April ski and bike day

So after a morning of warm spring skiing with Kyle, I decided I would see how far up Big Cottonwood I could get on my bike. Well, with how stubborn I am, after getting 4 miles of the 12 up the mountain (nevermind the 4 or 6 it took to get to the base from home), I decided I was going to make it to the top. Afterall, the first 6 miles of the climb up Cottonwood seemed to be the steepest and most difficult. Trouble is, it was mid-60s when I left the house, but at the top it was freezing. I was dressed for 60s. On the descent, my arms and fingers went numb. Thankfully there was a little lodge restaurant on the way down. Cheese fries with fry sauce never tasted so good. The fireplace was helpful as well. They didn't have any warmer clothes I could buy, but had a lost and found with someone's discarded fleece that I happily put on to try and get warm. Thankfully I made it home in one piece having made it to the top.

Bike through

While Jeff, Kyle, & Emily were at the Jazz game, Aaron and I went on a bike ride. Dairy Queen was closed so we went next door to McDonald's for an ice cream sundae. Aaron thought it was funny to use the drive through as a bike through. 

Aaron rides a bike

Aaron decided today that he wanted his training wheels off his bike despite the fact that he hadn't really used them while riding for a long time now. He rips around on his balance bike with great easy so he's got the balance, but was so afraid of losing the crutch of the training wheels. But today was the day and that was that. They came off and then we rode down to the village for dinner.


This second video was an hour later. Like he's been riding for a long time (because he has). He was so proud of himself. As we returned home and rode into the driveway, he said out loud, "I'm so proud of myself!" We are too.

The next day, he rode over 5 miles to his basketball game and around town together with myself and Emily. Training wheels are total history.

Day in the life

Just another day in the life...

Boys playing with fireworks

Boys doing garage science experiments

Large tic-tac-toe outside of the ice cream parlor that we were able to ride our bikes to! This was especially exciting to me because some of my earliest, albeit fuzzy memories are of taking bike rides with my family to get ice cream while we still lived in Ohio. And we found a way to do it here, in Raleigh, on bikes! It's not perfect in that we have to cut through a forest and cross some busy roads, and ride some hills, but we did it!!

And then we rode over to the golf store with an indoor driving range and hit a few balls. Because we could. 

Bike ride

We finally all have bikes now (Kyle's was stolen before we moved, Emily outgrew hers, and we only had 1 adult mountain bike) so we hit the forest for a ride. Well, first, Jeff took Emily & Kyle for a nice ride to test it out. 

We got Aaron in on the action with his Weehoo trailer that we picked up right before we left for San Diego. It. is. AWESOME! He can sit back and pedal and he could even fall asleep if he so chose. And it's 1 wheel versus the other trailers that are 2 and enclosed which would be too difficult to handle on these paths. He loves it. And so do we. Except on uphills because man is it hard to haul an extra 50 pounds (part Aaron, part trailer) uphill on gravel!! It's a beast of a great workout that's for sure! And with the pedal, Aaron can actually help to a small extent. 

Aaron bike

Aaron got a balance bike for his birthday. Kyle and Emily had one when they were his age. It made the transition to a regular bike incredibly simple. Unfortunately, we did not save that bike to pass along to Aaron so he got one for his birthday. And his tricycle had been stolen right before we moved so the kid was without wheels. So it only made sense to right this wrong for Aaron. :-) And he sure is learning how to ride it very fast! 

Trike tyke

After having his tricycle since his 2nd birthday and riding on it with assistance, today Aaron got on his bike and just started peddling like he's been doing it all along. Previously, he would pedal a little forward and then pedal backwards to get back to the top with his dominant foot. Today he got it all together and just started riding. Just like that. Nice going kid. 

Oh what a night

Tonight we had a fantastic evening. We biked downtown to a new (to us) restaurant. It was about 4-5 miles each way, but it was a beautiful 80+ degree day so we rode it. Plus, it turned out to have great margaritas so even better reason to be on bikes. On the way back Kyle, Bear and I rocked out to the Beach Boys and Kyle proclaimed it to be one of the best nights ever. Em has a bit of a tummy ache so she took the ride back slowly with Jeff. I'm sure going to miss where we live. 

Buonjourno

Kyle & Emily were off school today for President's Day. So after dropping Jeff off at the airport, we got on our bikes and biked down to Little Italy. It's about 4 miles there with some great coastal views making it easy on the kids and less stressful for me. 

We started off with some good Italian pizza. Scratch that, we started off with a cannoli to really get the Italian flavor. The kids thoroughly enjoyed it. Then we hit up the pizza. 

And then we went to another cannoli joint for some post-pizza cannoli. These weren't as good as the first one, but they were still quite enjoyable.

And now we are ready to roll home. 

Aaron's bike

For his 2nd birthday (in 2 months), Aaron is getting a tricycle. I hadn't planned on picking it up this early, but the person in front of me at Costco was buying one (it was the same one we were going to buy, I just didn't think to look for it at Costco) so I picked one up since the price was so good. Aaron was super excited about his "bike". He knew that he got to "ride" it. He said "bike" and "ride" almost the whole way home from the store. 

Balloon parade

In what's becoming an annual tradition, we biked downtown to watch the Bay Balloon Parade. This year, Aaron didn't have a nap at the same time so both he and Jeff got to enjoy it as well. The kids did great with the ride, enjoyed the balloons and had a good time. Afterwards, we biked into Little Italy for a good Italian lunch. Little Italy has such a great vibe and good food options, but we don't visit it nearly as much as we should. On the ride home, we ran into naptime so with about 1 mile to go, Aaron fell asleep in his bike seat - which is on the front of my bike - so it made for an interesting ride holding his head up while navigating our path. 

New bikes

Happy (early) 7th Birthday Kyle and Emily! They got their new bikes today for their birthday. They had outgrown their other bikes and it was time for new ones. They got ones with hand brakes only and gears! Pretty exciting! It was a bit frustrating for the first few hours adjusting to just hand brakes and trying to shift, but they have done great and love their new bikes!

Fourth of July

Our 4th of July was pretty fun. While we don't have the crazy, busy 4ths that many others do, ours was busy for us. We started the day trying to get to the beach in the morning with the rest of Point Loma. But by the time we were ready to bike over to the beach, Aaron was breaking down for a nap. We thought we could push it since he woke up late, but figured it was in our best interested to let the boy sleep and go to the beach after nap. So he napped, very short, but he napped, and then we biked over to the beach. It was very crowded, but it felt so much less crowded since we didn't have to deal with car parking. It's amazing what a difference that makes. We set up our 'camp' and got to our beach afternoon. We saw plenty of people we knew there and had some fun in the water and the sand. Aaron showed he was a true California boy, with the surfer blonde hair and all, loving the water and even riding on someone's boogie board in the water. Emily made some friends with a handful of girls her age and spent time out in the water on a giant raft with them. Kyle stuck close and played a lot of catch with us and saw some of his friends from school too. It was the perfect time at the beach. 

I loved showing up on a bike, carefree and spending the time that we wanted without the worries of parking and such. Thank goodness Aaron has a bike seat and we could use the bike trailer to haul the beach stuff. Oh and Aaron was soo very tired on the way home that he completely passed out in his seat. I had to hold his head up to prevent it from flopping about. See picture below. 

After dinner, we took in the fireworks from the neighborhood with about 5,000 other people who found it a great place to watch as well. Kyle and Emily watched with Simon and Aaron walked around watching the fireworks with the wide eyes of a toddler, loving it.