Over night

Last night, we went on a bike ride, with plans to stop at our school so that we could play the game that we gave Patrick for Father's Day. It was a beautiful night, no rain or wind, which we've been having a lot of lately. The only bad part was the presence of a billion mosquitoes who apparently LOVE the fact that it has been raining since April. As I was cleaning up dinner, daddy pumped all of the tires up on the bikes - It's always amazing to me how quickly the air seeps out of them while they sit in the garage...doing nothing. Anyhow - we got on our bikes and headed out to "bunny land" as we like to call it. It is an area just east of us that is swarming with bunnies. They are everywhere. We love to have competitions to see who can spot the bunnies first, as they are very easily camouflaged. One even jumped out in front of Maddie last night! She is always way out in front of the rest of us, leading the pack, and I was pretty surprised that she was able to swerve around this kamakazee bunny! After we rode for a while, we stopped at Zach (our school) to play badmitton. While the rest of the family was warming up, Michael and I went over to the playground. He has changed overnight. I was amazed at how sure footed he was as he was climbing around. Even if he slipped while doing something dare-devilish, he was able to catch himself. I know that he isn't a baby anymore in the sense of diapers and bottles, but I guess I hadn't noticed that he really has changed into a big boy with things like playing at the park. He no longer needs me to watch his every move while he's playing. He is capable and sure of himself. It's a little hard to "let go" of him in this area. The girls were just not nearly as adventurous. But as challenging as it is not to hover, I really enjoyed watching him play and try new things. I still stood close, but tried to control my urges to hold on to him. After we played our game for a while, we rode home trying to cool ourselves down in all of the sprinklers between our house and school. It was a perfect ride, spent with all of the people who mean the most to me.