Noah biking

Video links:
Noah rides!
Noah rides more...
We took Noah out to the nearest empty parking lot and gave him a few lessons on launching himself on his Spiderman bike.  He already knew how to pedal from riding our big red bike, and he knew how to balance and steer his bike from becoming a master Strider.  He was able to put the pieces together amazingly fast!  He's not really ready for hills yet, so we're challenged at our house for where/how to ride.  In the first video, he got launched so fast, I was not able to push record before he was up and pedaling.
He's pretty proud to be riding his Spiderman bike now; he told a bunch of people that he couldn't ride it until he was 4 - accomplished that goal!

New Year's Resolution

I did pretty good with my New Year's resolution of taking and sharing more pictures up until bike team started.  We're between our bike team seasons now for a few weeks, so I'll try to get caught up... 

Scary teeth - January

Noah the Builder! (March)

Exploring Plummer House gardens - May

Camping for lunch on daddy and Noah day - May 

Playing at the Park Point beach, Duluth - June

Having a horse ride on our "wild west" trip - July

Canoe outing with our friends - July

Look ma, pedals! - July

That's a random Noah first half of the year wrap up.  I'll get some vacation/fun-outing posts and craftiness up soon.

Bike time

This past weekend was the first race of our bike season - the "Sandwich 50" a 7 lap race of our most local mountain biking trails.  We signed up to do the race as a duo, so we could take turns racing laps and watching Noah.  The night before the race, it rained... substantially.  We spent the morning of debating whether we should even bother because the course would be a muddy mess.  Brian voted no, I voted to at least show up.  He wasn't looking forward to cleaning up the bikes after the "fun", while I was thinking about all the effort put into packing our picnic and biking gear the night before.  Noah was looking forward to it, so we had 2 votes for go.
Noah knew that the grass was wet from the rain, so he dressed appropriately - froggy boots!  When we picked up our numbers at the registration table, Noah observed that he didn't have one for his bike right away.  The registration guy, Jeff, knows us from bike team, so he hooked Noah up with a number plate for his bike.  He was pretty proud of being included in the fun.

Noah and Brian starting the race!  (I did the actual first lap.)

About the race, all I can really say is hauling an extra 10 pounds of earth stuck to each tire makes biking a LOT more work than I was conditioned for.  I originally was planning on completing 3 laps, but didn't take long to taper that down to reality of 2 laps, and they were slow laps.  Both Brian and I dropped chains during a lap; I struggled to get mine back on (don't think I've ever done that on a mountain bike before).  My bike slid out from under me on a little wooden bridge, but I managed to keep my feet underneath me, so it wasn't a problem.  We didn't "pass the baton" very efficiently either, calling the other over from playing at the playground took a bit extra time against our lap clock.  I found myself feeling hungry quite a bit while out on the course as well.
The extra fun feature of this low-key local race is that a group of supporters set up a station in the woods to help provide, well, support for the racers.  They have some music going, grill bacon to hand-up as riders are cruising past, lawn chairs under an easy-up tent, beer hand-ups, and many more items available upon request.  Brian's pride of the race was that someone objected when another "supporter" suggested a beer, that he was clearly too young for it!  I claim it's because they were familiar with the high-school racing jersey that he was wearing, he claims he just looks that refreshingly young!  Noah had been hearing about the bacon stand, so when we were done racing, we had a family trip into the woods to "bike" to the bacon tent.  The main organizer of the support station welcomed us and took really good care of Noah - bacon, water bottle, doughnut (the size of Noah's arm and he ate the whole thing in record time!).  Noah discovered a little obstacle adjacent to the course right by the bacon station and rode or walked countless times over the rocks and down the log.  He's getting good training for smooth bike handling!
Back down at race headquarters, hot dogs were being grilled and white elephant prizes handed out.  Noah scored himself a horn to put on his bike (it only fits, poorly at that, on the spiderman bike), kiddy head-light and tail-light set with dead batteries, and more than enough junk food.
We bailed out just in time as it started raining again shortly after getting home; Brian hadn't even finished hosing off the muddy gear.  Noah was a piece of work, desperately needing a nap - too much excitement and junk food for one morning.  After a short bit of crying, he fell asleep and had to get awoken to head to church.
It was good that we went - we spent the time outdoors instead of grumpy about the weather inside.  We networked with a few local bike promoters who might help somewhat with bike team this year.  Noah had fun, practiced biking, and learned some trail etiquette.  We got 4th to last out of a field of about 70 participants - I'm proud to have done more/better than a few people.

Fast, cheap, and significant!

When searching for paint for one of my little building projects, I stumbled upon a clearance can of "porch and floor" paint that was a very suitable color for us.  We'd been talking about doing something to make the downstairs bathroom more livable/likable until we get around to tearing it apart and doing it right.  So, here we have a fast and cheap "remodel" job that makes a huge difference!  The yellowed, white-wash job on the floor was the most significant eye sore about the room.  Now that the upstairs bathroom is totally functional, we could make the main floor toilet off-limits for 2 days and paint it up!

Before.  I scrapped the big chunks of cracked paint/poly out of the grooves in the floor.

Brian pulled the toilet out, it had a little rocking chair feel to it, so that was something in mind when doing this quick project.

Clearly there was moisture all over the place down there!  Glad to clean that out of my house!

Another before shot.  The clashing color of the floor and wall  hurts my eyes!

During.  Brian is our master painter, I help significantly during the prep, but he's the one who wields the brush.

Ahh.  After.

Look at that lovely color contrast between the crisp white wall and the medium gray floor! 

We started this on Sunday afternoon when we figured we were clear for showings for the weekend - most showings happen on weekends, so once those are done, we can work all week...  Ha ha!  Brian got a call on Monday morning for a Monday afternoon showing.  I told him earlier to just say no since we have the bathroom torn apart and a busy week, but the agent isn't actually bringing a buyer, he's just previewing, so we showed the house with the toilet sitting in the middle of the office!

In putting back the toilet, Brian decided that it was previously installed incorrectly, and that's why we had that rock and roll action.  We now have a properly installed toilet that sits firmly in place!  It wasn't the wood floor's fault after all!

Total project: about 5 person hours and  $15.  How long do you think that the expensive bathroom remodel will be avoided??

Kite

Noah insisted on buying Brian a kite for his birthday.  As if a 36 year old is just dying to have a fun little kite to fly, but at only $2.50, I indulged my little shopping helper.  Since we were on vacation the whole week before Brian's birthday, we did our shopping before we left town, allowing 8 days for Noah to ruin the surprise.  It only took about 10 minutes for that to happen...  "Daddy, daddy, we get to fly the kite on Noah and daddy day!  It has Spiderman on it because boys like Spiderman and you're a boy and I'm a boy, so we can fly it together on Noah and daddy day!"  Somehow Noah still seemed to think that there would be a surprise because the kite was in wrapping paper and hidden in the closet.
With the intense wind we get in Rochester, it seems logical that a kite would be fun.  We took it out this weekend when we had to be gone for a house showing.  The package indicated that it was intended for 5-15 mph wind.  What??!  Our wind is never lower than 5 mph!  I thought kites were built for windy days!  It was much closer to 25 mph when we were out, so the kite was quite strained as it was flown.  I kept expecting it to pop off the string or have some other catastrophic failure, but it didn't.  Overall, it was fun, but our attention span was only about 10 minutes for kite flying (maybe due to the stress of expecting a catastrophic failure?).  Maybe on a calm day, we could last longer!
The baseball field seemed to be a good choice for flying our Spiderman since there weren't any power lines or trees or anything else to cause issues.  I can't believe it's still winter and we got sunburned while flying kites and playing outside all day!
There has been mention of a princess kite for my upcoming birthday - girls like princesses!  I hope the adult shopper helps steer the enthusiastic young one... one kite is enough for this family!  We'll wait for a calmer day and try again.