We tried to take a family bike ride last week and Owen was too tired/ cranky/ not feeling it at all, so we turned back. After getting everyone ready, it was about a 5 minute ride!
However, tonight we tried it again with success! Owen was awake and happy for the first half of the ride and then fell asleep for the second half. I put him in the trailer with Carter because I knew that Carter would take special care of him. He's good like that. :)
It was a chilly but beautiful evening and we had the best time riding together!
Ready to roll!
Carter and Owen
We can't pass a digger without stopping! That would be crazy, right?
Funny side note to this post. We'd had such a great first ride as a family of seven, that I knew I wanted to blog it tonight, to remember this lovely evening. It's only now, after posting the above photos, that I'm remembering our hellish afternoon today. How could I've forgotten already?!
I'd gone to see my parents, who live two hours away, for a quick overnight visit. Chris stayed back to finish our bathroom renovation.
Making this two hour trip alone with the five boys is usually fine. I try and time the trip around nap time, play a movie and the younger boys almost always drift off. Two hours seems manageable.
However, today, it turned into the trip from hell! I missed a turn, which added time and then we came upon construction traffic and proceeded to move at a snails pace for almost an hour. If you have a baby, then you know, keeping momentum is key! If the car is moving and your baby is sleeping, you don't want to stop for anything! Any yet, today, there was no choice but to stop and join the hundreds of cars not moving.
As predicted, Owen woke up and started crying.
After about twenty minutes of hardly moving, I had visions of hanging a sign out the window saying something like, "take pity on me, I've got five kids in the car and one won't stop crying!!" and then screaming up the side shoulder, passing everybody. But, I didn't.
Then, when I thought things couldn't get more stressful, I noticed that we were on empty when the empty light actually came on.
"Are we going to run out of gas?" Colin asked while Owen continued to cry.
We made it to the gas station. At that point, the trip had been so long, that little boys (and myself!) needed to use the restroom, so I piled my five little guys into a dirty gas station bathroom repeating over and over, "DON'T. TOUCH. ANYTHING!"
Then I loaded them back up, strapped them all in their car seats, nursed Owen a few minutes and then took off again. Owen cried until he fell asleep, which broke my heart but I didn't see another option.
Finally, we made it home safely and somehow the enjoyment of our family bike ride together, made me *almost* forget all about the earlier trip from hell.
Funny how that happens.
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