Biking

We bought one of those balance bikes for Ella for xmas, and have been trying to coax her onto the bike for the last month. Easier said than done, it turned out. To put it bluntly, she just didn't get it. Then, last week (Australia Day to be exact) something clicked. It happened during a trip to the shops, when Ella persuaded me she could ride her balance bike all the way there and back. I knew she couldn't but decided to humour her. It took about 15 minutes to get down the road, but she laboured on. She wanted me to ride next to her on my bike, but riding that slow simply wasn't possible. As we neared the shops, she got an occasional roll on. Then, on the way home (still insisting she could ride) I got bored and rode off ahead. Crying at me to wait she zoomed up to catch me and suddenly realised how fun this biking was. Then we rode most of the way home (until she decided to run the last 100m).

Since then, biking has been mandatory pastime every time we've been home. During last week, Nat took her down to cook shops playground and back (pictured, enjoying herself). On saturday morning we had to ride all the way to jamison; saturday afternoon we had to ride around a farm we visited (including our first major stack when we were incapable of braking on a steep downhill rocky track). And on sunday it was an all-family affair at Mia's 3rd birthday -- see the movie below with Josh, Ella and Mia having a race-off.