We Got NEW Bikes!

Last weekend (March 10-11ish) the temperature hit 70 degrees on Sunday and it was AMAZING! Did I mention it was still the beginning of March? Seriously! Last year all it did was rain. I think this area set a record for consecutive days with rain. Not this year! 

The weekend before Perry and I spent the majority of our time finishing up the extra room which will now be our spare room / library. By library, I mean we have A bookcase in there, so that counts, right? I finished painting in the early afternoon, and then jumped in on painting in the main part of the basement. I wasn't planning on spending the whole day painting, but I'm not in the mood very often so I took advantage of my willingness and got a ton done.

In the meantime, Ms. Gail spent her afternoon trying to ride her bike without her training wheels on. It was a hand-me-down bike and one of the training wheels broke off this past fall, so I took them off and bought her new ones to put on, except I didn't put them on. I encouraged her to try to use the balance bike to scoot around on but she was having none of that idea. Before Perry and I knew it, she had gotten the hang of stopping and starting on her bike (without crashing!) all on her own. I was floored when she brought me out to see and she was biking up and down the road. Girl was determined!

With the weather being so perfect this past weekend, we took the kids to the store to pick out new bikes. HD and JP were both in need of bigger bikes (and new bikes because they left theirs in the rain a few too many times...) The kids were SO EXCITED!!

We ended up having to take JP's back to the store. Turns out using the hand brakes was a little challenging for him. He ended up with a green (duh) bike that only has petal brakes. 

Ms. Gail's new bike was one size up from the one she learned on and is still a little on the big side so we opted to keep her extra wheels on until she was more comfortable riding on this one.

After spending the whole afternoon biking around the driveway, the kids begged us to take them on a bike ride.

I willingly brought up the rear and happily let Perry take the lead. He and the boys were always way ahead, stopping occasionally to wait for us to catch up. Ms. Gail really struggled going up hills, but so did I so I gladly walked with her.

My bike was also in need of some serious work. It would shift gears without me actually shifting gears and was terrible to ride. Did I mention the left hand brake for the front tire didn't work? That was a problem that was hard to get used to! As soon as we arrived home, Perry brought both our bikes into the garage to see what he could do to fix them...

***Several weeks later....***

It's a gorgeous spring evening out and HD comes excited inside to tell me he can bike without hands. Of course I *have* to see this. When he says he can bike without hands, he actually means, he can quickly take them off and put them back on again. Robin and I reminisced about biking down our gravel road with no hands. I should have left it at that but I didn't. I went and got my bike to show HD how I could also ride with no hands. For the record, I would like to say I CAN DO IT! With that said, on my final run, I took my bike down the driveway and picked up speed. A LOT of speed. With no hands. Before I got to the garage I went to stop, not remembering Perry FIXED my front brake handle. Previously I had to squeeze it really hard for it to kind of work. Now I hardly have to touch it. So with that said, I instictively grabbed that brake, my bike immediately stopped. The back end came up over the front and I lay smashed on the pavement underneath my bike. Robin is now dying of laughter. HD has a look of embarrassing disgust on his face and Ms. Gail is screaming "MOOOOM!!!!" So yeah. No bruising though!!