Happy New Year - it's 2013!

Happy New Year! We didn't do anything fancy or special to celebrate the New Year. We just had a normal day on December 31, put Eliza to bed at her normal time, and then sat down to have a movie night. Rob went to the store and got us Ben & Jerry's while I picked out the movie we'd watch via Amazon Video on Demand. We ended up watching a movie that I'd seen a few weeks before at the discount movie theater in Raleigh ($2 movies all the time!) - People Like Us, starring Elizabeth Banks, Chris Pine and Michelle Pfeiffer. I'd told Rob all about it and I knew he'd like it. And he did! He was crying at the end of the movie, and he did his usual "what, me?" look and said, "I think there's some allergen floating around the air, it's really making my eyes water up!" Ha ha ha, yeah right! :)

On New Year's Day, Rob worked and Eliza and I just stayed home and played with toys, colored in coloring books and played with stickers. These are her favorite right now! Here's a picture of her putting a sticker in her book. I have to help show her where the sticker goes, and help guide her hand to put it on somewhat straight and lined up...but sometimes I just let her stick the stickers wherever she wants to!

And here she is coloring in her Sesame Street giant coloring book.

I really love coloring with her. I lay on the floor next to her and color. Eliza is learning the names to all the colors now, and she knows about half of her colors. Sometimes she'll pick up a yellow crayon and say "GREEN", and I'll correct her, saying "Oh, that's YELLOW sweetie" and then she repeats after me, YELLOW... it's cute.

One last picture for today - this is Eliza reading one of our bedtime books to Gunnie tonight. When we were done reading it, she got off the couch, climbed up onto the recliner where Gunnie was snuggled up, and started flipping through the pages "reading" it to her! How sweet!

Happy New Year!

Christmas at the Newton's

Christmas was quiet and small, and nice. We were able to visit Rob's side of the family from Dec 13-18 , which was awesome, but we couldn't stay any longer due to Rob needing to work during the last week before Christmas. Oh well, we may not like that working in the bicycle retail industry means working on Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas, but at least it's a job, and we're thankful for it.

We flew out to San Diego on Southwest Airlines on a smoking good deal we found online at the last minute. Flying from RDU to San Diego would've cost us more than $1000 round trip, but on a whim, we searched other airports within driving distance of us to see if they were cheaper. It turned out that we could fly round trip out of Washington D.C. to San Diego with 1 short layover (no plane change) for around $650, which was the magic number we were searching for! Rob's Mom was awesome to be able to fund our trip with her Christmas bonus! Because we sure couldn't afford the tickets...We didn't mind paying for the cost of gas in driving up to D.C., and we saved even more money by parking our car at Rob's cousin's house! This is one of the hardest things about living so far away from family - the cost of flying home to visit is extremely high. But, it was so exciting to be visiting family in San Diego during Christmastime. The cool thing was that we were able to make it out to Rob's Grandpa Leon's 90th birthday bash while we were there!

Here's a couple of pictures of our trip. I should've taken more, but I think it's hard to remember to take pictures when you're having so much fun!

The day before we left to go home, we were able to go to the Zoo! I was really excited to do that because I haven't been there yet - I've only gone to the Wild Animal Park before. Anyway, here's a bunch of pictures from our Zoo day trip:

Here's a really cute video from our last dinner at IHOP before we left early the next morning

When we got home after our long flight and long drive home, we started focusing on Christmas and getting our house decorated and presents wrapped. We were totally last minute in getting a Christmas tree this year. We got it on Christmas Eve! We usually get our trees by December 10 at the latest. Well, we waited a long time because we knew we could get it really cheap, and cheap is what we could afford. We got it at the State Farmers Market in Raleigh. A 7 foot tree that usually costs around $60 was only $15 - whoa! Here's a couple of Christmas pictures:

This is what Eliza's "big" Christmas present was from us - her 1st bike! It's a balance bike, similar to the Strider bikes that have been all the rage the past few years, but this is one is made for Performance and is much cheaper than Strider.

On Christmas Day, Eliza was so excited to wake up and walk into the living room where she saw the bike leaning up against a side table next to the tree. Here's a video of her getting her bike:

Overall, it was a great Christmas, and even though we couldn't be with family on Christmas Day, it was a nice day. I'll end this blog post with a few more pictures of Eliza and some gifts she got from Grandma Cheryl, Grandma Nana, Uncle Dan and Uncle Ricky. She also got some cool educational toys from Uncle Jim and Auntie JoJo, but I need to take some pictures of her playing with them!

December Bike Ride, or, How Much I Hate Our Bike Trailer

Today we went to a Triangle Mommies event hosted by a new friend of mine, Heather. She has a son who is exactly 1 year younger than Eliza. Once he's old enough, I'm sure we'll be trying to meet up more often for playdates at the park! She lives not too far away from us, so when she invited me to come to the event, I said yes and planned to ride my bike there if the weather was agreeable. And it was! For mid-December, it was warm enough to dress Eliza in Capri-length pants and a short-sleeved t-shirt! Amazing weather!

The event was a Cookie Exchange, where you make a certain number of cookies or brownies, and all the people coming to the exchange bring a different kind. Then you set up your cookies at a big table and everyone brings an empty container to collect cookies in. You walk around the table and pick up a cookie from each person's plate. And you keep going around and around, picking up 1 cookie/brownie from each, until all the cookies are gone. So, I made 3 dozen "magic cookie bars" and I came home with 8 magic cookie bars, 8 mint chocolate chip cookies, 8 lemon bars, 8 oreo-smash-pops, 8 white chocolate & butterscotch cookies, and a few pieces of homemade peanut brittle. Yum yum! I had a lot of fun at the event. Heather is a great host with a great big house that's perfect for entertaining! I can only dream of owning a house like that someday!

On the bike ride home, I knew Eliza would fall asleep because it was close to her naptime, and she usually falls asleep during bike rides anyway, even if it's not her naptime! Well, when I got home, I saw Eliza slumped over and she looked so uncomfortable, and I wondered how she could sleep that way!

I've seen her like this many times before this, and I just cringe when I see it. I've never taken a picture of her like this before, though. Why? I think because I'm trying to show others who are reading this blog that cycling with kids can be fun and enjoyable for both parent and child. But a picture like this makes the viewer feel nothing but sad for the poor child riding in the bike trailer. I mean, seriously, I know kids can sleep in all kinds of weird positions, but do you WANT them to be uncomfortable like this every time they ride for an extended amount of time in a bike trailer? I know I don't.

So I'd ignored it for months, but today, something got into me and made me really angry. I was mad at how crappy this bike trailer is designed. How can any bike trailer company design person be proud of their creation when seeing a picture like this? How can any bike shop owner or bike shop sales guy be positive and upbeat when selling these trailers to customers, when they know the bike trailer product they're selling is total crap? When we first started using the bike trailer, Eliza was barely 11 months old, and I thought maybe Eliza was just slouching in her seat in the trailer, and maybe when she got older/stronger, she'd be able to keep herself upright more during bike rides? That sadly wasn't the case, as she is now 21 months old and is a strong/sturdy little girl who knows how to sit upright. It's the design of the seat and the straps that makes this bike trailer uncomfortable and leads to the slouching and leaning over to the side!

I made up my mind that today's bike ride in our Kid-A-Rooz bike trailer would be Eliza's last ride. I cannot, as a long time bicycle enthusiast, subject my daughter to such poor bike trailer design!

I tried looking up as much information as possible on the Kid-A-Rooz brand, but didn't find much. What I did find was some info that led me to believe that Chariot bike trailers (and Chariot is the best trailer company in the world right now...yes, that's my honest opinion) bought out Kid-A-Rooz and their inventory, slapped their name in small embroidery print under the Kid-A-Rooz name, and began selling them at Costco, Sam's Club and finally, Performance Bicycles. I am not blaming any company in particular here, as I know that each company is just looking at their bottom line, and if they can make a few bucks profit selling a crappy product, they will. But, with our employee discount, we couldn't pass up the great deal on our Kid-A-Rooz trailer.

My complaints about design are not unique. If you do a Google search on "kid slumping over in bike trailer", you will find a lot of reviews of people saying the same thing I'm saying here. I'm not going to put my child in a trailer that's uncomfortable, just like I wouldn't ride a saddle that was uncomfortable and caused me private-lady-parts-pain! If I had a saddle that was uncomfortable like that, I would stop riding and begin researching saddles and would resume riding once I found a more suitable replacement saddle. So...that's what I'm going to do!

I don't know yet what trailer we'll end up buying, but I think it's going to be a Chariot Cougar 2. Chariot has done a complete redesign of their trailers and they've addressed this common slumping-over problem. I am finding some great reviews online on this trailer, and I've tested it out in person at our local REI, who stocks the Cougar 1 (same trailer as Cougar 2, just a 1-seater instead of 2). The bottom part of the seat is NOT a hammock-style, and the straps are an actual 5-point harness style, much like a modern car seat's harness. But, I'm still in the research stage, so nothing's is written in stone yet. Hopefully we can have our research done and be ready to buy a new trailer come next spring.

I hate that I sound so negative in this blog post. I'm sorry! I just wanted to give you an honest look at our bike trailer and show you that it's not as great as I may have led you to believe in my previous "We went for a bike ride today and Eliza LOVES her bike trailer" blog posts. I still do love cycling and introducing Eliza to the sport of cycling in this way, but we must take a break for now and look for a better trailer. If you have any experience with a bike trailer that your child was comfortable in, or a similar experience where your child was slumped over and uncomfortable, please leave me a comment here on the blog. Thanks!