the words "What the heck was I thinking?", but after a few more rounds we were feeling more confident and adventurous.

Well, you know the night could not be complete without at least one of us wiping out.  The kids took a few spills and have a couple of bumps and bruises to show for it, but that's all part of the fun, right? I managed to make it through most of the night without falling but alas, I eventually hit the floor....with a very loud thud,  skates banging into the glass sides of the rink, and shattering my ego. Feet up, derriere down, in one swift move. I got up, shook it off and felt fine...or so I thought at the time. (As I type this, I have a large bruise on my rear end and my neck feels like I have whiplash.) Of course, no outing in Georgetown is complete without ice-cream so we turned in our skates and headed for Haagen-Dazs before heading home.  It was a fun night out, even with the bumps and bruises!

Prices are comparable to other rinks, $7/kids, $9/adults plus $5 if you need to rent skates. http://thewashingtonharbour.com/skating/

Kid's View: "I love ice-skating! It's a big place and not a lot of people cutting you off and causing you to fall, even though that did happen to me once. I fell on my knee and now I have a huge black and blue there but I still had a great time. Towards the end, my cousins and I scooped up the ice shavings off the ice and had a snowball fight. That was fun but sometimes it hurt. Oh, and the ice-cream was good too....the winter is the best time to eat ice-cream. I wanna do it again!"