Yesterday we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather to go on a long bike ride.  Since Seth can’t ride a bike yet, he rides along in the pull-along trailer.  Will is usually the pace setter, at least on the way out.  We rode along enjoying the flower scented breeze and the coolness of the JBU trail by the creek.  On the way back, Will’s bike started letting out annoying screeches as he pedaled.  This happened to greatly annoy Elise, who didn’t seem to understand he wasn’t doing it on purpose.

We decided to take a little break to enjoy the creek with bare feet.  After a few minutes of play, including Seth slipping and falling in the water, I realized we had better hurry back if I was going to have an hour to cook some beans for supper.  Will and Elise took off on their bikes while I loaded Seth back into the trailer.  Several feet down the trail I met Will whose bike had finally decided to give out entirely.  The pedals would no longer turn at all.  Will wasn’t very upset by this, but I knew it was going to be a long way back on foot.  We experimented with some ideas of how to get him and the bike back without him having to walk it the whole way.  In the end, we ended up cramming the bike into the trailer next to Seth and alternately letting Will run and walk back, with some breaks riding on my bike while I pushed.

It wasn’t what I had planned and probably multiplied the time needed to get back by quite a bit.  But we did get to see some baby ducklings we might have missed if we hadn’t been going so slow.  When we got home, it was much too late to start a pot of beans.  Usually in times like these I get frustrated and decide to order something to eat, because it is easier and I feel like I deserve it since my day hasn’t gone as planned.  And though I don’t think this is always an unwise choice, I do realize that it would be good for me to develop the skill to cheerfully and creatively make supper anyway.  And so that is what I decided to do.  It is nice that since I knew we were sticking to rice and beans, I had a framework to be creative in.  I grabbed a leek out of the refrigerator and chopped it up.  After sauteeing in butter for awhile, I added the leftover plain white rice from lunch and three eggs.  After the eggs had cooked, I added a splash of soy sauce and ended up with something halfway between scrambled eggs and fried rice.  Turns out everyone loved it.  We ended the meal with rice pudding I had made earlier in the day.