learning to ride the dirt bike!

okay it's been a monumental day on the island. my son has learned how to ride his dirt bike. wait i'm ahead of myself. let me back up a little. 6 1/2 years ago when my son was born, the officer had a dream that he would be able to teach his son how to ride a dirt bike and that they would be able to ride together. this dream never faded or died. by the time my son was 5 years old, he had a little honda 50. about a week ago, a friend of ours gave us their old child's helmet. once we had the helmet, the officer was itching to purchase boots and safety equipment for the kids.

the officer had decided we would buy one pair of boots for the kids to share. there is only one size difference in their shoes. we went to the motorcycle store today to purchase the boots, possibly a chest guard, and some gloves. i am insisting my daughter at least has some pink riding gloves, since everything else is black, red, grey and blue. there were not any in her size, but we'll find some.

the boots we were going to purchase are (don't freak out) $80. we knew that's about how much they were going to cost. we decided on some black/brown size 12 boots. a little big for our son, but he would grow into them by next year. when i was walking around the store, i found some boots on clearance for $80. they were the nicer boots - retail $229. there's no way we would purchase the boots at retail price. we were very excited they happen to have the size we were looking for!

a little back story for you. when i find great deals and i tell my husband about them, he's excited and by that i mean he says, "that's great honey!" never as excited as i am about getting 10 bath and body works lotion and only having to pay for 5 of them!

back to today...

we find the chest guard, a pair of gloves, and the boots we wanted. while my husband is checking out, i am entertaining the kids by the door.

my husband exlaims, "TREASURE!!!!"

"what??" i ask?

he tells me the boots are only $40! that's 82.5% off the retail price. yeah! SCORE!
here's the boots! (OU RED!)

of course her brother isn't the only one who gets to wear all the gear

the motorcycle jersey my son has one is actually on from old navy. when we first got the jersey it went to my son's knees. it fits him perfectly now.

we came home to try all the stuff on and take a ride on the dirt bike. my son put his gear on and rode around the yard to get used it. my daughter also took her turn! see the look of determination on her face? love it!

you can see the big training wheels on the bike

last year the officer had told my son he had to learn how to ride his bicycle without training wheels before he could try to ride his dirt bike. he's known how to ride the bicycle for about 4 months now. it was time to take the training wheels off the dirt bike and give it a try. my son is very unsure of himself and it shows on his face. he has the same facial expression on his face for about the first five minutes.

you want me to do WHAT?

showing him how to change gears

the officer starts with him just taking off and stopping. they move to riding in a straight line next.



after he masters those, the officer moves him onto taking the turns.



he does pretty good. the look on the officer's face is great. it's what he's always imagined.

however, my son does crash. it wasn't too bad, but it was pretty good one. the officer had told him he would crash, it was just a matter of when. that's what all the protective gear is for. my son was taking a turn too wide, ran over the sandbox, clotheslined himself under the slide, and hit a pole and knocked himself off the bike. (i did not take this picture until after i knew he was okay - just so you don't think i'm a bad mom!) :)

here it is in his own words:



my son got right back on the dirt bike. you could tell he was a little more nervous. he bumped into the house once. he rode around a couple of more times and then gave sister a chance to ride with the training wheels attached. i'm sure in no time we'll be heading up to grandma and papa's place to ride. they have a little over 20 acres to ride. hopefully no more crashes.

**update** they went to grandma & papa's place to ride last night. they rode for 3 1/2 hours. no crashes. my son had much more space to ride.