picture of the week

We’ve been having quite a bit of car issues lately. I’m not going to go into the details here, but suffice it to say that we’ve decided to focus on biking rather than driving, at least until the rainy season hits. Then we’ll reevaluate. My previous bike was a pretty good one – a 70s or 80s beach cruiser that we picked up from a thrift store about a year ago. It was great for getting us back into biking, because it was really just a grownup version of a kid bike (one speed, pedal brakes). As we’ve been biking more and more lately (Will and the boys for the past several months, me for the past couple of weeks), it was clear that a single speed bike in our town just wouldn’t cut it. You see, you don’t notice it in a car, or really even on foot, but our town is quite hilly. Getting to downtown was fine; coming home was the problem (it’s about 3 miles each way). Pedaling a single speed bike up those hills was hard. So a couple of weeks ago, we started bike shopping. We found this one at the local big box store, and Will and I both immediately gravitated toward it. We’d look at it a couple of times a week, and we even got permission to take it for a test ride (around the outdoor – but fenced in – garden center). We just knew that this was destined to be my bike. So we saved up, got a few windfalls, and finally bought it. And let me tell you, it’s an absolute dream to ride! The hills are still a bit of work, but nothing compared to what they are on the cruiser. I couldn’t be happier with this new purchase!

And in case you’re wondering, since the photo was taken, we’ve taken the rack off of the back and replaced it with a baby seat for Small Fry. That little guy just adores going for bike rides!

Blessings,

Wendy

P.S. In case you’re interested in the details, or want to get one of these for yourself, it’s in the Schwinn 700C family of city bikes.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago how we were having transmission problems with our car. Well, transmissions are very expensive to replace, and in a car that’s 23 years old and has over 300,000 miles, it just doesn’t make financial sense. So we had to say “good-bye” to our car, “Rocket,” earlier this week. In the background of the lower picture, you can see our new car – a 2002 PT Cruiser that we’re buying from my in-laws.

While it is nice to have a (slightly) newer, much more reliable car, it was still a little sad to send Rocket to the junkyard.

Blessings,

Wendy

We took our annual trip to the Tulip Festival with my in-laws a couple of weeks ago. It was super fun, as always! This year, Small Fry was big enough to walk around and do some stuff. He really liked the swings. The face cutouts are some of our favorite things to do for pictures while we’re there, too. Last year, Seahawk, Munchkin, and their grandpa posed in this particular cutout. This year, Small Fry was big enough to participate . . . while sitting on Seahawk’s knee, that is!

Blessings,

Wendy

A friend of Seahawk’s recently gave him this guitar. It’s a kid-size, not a full-size, so it’s perfect for his ten-year-old hands. At some point during the next year, Will will likely start teaching him to play (he used to be a professional musician). In the meantime, the kids are just having fun making sounds on it. Especially Small Fry!

Blessings,

Wendy

We used to have a frog. It was a tree frog indigenous to the area that Will caught while he was out in a farmer’s field one day (we know the farmer, so it wasn’t weird for him to be there). The frog came through the irrigation pipe with the water. (The water was pulled from the river to water the fields, and there’s a large frog population right near the pump.) He caught the frog, brought her home, and we had her for a pet for about three years. Her official name was Gummy (in honor of the candy, gummy frogs), but we always just called her Froggie.

Unfortunately, Froggie passed away a few months ago. The kids were pretty sad about that, but it was a good life lesson for them. We’ve been pet-free ever since then – until Easter.

Seahawk and my mom arranged a surprise for the rest of us: a new frog! The two of them had been planning this for nearly a month (ever since my parents took the [older] boys to the Exotic Animal Expo at the end of March). This one’s a lot bigger than our other one, and it will get much bigger than it is now. It’s a Pacman frog, named thus because of their huge mouths. We’ve named ours Grenouille (gruh-noo-lya). That’s the French word for “frog.” We thought it was appropriate for our family :).

Do you have any pets?

Blessings,

Wendy

Small Fry was so excited when his daddy came home from work last night! (Remember, half the time he works from home, half the time he works outside the home.) He just could not get enough Daddy time. It was awesome :).

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Wendy

Everyone else had finished dinner the other day and we had started the process of washing the dishes. Next thing I knew, I looked over and Small Fry had helped himself to the pan (it had already cooled by then thankfully) and was eating straight from the serving spoon. So funny!

Have a great weekend.

Blessings,

Wendy