Want to See Two Very Happy Boys?

To celebrate spring, the Badger took Bean to the store yesterday and bought him a brand-new bike, along with a new helmet and biking gloves. You should have seen the way Bean was glowing when they got home! It was a very exciting moment to watch Bean climb on his new bike and ride off.

But that was only the beginning of the excitement. The Badger also bought Fish a new helmet, which tickled him no end. Bean's old bike was then bequeathed upon Fish. We tried to put training wheels on it but they didn't work. So, with a little help from his dad and older brother, Fish had his first bike-riding lesson. He caught on extremely quickly and within a few minutes we witnessed his first solo ride followed by a graceful crash into the neighbor's lawn and the cutest victory dance I have ever seen in my life from the happiest Fish in the whole world.

This is the first time the kids have ridden bikes since we lived in Idaho in the summer of 2006. That summer Bean was 5 and I had bought the blue bike you see above at a garage sale. Shortly after he learned to ride it we moved to Oregon. The entire time we were there the bikes stayed buried in the garage because we lived on a pretty steep hill. Then last year after we moved here we kept talking about digging the bikes out and fixing them up but it never happened. One of the main reasons is that our street is far less than ideal for kids to bike around on. This year we feel like they're old enough to do it with supervision. They're also old enough to go on long bike rides with us. We're looking forward to a lot of wonderful family time on bikes this summer!