Dancing and pedaling

DANCING: Some days you just need a good silly kitchen dance party. On Friday (Oct 16th), Amber and I had three kitchen dance parties. She turned on the poppy, peppy song "Try Everything" from the movie Zootopia, and we danced in our skinny kitchen until the song ended and we were out of breath. Then we did it again. A little later, we turned the same song on for a third time and Rose joined in, which made the skinny feel kitchen even skinnier. None of us are what you'd call natural dancers. We don't have moves. Our gross motor skills are minimal. We barely have any rhythm, but none of that matters when you're dancing in the kitchen! So we held hands while jumping around, twirling each other, and laughing our heads off. 

Jay refused to join in with our dance parties, so I assigned him photography duty. He delivered a series of joyfully silly, fun pictures: 

PEDALING: On Friday night, Rose spent the night at her cousin Layne's house in Grandview. The boy cousins (Tate and Cole) were on a manly father son outing, so it was a pure girls sleepover. They stayed up late and had a glorious girls' night. Yes there was emotional fallout from fatigue for the rest of the weekend, but we handled it with early bedtimes. 

We met the sleepover girls at Grampa Dan's house for pancakes on Saturday morning (Oct 17th). After pancakes, we all caravanned to the Coal Miners Trail in Cle Elum, WA for an extended family bike ride. Our party of ten drove in two cars: 2 grandparents, 1 aunt, and 2 cousins in one car, and our family of five in the other. Plus ten bikes! It was quite the load. Jeff is becoming a master bike-wedger. 

The Coal Miner's Trail is a beautiful forested gravel bike path that covers 4.5 miles from Cle Elum to Ronald, WA. We parked on the Cle Elum end and headed down the shady pathway. It appeared level, but the outbound journey was a slight uphill the entire way. Not a big deal to the adults and Jay and Rose, but it turned out to be Mt. Everest for Amber. She was angry the whole way out. I could barely get her to ride 2 miles on the awful "uphill." Walkers passed us. It was slow slow going. I kept getting off my bike and giving Amber running boost pushes to get her rolling again. I employed all of my mom-tactical encouragement devices. All of this got us about 2.2 miles down the path. Jeff, Jay, and Rose were far ahead of us. Everyone else was far behind us.

Amber's recalcitrance peaked at the same time as my patience ran dry, so we turned around. It was downhill the entire way back and Amber was as joyful on the return as she had been cranky on the way out. We cruised back to the car in next to no time, and Amber played with Grampa and 4 year old cousin Grayce while I did a little more biking. Jeff and I met on the path and did a speed test on the mile back to the car. He got up to 25 mph--kind of crazy on a bumpy gravel path. I managed 18.4mph, but quickly settled in at a more comfortable slower speed. One of the reasons I prefer mountain biking is because it emphasizes control and climbing over speed and gliding.

On the way home, we stopped in Yakima for donuts. 

Grayce, Rose, and Layne: the sleepover girls, ready for Grampa Dan's pancakes on Saturday morning.

The bike ride:

Pre-ride smiles

Before the worst of the frustration set in.

Rose tried waiting for us, but eventually I called Jeff and he came back to accompany Rose at high speeds back to Jay. They ended up riding 9 miles.

My bike doesn't have a kickstand, so I leaned it against various trees every time I dismounted to push Amber along. It would have been easier for me to walk along with her slow pedaling! I kept reminding myself to admire the pretty trees and enjoy the fresh air. Destination is unimportant for five year olds.