Well, yesterday was a big day for Ri; but it was a pretty big day for Elizabeth as well. For some reason, I looked at Elizabeth's bike and got a huge desire to take her training wheels off. I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I did. Elizabeth has always had a natural atheletic ability and an incredible balance, so I figured I would give it a shot. Ri insisted his get taken off as well. I knew he wasn't close to be ready, so I kept putting him off. Finally, after several times of Elizabeth trying, I gave him a shot. One or two pedals with me holding on and he was convinced that he did NOT want his training wheels off. He really hasn't ridden a bike much at all because we never had one with good training wheels for him to ride. He just hasn't had much opportunity, so I knew he needed to practice and perfect riding with training wheels first. He worked on it everytime we were outside yesterday and by the end of the day, he was pretty proud of how much he could do WITH the training wheels on. Eventually, we will work on removing them. But for now, he is thrilled with them on.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, was thrilled with trying to accomplish it without the training wheels. At first, she was very apprehensive and scared for me to let go. We practiced for about 20-30 minutes. By then, she could ride 20 feet or so without me touching her. Last night, she surprised Daddy and the kids by riding without training wheels. SHe could ride a long ways, but still wanted us very, very close. Today... she is very confident and riding all the way down our drive and back without me touching her! She is beaming with pride. It is very cute.