Emi Rides!

This is old news by now, but I haven't posted pictures or videos. Emi is pedaling her own bike. We had been helping her down to the corner and back all of March, she could do it a little on her own, but usually wanted to walk back. I had even told a friend that I didn't think she was going to want to learn this summer and that was okay.

Emi from garrick holey on Vimeo.

One day, she came to me and said, let's go bikin', I'm gonna ride my pedal bike. The next thing I knew, she was hopping on it and with a little help to get going, was on her way down to the corner and around the block! She really had no learning curve, just needed to decide on her own terms that she was going to do it!

Now, a few months later, she can pedal around the lake, all over campus at SMU, has completed MANY bike races around the block when our grown-up friends come over and bikes to school and back most of the time as well. She is more cautious than her brother, but I think it is because she doesn't have the coaster brakes mastered yet, so she is hesistant going down hills. Either way.... we are proud of our little biking babe!!

Bike Trail Day

Mondays have turned into Grandma and Grappa Days. There have been very few all summer that we haven't seen them and the plans seem to be that we will continue to see them for the rest of them!

We took one Monday to drive to Wilton and "camp out" there for the day. There is a nice city park that has a shelter, picnic tables, playground as well as a pool that are all within biking distance of the trail. So we met, had lunch, went biking on the trail to Tunnel #2, walked through the tunnel, climbed on the rocks and then biked downhill the whole way home.

Peter rode his pedal bike on his own and Emelia rode on the trail-a-bike for the first time for a long distance like that! We had tossed around the idea of staying overnight, but it ended up that there was a huge storm and tornado warnings... good thing we got out of there!

Christmas Card

After quite a bit of thinking and planning I think we came up with the perfect Christmas card this year. We "waited" for the perfect snow-y day (meaning that we procrastinated and got lucky with a snowy day) and got a friend lined up and went to the lake path for some pictures. Of course, when we were done, all the kids wanted to do was play in the snow and on the swings!!

Night Riding

With the early nights and the darkness, we have worked hard to come up with ideas to make the nights go by faster.

Fall Biking

We spent a lot of fall biking- to the fountain park, at holzingers and all over town. Emi has gotten to be so fast on her scoot bike and Peter is just a whiz on his pedal bike of course. Peter at one point this fall biked 7 miles with me while I ran around the lakes. Lainey loves riding in the backpack with us as well.

Bike Trail

We went for our bike trip to the Elroy Sparta bike trail. This year, we made it further than we had before with all of the kids along- but still not quite far enough to make it to the next town for ice cream... maybe next year. As you can see, it was pretty chilly out anyhow- especially after it had been nearly 100* the day before at the tractor show!

Peter rode the whole way on his trail-a-bike and Emi took a break from the trailer on her scoot bike as well. Lainey as usual, was a trooper.

Mountain Bikers

Peter has gotten so good on his pedal bike and Emelia has gotten so good on her scoot bike that we headed up to Holzinger and took the kids for the short loop up there. Peter was so  fast going down the hills and we said he reminded us of a little Ewok on his space bike! Emi also had so much fun and of course- did it herself.