Things to Do in Cimarron Hills

Color Me Mine puts paintbrushes and pottery in the mitts of customers old and young. Budding Toyozo Arakawas will follow six easy steps to craft beautifully painted ceramics, first choosing a ceramic piece (most cost between $10 and $70) from Color Me Mine's selection of hundreds of seasonally changing items. After charting out the desired design from imaginative imagination, painters will select an underglaze from Color Me Mine's cast of more than 50 colors, then apply paint with the focus of a peregrine falcon occupied by a Rockwellian spirit. Color Me Mine handles all kiln-firing work, allowing clients to take home their final products within three to five days. A studio fee of $6 for children (12 and under) and $10 for adults covers all paints, supplies, glazing, and firing.

Helmed by a staff of 15-year veterans, Allstar Paintball lets pigment-powered gunsmiths run wild across a five-man indoor field situated within a 12,000-square-foot facility or on the exciting terrain of the newly opened outdoor field. After strapping on safety gear, filling tanks with CO2, and loading Tippmann 98 hoppers, players maneuver across turf, crouch behind inflatable bunkers, and blend seamlessly into kindergarten art displays as they blast nonstaining, easy-break paintballs in the direction of opposing players. As all-day play unfolds, the facility's veteran referees mix up field patterns to avoid repetitive rounds and monitor each contest to ensure participants compete against visitors of similar age, ability, and devotion to abstract expressionism. Off the field, spectators can check email and live blog battles with complementary WiFi, or admire the paint-splattering play from behind protective netting. To crank up the competition, Allstar Paintball also plays host to friends and frenemies during birthday parties, corporate outings, and oddly vengeful retirement sendoffs. The facility boasts a 5,000-square-foot area replete with chairs and picnic tables for birthday cake cutting and other celebratory activities.

Students of all skill and experience levels flock to the tranquil Alamo Heights studio to stretch, sweat, and strengthen together under the influence of highly-skilled teachers. Studio A: Pilates offers low-impact core-conditioning classes in the Fletcher style of Pilates to help workouteers reach healthy fitness levels, tone and lengthen their muscles, increase their flexibility, and twist away their tension. During the four-week introductory series, students learn the fundamentals of Fletcher alignment techniques, Percussive Breathing™, basic mat work, and Fletcher Towelwork®, with each class introducing new challenging moves to keep workouts fresh and fun. Class sizes are kept small to ensure that all students—even middle children wearing hand-me-down capris—receive individualized attention.

Voted “Best Ice Rink” by the Colorado Springs Gazette in 2009, and sweeping the category ever since, The Sertich Ice Center houses an NHL-sized ice rink and seating for up to 2,000 inside a 35,000 square foot facility. The Center regularly hosts open skating for the public, as well as birthday party packages, lessons, figure skating, and youth and adult hockey.

The artificial-pond curators at Washington Park Ice Arena cultivate year-round winter sports with a smooth, indoor ice rink designed for blade-footed glides. Public-skate sessions pop up day and night, and private rentals make for memorable birthday parties or helping pet rocks make the curling team. Ravenous ice dancers can gently stride over to an attached food dispensary to replenish on a sampling of food available for purchase. In addition to daily public-skating sessions, the arena and its helpful staff offer lessons for youth ice trotters, speed skaters, and pubescent snowmen learning to shave with skate blades. The oft-zambonied arena also plays home to a yearly smattering of University of Missouri hockey games, entertaining recitals, and seasonal festivals.

Students gather amid the golden glow cast onto Marmalade at Smokebrush’s exposed brick walls by rectangular floor lamps, awaiting instruction from the studio’s capable staff under the decorative flock of origami whooping cranes swooping overhead. Instructors pull from previous experience as dancers, movement therapists, and artists as they guide students in fitness sessions, including Latin-inspired Zumba, a dance-fueled workout that enables students to torch calories while learning dance-floor-ready skills.

The studio’s yoga classes range from spinal-alignment-focused Iyengar yoga to dubstep yoga, which swaps normally serene background noise with thumping electronic beats. Aside from its yoga focus, Smokebrush’s expansive space also plays host to artwork exhibitions, environmentally focused workshops, and speed dating for ex-claustrophobics.