Bicycle City

These photos are from March 7, and while there was definitely lots of snow on the ground, it was nice enough out that the girls wanted to take their bikes out and go for a little spin.

Over the winter Wayne and I had decided to buy new bikes for us, as we had given ours away to family members a year or two ago. Not that we missed them -- we were so busy with our young family that we rarely would get a chance to go out riding the two of us, and certainly our cautious little girls would never keep up on their bikes.

So we decided to buy trailer bikes. Those are the little kid bikes that attach to the seat of the adult bike, giving them the experience of riding a bike without the steering control. They look like this (without the adult bike that it attaches to).

A week ago the four of us traipsed to a local cycling shop to pick out new bikes for Wayne and I. While I was testing out a bike, Marissa wanted to ride a little girl's bicycle around the shop. It was pink and white with training wheels, a little basket and streamers on the handle bars. She got pretty good at riding it around, navigating around the corners of the store. Since the wheels themselves were white they didn't want it ridden in the parking lot and were okay with her riding it in the store as long as she kept out of other customers way, which she did.

So we selected the adult bikes to purchase, they did up the paperwork, did a little tightening up on the equipment and so on, and we were finally ready to go.

As we were leaving the store, Marissa began walking the little pink and white bike out with her. I stopped her at the door and told her that we hadn't purchased that bike, that we bought different kind of bikes for she and Lindsey.

I cannot describe the disappointment in her face. It was seriously heart-breaking. She said, "Okay," through her sobs as the employee took the bike back into the store. It was a good thing Wayne was putting the bikes in the van and didn't see her reaction or we would have purchased that cute little bike right then and there.

Instead, we bought the pink and white bike a week later.

So now we have a garage FILLED with bikes, hanging from every open rafter that you can screw a hook into. We've got Lindsey's little princess bike, Marissa's new pink and white bike, my purple bike, Wayne's blue and silver bike, and two trailer bikes to match, all hanging from various areas of the ceiling. If we want to go biking, we have to back out both the van AND the car to reach the bikes to get them down.

We're hoping they get used a lot.