Our New Favorite Pastime

Some of you may know that I surprised Mike with a new bike for his birthday this year (well, almost surprised... it's hard to really keep a secret with a two year old around.). To say he was excited would be a bit of an understatement. He loved his present and I was pretty proud that I picked a gift that he wasn't tempted to return (he does have a history of that after all...)Along with his bike we ended up buying a bike for me and a trailer for the girls so that we could go on family bike rides together. I can't even tell you how much fun we've been having! We go on bike rides just about every evening after dinner. It's been so fun!

The first weekend after getting our bikes we decided to go out for our first ride. We planned on just riding around the neighborhood but once we got out there and realized how fun it was enjoying the beautiful day and the fresh air, we decided to head to the park for a picnic. There was just one problem, we didn't bring a lunch for our picnic and neither of us had our wallets to even stop and buy lunch. But we also didn't want to go back home so we kept riding. Mike had the idea of stopping in at the bank (inside Walmart) and seeing if he could talk them into giving us some money. ("Yeah, right..." I thought) Remember how we didn't have wallets, that meant no bank cards and no IDs... So we stop, I wait outside with the bikes and the girls, and what do you know, 20 minutes later he comes walking out with a shopping bag full of lunch and goodies for our ride. (I told you he was a smooth talker, right?)

We applied some newly purchased sunscreen and kept on riding until we ended up at the park. We enjoyed some yummy deli subs, Kylie and Daddy got some energy out of the jungle gym and I played on the grass with our little Emmie Grace. Then we realized that the half-hour bike ride that we had planned on had turned into a four hour day-trip... so we decided to head home.

Now let's be honest here, the ride out there was so fun, the ride back, not so much... We had to stop a few times because my thighs were burning sooo bad! It's amazing how flat a road can seem until you are riding a bike up it. Oh, and another reason my legs were on fire, I learned toward the end of our ride that I was completely using my gears backward. Like when you are going uphill you should dial down to a low gear like "1," yeah, I was turning it to "7!" It's no wonder my legs would lock up when I was trying to pedal uphill. Lesson definitely learned!

Seriously though, we have been loving our bikes and can't wait until the next time we get to go out for a family ride!