and away we go!

Our first big ride of the year with friends.... Our last big ride of the year with said friends. lol The joys of expanding your family during the summer months. Take it from someone who has birthed twice (technically) in the summer, once in the spring and once in the winter... Spring and winter babies are the best if you love outdoor activities. And depending on what those activities are, winter babies might be the best. Ok, winter babies are the best for me since one of my favorite things to do is our family bike rides. And bike riding while pretty pregnant just isn't always the most fun thing to do.

Riding around for almost 20 miles with your pregnant buddy, both your husbands and both your toddler boys makes for some fun times. And some really stressful, annoying ones too. But I tend to try to focus on the good times. Who cares how fast someone went when its all said and done? Who cares how many times you had to stop and try to find a decent bathroom (and might I add that they don't really exist at huge state parks!) because really? Asking for a clean bathroom with doors might be asking for too much.

What makes it worth it is accomplishing your goals and spending the time outdoors with friends....

Biker Buddies (the young edition)

I can only imagine that those two little faces really didn't care about much other than the fact that they got to play at the park. They had a blast going up and down hills that left all the adults panting, sweating and sometimes, stopping and throwing their hands up in momentary defeat. Watching these two little boys go up and down the slides, attempt to "walk" across the plank bridge, make music on the giant organ... those things are what is worth remembering.

I know that not all our rides this spring/summer will end up like today. I know that some will be much more physically challenging while the majority will be a cakewalk of a ride. I know that we won't get to go out with our riding buddies again until next year when both them and ourselves will have a matching set of littles (just differing ages), stowing behind in the trailers. But for a first (and last) ride of the season, today was perfect!

new beginnings

Today might have been a near perfect day. We had planned to stay home, do nothing, watch a movie and just relax. Instead, we heard that the weather was going to be beautiful and we just knew that we couldn't spend the day sitting inside, letting the mild temperatures go to waste. During breakfast, we threw the windows open, cooked and ate breakfast as a family, and planned our day.

What did we plan? Our first bike ride of the year! We LOVE biking and love trying out all our local trails (and are thinking about getting a rack so we can try out further our trails). Today, we did a short five mile ride but it felt wonderful getting out again. Hubby realized that its a bit harder pulling the littles this year than it was last and we are now talking about getting a second trailer so I can pull one of them behind me.

perfect memories

After biking, I convinced hubby to take the littles to the park. Anyone who knows my hubby knows that he is not a big fan of the park. So its not an every day thing that he comes along with us. But today, he did join us and he had as much fun as they did.

My little (to me) 19 month old son climbed to the top of the play structure ON HIS OWN! More than seven feet in the air and not a drop of fear on his face. Where SweetPea at this age loved swinging, Porker loves the slide! The higher the slide, the faster that he could swoop down, the better. SweetPea is still more cautious on the slides, preferring to slow herself down, where my little Porker flew off the slide more times than I could count (sometimes, even the correct way).

I am so longing for our weather to remain the way that it was today. Warm and mild during the bike ride, getting a bit nippy at the park but still decent. I feel myself waking up inside with each warmer day.

enough is enough

All week long, I have been driving myself nutty with this funk that I have been in. So today, when SweetPea did her daily weather report and we noted sunny skies and milder temperatures, I did the only sensible thing for all of us. I packed up the lessons early, bundled the littles up and we headed outside for some good ol' vitamin D fresh from the top.

It was one of those rare days when I decided that nap time could wait. That the dishes from lunch weren't going to go anywhere on their own. When I turned off the phone, tuned into my children and enjoyed the moment. I won't say that it was the end all, cure all for whatever is going on in my head right now but it definitely was a huge blessing.

Hit the road, Jack

Part of me cannot help but remember last year at this time. The weather was already warming up and we were spending more and more time outside. In fact, the last day of "winter", our temperatures were in the 80s and the littles were playing in the water. And not the half frozen water on the side of the house that they played in the other day but real, garden hose, icy cold water.

I need to look at this cold snap as a blessing though. Without it, I would be sorely tempted to start seedlings in the laundry room again. And going on vacation, its hard enough to find someone willing to watch all the animals, let alone my precious little seedlings. So I am half praying for the colder weather to stick around until closer to when we leave. Give me a small refresher day once in a while so I can be at peace outside but keep the temps down enough so I am not tempted to add  more onto my plate.

home to Richmond!!

We did it!! We did it!! We made a 52.22 mile bike ride a reality!! We completed the MOT trail today! Woohoo!! And I don't feel like I am going to totally die either! I feel like I could sing from the top of the roofs that we did it!!

Wow... today was amazing, exhilarating, phenomenal, magical, extraordinary!! Just a  few short months ago (like two months?) when we talked about trying the MOT, we talked about going halfway and turning around. After all, there was no way that we could complete a 50 mile round trip in a day. That's just too much. But now?! We did it! We did it!!

I am still in shock and might be for a very long time. I didn't realize how close we came to Richmond two weeks ago when we made it into Armada but wow... we almost completed the trail that day too. Only five miles from the finish line, we turned back the last time. Which was fine since that Sunday's ride was supposed to be a short one. Today, we planned out snacks, water, entertainment for Sweet Pea and Pork Chop, and completed the trail.


I almost want to stop and think "Now what?" but I know what is next. Our next big ride will be headed towards Lake St Clair in Harrison Township. That ride should be just over 40 for us but will send our long haul Sunday partners to their first 50 mile ride.


I have so many thoughts about today but I do need rest. I want to be able to walk tomorrow and enjoy my day, not have to spend it in bed nursing my old, tired muscles. lol

Happy Father's day

What a day! I really wanted to go all out for hubby today since its his special day and his first with our little Pork Chop. But I knew that things weren't going to go as planned when Pork Chop suddenly spiked a fever of 103 last night out of the blue. Something ended up making me give hubby the cards/pictures that the littles drew him last night and I am glad that I did. Because I never would have thought about them first thing in the morning.

My plan was to let hubby sleep in and then serve him breakfast in bed. Instead, I got a restless night with Pork Chop, followed by an early morning wake up when I couldn't deal with my little furnace kicking any longer. Good thing too because when I peeked at the baby, his entire body looked like it was glowing. I took his temperature and freaked (first time I have ever been truly scared by a fever). It was 105.3 in the ear! I woke hubby who remained calm and got a mix of tylenol and motrin into him. Within an hour, he was back to 103 and continued to fall until it hit 101. That was definitely more to my liking and because of hubby's ability to remain calm, we avoided the ER again.

I wasn't sure about following any of our original plans until I knew how the baby was going to fare so we let him catch a nap in daddy's arms while we waited. And waited. And waited some more. But the fever seemed to remain steady at 101 so we ended up doing our normal weekend errands.


While out, I managed to sneak the ingredients for a Snickers cake into the cart. If I couldn't do everything that I wanted for hubby, at least I could do that. And I did it well! The cake was phenomenal!! Not the best gift to someone trying to lose weight and get into better shape but its not every day that you get to celebrate the greatest daddy in the world.


We even managed to get in one of our bike rides. It was just around the creek but with the temps in the high 80s and the humidity a killer, it felt like MUCH further than the 17 miles that it really was. Word of advice from me, don't attempt hills in the humidity. They become worse! And words of wisdom from hubby, don't attempt a strenous ride after eating Snickers cake.