Learning to Ride

A week or so ago, Hallie went to visit her friend, Mason. (He is the one who sent her the love letter in the previous blog story.) Mason learned to ride his bike and wanted Hallie to bring hers over when she came. Seeing Mason ride without training wheels made Hallie want to learn. For all who know Hallie, you know that she can't let someone know how to do something that she can't do.

This past weekend, Hallie insisted that I take the training wheels off of her bicycle. I didn't really want to because I didn't want to spend the day holding the back of a bicycle and watching her fall down repeatedly, but since she really wanted to try, I removed the training wheels.

We made a couple of trips across our driveway while I was holding onto the back of her seat. I walked away for a second to take a drink of my water and when I turned back around, Hallie was riding her bike. She made about 5-6 revolutions with the pedals and screamed, "Did you see that?" From that point on, she just started riding. We ran out of room in the driveway, so we went down to the cul de sac. She rode and rode and rode. She did fall twice, but only cried once because she saw blood. Once the bandaid was on, she was back on the bicycle.

I would say that it was the easiest bike riding lesson ever, only there was no lesson. She just did it. I guess there is no substitute for no fear and extreme determination.

Snow Day

We have snow. Yes we do. We have snow. How 'bout you?

This morning we all woke up to snow on the ground. Jaime saw it first and we waited for Andrew and Daniel to wake up. Blake and Hallie were at Bidee's house. Andrew woke up and without even coming downstairs, we heard him yell, "Daniel, it is snowing outside of our window". I don't know what made him decide to look out his window, but he did and was very excited.

We immediately got dressed and ran outside to play. We caught some snowflakes on our tongues, threw some snowballs, and made a little snowman. The snowman didn't last long because Daniel decided to kick it over.

Here is some video of Andrew and Daniel enjoying the snow.

When the snow slacked up a little and before it got really bad, I drove out to Bidee's to get Blake and Hallie. They had made a snowman and were making snow ice cream when I got there. We rushed out the door to make it back home.

Once we got home, we all suited up again and played some more. Hallie wanted to make a big snowman, so we did. Blake wanted a snowball fight, so we did that too. Hallie and Daniel wanted to make an even bigger second snowman, so we did that too. After everyone talked of being cold and wet, we scooped some snow in a big bowl, went inside, and made some snow ice cream. It was a blast.

A few hours later the snow was gone and one of our snowmen had fallen to the ground. We went out again and Hallie and Daniel smashed the other snowman to the ground with a baseball bat.

In a year or two or ten, maybe we will get to do it all again.