Sunday was my birthday, but before I tell you what we did, I want to share another story with you. This happened toward the end of last summer, when I wasn't blogging, so I never wrote about it here, but I'm going to copy and paste from a scrapbook page I made about our near-death experience interesting excursion.We decided to spend a beautiful Saturday going to Lawrence for a family bike ride. Steve looked online to find a good trail, and saw a scenic nine mile loop right along the river that was ideal for “cyclists of all skill levels”. Perfect. After eating lunch in downtown Lawrence, we drove to the beginning of the trail. All we could see was a teeny dirt path leading into the woods, but there was a biker actually coming out of the woods at that moment, so we loaded everyone onto the bikes and set off into the woods. Right away, I was leery. The “bike trail” was crisscrossed with large tree roots, there were many very steep and curvy hills, most of the trail was sand or mud. As I saw Steve disappear around a hairpin turn with my babies in the trailer, flying through the air and bouncing off tree roots, I started to suspect that perhaps we weren’t on the right trail. Because I had to get off my bike several times to walk it up or down a hill, I soon lost Steve and the kids. When Allie and I caught up to them, he was perched at the top of a precipice, clearly ready to continue risking the lives of my children. I implored him to turn back but he went on ahead. When I saw the trailer starting to slide sideways off the cliff, my heart jumped, and I insisted we all turn back. Steve made fun of me for being a wimp, but I was just happy to make it out of the woods with all of my family members alive.
We decided to safely bike on the roads for a bit, and headed back in the direction of a park we’d seen on the way in. After playing for awhile at a second park, we noticed several people walking and biking nearby. So many people passed by, in fact, that we figured they must be on some sort of trail. We got back on the bikes and went over to try to take the trail back to our car. Once we were on the flat, wide, smooth, scenic trail, it became very obvious to us that THIS was the trail we were supposed to be on in the first place. NOT that insanely dangerous “River Ridge” trail. The last part of our trip was so pleasant that we are determined to go back to Lawrence soon and actually ride the nine mile loop. We did lose the flag off the trailer somewhere on River Ridge, and Emma complained for awhile about the sand that had flown in her eyes, but in the end we all made it home safely, and with a good story to tell.

So on Sunday, we finally did go back to Lawrence to ride the pretty trail along the river. A certain little girl has just woken from her nap, however, so I will have to save that post for another day. :)