Riding Her Big Girl Bike

Last weekend Hannah had the first opportunity to take her big girl bike on a longer ride.  We’ve been around our complex a number of times but this time we ventured off to visit Auntie Carol and her family.  Hannah loved it!!

I hadn’t realized some of the things I would need to teach her.  She was still a little challenged about using the brakes even though we’d ridden around our complex a number of times but by the end of the ride she had improved greatly.  I also didn’t realize that when she came to a 90^o angle at a corner that she’d attempt to take it at full speed.  Yikes!  I quickly grabbed the seat and it was all good.  She only took one big tumble and that was when one wheel slipped off the side of the road.  She went down and her little leg was caught under the bike but she quickly shook it off and after a couple of kisses she was good to go!  Yay Hannah XiaoFen!

I quickly learned that I needed to ask her to stop about 10’ before a street to give her enough time to get herself stopped.  We followed the rules and walked her bike across each intersection.  Might as well learn good habits right from the beginning. 

Some things never change.  Even when tooting along on her bike flowers grabbed her attention.  She blessed Mommy with a beautiful bouquet of dandelions.  As beautiful as any bouquet of  roses when picked and presented by my little love!

Showing off her new riding skills to Auntie Carol, Katie and Jacob.

Our first ride was a huge success and I can’t wait to enjoy more with you Hannah!  Once she masters controlling her speed when going down inclines Mommy might even try riding her bike too.  Hmmm, that would require me getting it from Nana and Papa’s garage.  I rode it there one day but then ended up staying until it was dark so parked it in their garage….15 years ago!  Oops!  Will change that soon so that we can enjoy family bike rides together.  Fun times ahead!

Computer Update:  The little netbook I purchased when the power button went on my old one also quit working about 2 weeks after I purchased it.  When I took it back we quickly realized that it just wasn’t powerful enough for me even though I only use it for uploading and editing pictures, blogging and surfing the net.  I upgraded to a HP laptop and have been really happy with it.  So much faster, a bigger screen than I’ve had in a long time and just a great machine.  I miss the portability of the small netbook but reading blogs, looking at pictures and watching videos is much nicer on the 15.6” screen.  The one challenge I’d had was adding Windows Live Writer to it which is the program I use for blogging.  Thankfully one of the guys at our lunch table (we eat with The Big Bang guys) was able to add Live Writer to my computer and also retrieve the pictures that were locked on my original broken computer.  Thanks Cory!!

Now….if I could just figure out stupid Windows 8!