One great victory over the past few months has been reclaiming the 6:30-7 P.M. timeframe. Ideally, by this point, Dave is off of work and we’re done with dinner. It’s one of the few windows of time during the week when all four of us are together as a family, so we wanted to take advantage of that. Historically, we ended up hanging out in the playroom…but honestly, that usually felt like a countdown to bedtime. We took walks around our neighborhood a few times a week, but ever since Charlie upgraded from a balance bike to a two-wheeler, going much faster than he used to, we kept going further than we meant to and then had to scramble to get the kids to bed on time. I could go on, but overall, the point is this: what we were doing clearly wasn’t working for us. After one too many frazzled evenings, Dave suggested that we get bikes too.

I was initially against it. I had a pretty bad bike fall in high school and have been a bit wary around them since. I was also reluctant to spend so much money upfront for all the bikes/gear when there was a real possibility Azelie could completely hate it, derailing our plans for family rides. It took a few weeks of convincing, but finally, I agreed to hope for the best and bite the bullet.

So here’s what we bought!

My bike: Retrospec Beaumont City Bike – Step Through 7 Speed in Cool Mint
Dave’s bike: Retrospec Beaumont City Bike – 7 Speed in Matte Olive (We found the exact model and color he wanted on Facebook Marketplace, yay!)
Azelie’s trailer (aka princess carriage :)): Retrospec Rover Bike Trailer
My helmet: Retrospec Dakota Bike & Skate Helmet in Matte Slate
Dave’s helmet: Retrospec Dakota Bike & Skate Helmet in Matte Navy
Azelie’s helmet: Schwinn Classic Infant Bike Helmet
My bike basket: Retrospec Toto Handwoven Cane Basket in Natural Cane
Bike Trailer Coupler Attachment
Bike Rack Top Tube Adapter

Charlie already had a two-wheeler bike we bought from a neighbor friend and this helmet.

I will readily admit that the cuteness of my bike helped me over the edge ;) We’ve been very happy with everything we bought, although Dave does wish he had gone ahead and bought his bike new. Hopefully, a tune-up will get it running a little smoother. I also think the Retrospec helmets are bulkier in person than they look online, but I’m still pretty strict about wearing them. When my dad was training for the Ironman a few years ago, he was run off the road on his bike, fell, and cracked his helmet. If that’s not motivation to wear a helmet, I don’t know what is! Charlie likes to enforce this safety rule too, both in our family and to unsuspecting fellow cyclists *face palm* ;)

Like I mentioned, the real question mark was Azelie. As it turns out, she LOVES everything about these bike rides! She never wants to take her helmet off, runs right over to her trailer when we go into the garage, and has been perfectly content on every single ride. We now usually bike around our neighborhood for 10-20 minutes between dinner and bedtime to get outside and let Charlie burn off his last bits of energy, and it has been so much fun!

Any activities you and your family have been enjoying together lately? I’d love to hear!