Our little man is growing up!

Riker is growing up (Sniffle Sniffle). And the person who will tell you that, more than anyone else, is HIM. And one of the key factors to him of becoming a big boy was getting a big boy bed. He asked and dreamed about that for months. Well, we made is dreams come true in October.

(In this video he had NO IDEA what was going to happen....yet everything he said was so perfect!)

Do ya think he was excited?!??!?

I am not sure about the rest of you, but if I was a 3 year old I would be SO ENVIOUS of his room (or 8 year old, or adult...)!


He especially loves his T-Rex.


(He is roaring).

If you ever want to learn your dinos stop over and Riker will take you around his whole room and tell you what every one of them is, scientific name and all (except the Compsognathus is just a Compy around here). :-)

Here's hoping he loves dinosaurs, and his room, for years to come!

Biking 2011

Danny here. Another summer has come to an end. And as sad as it to see it end it has been a very good summer for me and my two wheeled friend(s), my bike(s). Here is a synopsis of the summer.

I started the summer with some very cold rides in March and early April. In mid April, Brian Reichenbach and I did our first Adventure Race of the year in Elkhart. It was about 15 miles of biking. It was their first year running the event, so there were some little issues here and there, but it was still a bunch of fun (but we did find out that neither of us like tying different kinds of knots)!

The spring continued, and I continued to find free time to get miles in on my Hybrid bike. Enjoying every mile I put in. The first weekend of June, Brian and I entered our second Adventure Race in Warsaw. This was put on by Metzger Outdoors. The race was a ton of fun. This was our 3rd year of doing this particular race, their races are great every year!




There was plenty of biking in this race.




We almost won the 8 hour race, but got second place by less than 2 minutes. However, the biggest excitement of the day was after the race, when they did a raffle draw for an $800.00 gift certificate to the Trail House (local bike shop in Warsaw), which I won!!!!



With this money I was able to get myself a road bike...that I very quickly fell in love with. Now of course you can’t just get a new road bike: I also got shoes, a speed computer, new bike shorts, bike shirts, etc...




At this point my biking became a bit more intense. I had been doing 10-20 mile rides. Now with thte new road bike I was doing 25-45 miles rides.

Mid July I made another biking purchase. I bought a Tag-A-Long for my hybrid bike so that Sydney would be able to bike along with me, and then next year Riker will be able to go along.




At the end of July Brian and I competed in our 3rd Adventure Race of the year in South Bend. We came in 3rd place and had a ton of fun. We biked about 15-20 miles in that race.

I kept biking throughout the fall (with and without the kids). I even biked to work 3 times (20 miles each way). Biking has become more of an obsession then just recreational biking for me.

At the end of October Brian and I competed in our 4th and final Adventure Race of the year in Warsaw. It was a night time adventure race with an obstacle course totally in the dark.




Well, the biking season is finally finishing up. And I have biked over 1200 miles this year. The main reason for this blog post is to say thank you to my wonderful wife. Without her support and willingness to give me the time to go biking I could not have done most of these wonderful activities. Thank you sweetie. You are the GREATEST!!!!