My New Bike!

My kids are a little cautious, as some of you are already aware. They were not very physically active at a young age, and definitely were not wanting to learn how to ride bikes. Carl cycles a lot and enjoys it for the exercise as well as for fun. I have not had a bike since, well...I think it was my late teens. I rode around the neighborhood and sometimes even to the beach with Tina.

But I did learn when I was about 5-6. Times have changed, where we used to ride around at an early age, I would not let my kids ride alone anywhere in any neighborhood. Together, maybe around the block. So when we bought some garage sale bikes and urged the kids to ride, we got a lot of resistance. They were just not interested. We waited a while and then tried again, still no go. Kaleigh even got a bike with some money she earned from a drawing contest, but she still didn't learn...too afraid of falling. Then this last Spring, Kaleigh got an offer of a bike from a friend at church for free, and we told her, "if you take the bike you need to learn how to ride." She agreed and learned pretty quickly to ride. She had so much fun that at the end of the school year, Cole decided he wanted to learn too. He had a small bike (which I thought would be fine for him to learn since he could touch the ground with both feet) and it took a few tries but he got it too. Now, ever since I told the kids they needed to learn, I have told them that when they learn to ride, then I would buy a bike and go riding around with them. So, they learned before our vacation and I said I would get a bike as soon as we got home. So...all that to get to this. Today we went and not only got my bike, the photo above, but we upgraded Cole to a bigger bike as well. So now we can ride as a family! Yay!

Canada Part 2
According to Kaleigh, the best day was our last, when we bought our souvenirs and then Connie and family went to the beach with us, and the kids all got buried in the sand. Then Connie and kids came over and played while Carl and I made dinner. Kaleigh got to spend a good chunk of time with her one of her favorite cousins, Catherine. Kaleigh also said that she enjoyed all the time with Omi in the swing and just being in Omi's big house. The kids played games on the grass, ate and then we had s'mores for dessert. One of my favorite photos is the one with all the cousins lying face up on the grass. Thanks Connie! We decided that we definitely did not have enough time with Connie and Omi and next time we will try to stay at least a couple days longer!

Canada Part 1

We had a very nice stay in Canada too! I helped my mom the first day, by going to the bank, the Doctor and the Grocery store. The next few days we went to the Water Center and Atlantis Water park. We were able to kind of hang out with Omi and Connie's boys, Cole enjoyed riding his bike and going to the park with Aaron. Kaleigh and I went to Opa's bench and enjoyed a little walk. We went to the mall, and to the City park. When Connie came home for the weekend, we (Carl, Connie and I) had a really nice dinner at The Kettle Valley Grill. Yummy.

Oops, almost forgot our Jetboat trip!

So, this was towards the beginning of our time with Tina. We took Lee to his sis and bro-in-laws to do some work for them and continued to go on the Jetboats on the Rouge River. The kids had never been so we did the two hour trip vs. the 4 or full day trip. They LOVED it! Cole was saying, "THIS IS SO AWESOME!", Kaleigh and I were very happy everytime the captain drenched us with the boat because otherwise it would be a little warm. But usually it was just at the right time that he dipped the boat or did a turn! Sorry no photos of the dips or turns, the camera would have gotten soaked! I was being very careful! We also ate at a yummy place at the entrance to the jetboat dock called the Taprock restaurant. It was pretty good! Thanks to Donna and Jim for recommending it to us!

Summer Vacation - Oregon part 4

At Last! Graffiti Cars!

We always enjoy the Graffiti cars when they come to town! We looked at them when they were parked downtown and then again when they had their "Cruise". It was peachy keen seeing all the spruced up old cars! Cole enjoyed it a little more this time and of course you can't look any longer than Carl! We all went ahead of him because he looks at every single thing on the car!

We left the cruise a little earlier too. He stayed behind and took more photos. All in all it was a cool time!

Summer Vacation - Oregon part 3

Cherry pickin' and the River were a blast. First Tina and Kaleigh and I went Cherry picking. We got there early enough and scoped out the trees, trying to find ones with cherries on the lower branches but we didn't really find any so we started moving a ladder around to get the higher ones. We picked about a bowl and a half or so and then decided to go since the weather was getting warmer. Just on a fluke we decided to drive around the far side of the trees and low and behold the farthest corner of the grove or whatever were a few trees that were pretty loaded. We got out and in five minutes pretty much gathered the second half of the second bowl. Took a lot less time and we got a lot of good cherries. Yum! Later, we decided to cool off at the river and enjoy the sunshine without the heat! The river was cool and the beach not too crowded. The kids enjoyed making a rocky home with Trevor for a crawfish and they splashed and stuff, then took a little time to go up to the park for a bit of fun up there. All in all it was a lovely time.

Summer Vacation - Oregon part 2

We also went to Diana's college to see her place and see the college campus. We got to meet her boyfriend too! We had a nice lunch after picking up Diana and seeing her place. Before that we went to a cute Science Museum in town and had some fun there. It was nice to see where Diana is going to school and where she works. Pretty cool beans, Diana!

Summer Vacation 2010

Part 1

Oregon and Tina and Family: So we left home at 5am and drove the whole way to Tina's in Oregon. It wasn't too bad. Kaleigh read a lot and Cole read and slept. We arrived in the evening and had some dinner and visited for a while. The next day we went shopping and looked around town. It was very relaxing and the tent trailer in the back was great! Thank you to Lee's niece and her hubby! It was pretty hot during the day but it cooled down a lot and was relatively comfy (the only problem being that I am 5 feet 3 and Carl is 6 feet and not skinny). It was a tight squeeze but the kids loved it!

We had a fun time on the 4th and the kids especially liked the cool fireworks that a neighbor decided to give us! We had S'mores and what not and just enjoyed family time together. We took a trip to the coast and froze...well, it was about 58 degrees so it was a change from the 97 degree weather at Tina's.

We also had a blast on the Hellgate Jet boats! Photos of that later!

More to come!