In Loving Memory of My Mom: Skating Fever

Ever since I was a small child, my entire family had always been avid fans of figure skating. As far back as I can remember, I used to sit around the living room television with my folks ~ my eyes glued while watching the Winter Olympic Games. My oldest memory is from 1976 (I was in sixth grade then) when  Dorothy Hamill won her Gold Metal and, of course, I also remember the British Ice Dance pair of Torvil and Dean as they awed everyone with their legendary 6.0 Free Skate to the music of "Bolero."

My mom and I always watch Figure Skating every chance we get and always wished that someday we could actually see a skating competition live ~ holding our breath as our favorite skaters performed their athletic jumps and spins. And so in October of 2007, we had finally gotten that opportunity as Skate America (an important International Skating competition) was held in our home town of Reading, PA.

I bought tickets for both my mom and myself and my mother-in-law who also really enjoys Figure Skating. It was sort of a "girls night out" kinda thing.  It was far cooler than I had ever imaged as we walked through the stadium hallways listening to people speak their native languages of Japanese, Chinese, Russian, etc. It was like having the United Nations right here in the City of Reading!  Very cool!!

As we took our seats, to the left of us was Scotty Hamilton and Sandra Bezic commentating as we watched the skaters take their practice runs before taking the ice. We saw some really great performances from skaters such as American Champion Kimmie Meissner, Evan Lysacek who later went on to become the 2010 Oympic Men's Gold Metalist, Emily Hughes, World Champion Daisuke Takahashi from Japan, Canadian Ice Pair Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, American Olympic Ice Dance Silver Metalists Meryl Davis and Charlie White, Olympic American Ice Dance Champions Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, and so on ...

Kimmie Meissner had a flawless performance

Chinese Pair Team of Xiaoyang & Chen Wang

But I think the most exciting part of our evening was when Evan Lysacek landed his Quad Toe-Loop and continued to have a perfectly flawless performance as we all stood up and screamed at the top of our lungs, "YEAH! WHOO HOO! YEAH!!!

Of course, I had to pick up a little souvenir of this memorable occasion ...

I bought a Skate America Bear with commemorating pin and a huge color program for each of us. I remember my mom was so ecstatic to be there that at one point she looked over at me and said, "Kim, you did good!!!"

Afterwards, we all went out for a late dinner at Ruby Tuesday's and had a great time doing a bit of "family bonding."

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Both my mother and I adored the late Christopher Bowman. And so,  have included these videos as well ...

"California Dreaming" Skate America Exhibition performance.

"Bad Boy" Skate America Encore Exhibition performance.

Have a Blessed day everyone ... and stay warm!