Madelyn -- NO TRAINING WHEELS!!!

The fun of bike riding

I took my camera on our bike ride the other day. (Riding a bike and taking photos at the same time is not for the faint hearted!) We have finally come into our beautiful weather here! It makes riding bikes an absolute joy!















Here is Catherine, looking back (and thankfully not crashing into anything).



And Julianne, looking back. . .
Aren't those girls cute???


















And here is what I see when I look back. Does life get any sweeter than this??? I doubt it. My life is one big irony. I fluctuate between wanting them to grow up and wanting them to stay small. It is hard to always try and appreciate each day with my little angels, but I try my best.


(As a side note, a friend of ours was bike riding pulling a trailer with her 2 girls and looked back to tell them to stop quarrelling and she crashed into a pole, and broke her leg and elbow and had to have surgery. . . so my days of riding and looking back and taking photos all at the same time are over!)

The Riders

Here are the promised photos of the bike riders. Madelyn and Adam use these rides for a good quality nap.

When we get home, the kids are always hungry. Today, Julianne had mashed potatoes and gravy. Catherine and Madelyn had popcorn.

Bike Riding

We are now on day 8 of riding our bikes to take Julianne to school. I think it is the highlight of everyone's day. We are quite the little parade. Madelyn and Adam are in the trailer behind my bike and Julianne and Catherine each ride their own bike. I think it is a little over a mile to the school. We leave at 8:00 to take her and get home by 8:30 and then we leave again at 3:20 and get home just before 4:00. Riding with little kids can be very entertaining. . . here is a sampling

• Catherine was going really fast the other day and I was surprized by how quickly we were going. I was riding comfortably behind her when all at once she slammed on her brakes and came to a complete stop. It was all I could do to not plow right into her. (bikes have the distinct disadvantage of not having brake lights). I asked her why she stopped so suddenly and she replied, "I have an itch." She proceeded to scratch her arm and then started again.
• There is one busy street we have to cross. There are 2 lanes going each direction with a place to stop in the middle. As we were stopped in the middle I felt something on my hand and looked down to see a lizard sitting right on my hand! I screamed! Catherine screamed and I shook my hand frantically. The lizard hopped off and perched right on my handlebar. It took a lot of bike shaking before that lizard would get off! The only thing I can think of is that the lizard got on the bike in the garage and had been going on the ride with us for quite sometime.
• Creative bike riding positions. The girls are really experimenting. The stand up, they put their feet way out, they ride "side saddle" . It is pretty funny