Friday, June 20, 2008

Biking Adventures


So, about 2 months ago we were at REI and they were having a really good sale on bikes. Since we had been wanting to get bikes for awhile, we decided to go for it. We picked out a couple of the nicest mountain bikes we could find and were so excited to get to the trails. Too bad we didn't know how much work owning bikes can be. Here's a break down of our biking adventures or attempts to have a biking adventure.

First Biking Adventure
We went on a bike ride around Milpitas and I realized that we really don't live in the best location for bike riding, especially with a bike trailer that takes up the whole sidewalk making it so you have to ride on the road with the millions of cars. Kinda Scary! Our two-hour ride ended with my bike getting a flat tire and my pedal digging into my leg.

Second Biking Adventure (attempt)
We need to get my tire fixed so we go to Walmart to get some patches or a new tire and find out that they don't sale my type of bike tire. We called around to a couple of other stores and found that we would have to go back to REI (20 minutes away) to get my specific type of tire and a special pump to go with it. (At this point we were thinking we should have gotten a Swhinn).

Third Biking Adventure (attempt)
We load Ryan's bike to the rack on top of the car and put my bike inside the car and decide to go to a fun trail. Ryan forgot something that was in our other car so he drives into our parking garage to get it, but we both forget that the bike is on top of the car and SLAM (Garage is too low). His bike gets knocked of and we break our bike rack that we just bought.

Fourth Biking Adventure
Instead of using a bike trailer, we use a toddler seat on the bike and cruise around our town. We had fun.

Fifth Biking Adventure
My little sister was visiting so we took our bikes to Monterey and we went biking along the coast.
This was a lot of fun and we felt like we had finally gotten to a point where having bikes wasn't going to be a huge headache after all.

Two-Days After We Went to Monterey
Ryan goes to our storage unit to put something away and our bikes are gone. Someone stole them in the middle of the night. We want to cry!

Lessons Learned
We don't live in the best house to have bikes right now. We have decided to wait until we buy a house with our own garage that we can put a security system on. Also, we don't live in the best area for bikes. Our goal is to buy a house close to a nice bike trail next. And, don't buy really expensive bikes unless you want to buy all the special accessories with it. Last, Bikes are stolen a lot around here. If we would have known what a hot commodity they are we would have figured out a way to chain them up inside our storage unit and changed our locks (we didn't realize the builder put such cheap locks on our doors).

Monday, June 2, 2008


You can't say having a baby isn't a workout. I do a lot of lifting, bending, holding, and moving throughout the day, but still, sometimes I miss those butt-kicking workouts that make you feel like every muscle in your body is getting stronger and you just know your heart is getting healthier. I used to take spinning and kick-boxing from the college I was attending, but once I got pregnant I resorted to walking and then continued with walking even after Landon came. Don't get me wrong, I think walking can be a great workout if you push yourself, but I've kind of been in a slump. My walking has turned more into meandering. So, anyway, on Friday I attended a Free Baby Boot Camp class and discovered how out of shape I have become. This class keeps you going strong for 75 minutes. It's circuit-training so the trainer constantly has you doing something...lunges, push-ups, running laps, running stairs, squats..ect. And you do it all with your baby in a stroller. I wasn't sure if Landon would sit in a stroller for that long, but I guess we looked pretty funny because he would start laughing whenever we did lunges. I loved it so much I splurged and bought a 2 month pass that has classes twice a week. Hopefully this will get me back into strength training mode. I am still sore 3 days later which is pretty sad.