Porter Rockwell Trail

I got a trailer for the boys, and today we officially tested it out. 

Since school started last month, I have been struggling to get going after the 3 hours of the morning rush is over. It's like I spend from 9 - 2 just recovering. It got worse today as today was Wesley's first morning of hockey. He had to be there at 5AM! Which means we left at 4:45, which means we got up at 4:30. Yeah... I didn't get a nap today, and I generally don't want to take naps, although it would have been nice to get an hour this morning, but the little boys wouldn't give it to me, so my knew plan is that when I'm mentally fried and tired and am useless at home, I'll go on a bike ride. That's what we did today and it was great. We headed to the car around 11 and we were on the trail at 11:30. They were excited to go in the trailer. We had done a trial run around the neighborhood on Saturday night. We did three laps around the block, and they thought that was super fun. Today when I said we were going on a ride, they went to the garage to get in the trailer, but I told them no, we need to put it in the car first and drive somewhere. We drove out to Draper to the City Park and from there we got on the Porter Rockwell Trail. They were a little bored. Daniel's pouting in this picture.

They wore out from boredom before I was tired from exercising. Maybe a trail with fences and sagebrush is not as exciting as a neighborhood with houses. We stopped and took a break at a park, which I just googled and found, it is called Meadowlark Park.

They like to climb. I admit, just sitting there would be hard for toddlers. I tried to keep pointing things out to them - like a big dinosaur sculpture someone had in their yard, and the flowers, and oh look there's a horse, and the quail birds that flew away when we came close. But it was a lot more fun to climb. I brought baseball caps to keep the sun off of them. Good thinking, Tiff.

I stretched while they played. Peter saw me with my leg up on the bars he was climbing and encouraged me with "Wow mom! You're so strong!" He is adorable. I didn't bring any snacks, but we did have water. I was planning on bringing a lunch, and might next time. We'll see. Hopefully they'll agree to come on a next time since I was nice and took them to two parks on our ride before we got back in the car. So we rode  on the Porter Rockwell trail, but took a right on the Draper Canal, just cause I was exploring and trying to become familiar. We took that until Wheadon Farm Park, then took Wheadon Trail up back to the Porter Rockwell trail, then we turned east and started our trek back to the car. I lost the trail when it crosses 1300 E, so I took 1300 E north for a little bit until I got back on the Canal Trail. Back at the city Park around 12:30, where the boys played on the slide and I pushed them on the swings and it was good. I eventually coaxed them to stop for lunch and we were back home shortly after 1:30. So on my first ride with the boys in the trailer it was a 2.5 hour outing.

If I had brought a lunch, though, they probably would have eaten and then wanted to stay even longer. So not having food sometimes works as the incentive I need to get them to get back in the car so we can go home. And also leaving the house is something I like to do so that they will STOP eating. We do not need to eat as often as we do. If they really are so hungry, I hope that we can do more food at 3 meals and not just have everyone eating constantly! Corey's mom shared this with me when school started: 

I feel the truth of that! So, it was a good day, I think bike rides will help me, although I recognize that I've only probably got another month of that before it might be too cold. I do hope we get winter to help with the drought, but I also don't mind if it waits to pile on us in December. After October and November are over, it has my blessing to hit us hard. 

So today was violin for Sophi and Natalie, soccer for Sophi, we talked to Ethan, and Corey went over to Corey's parents house to stay with Hyrum while his parents were gone at their service mission down town. Hyrum enjoyed home MTC and today was the last day, so he came home with Corey and we get him for two nights before he heads to the Provo MTC for in person training. That will be really fun for him. We were happy to have him here. He and Peter read some books. 

Peter identifies cars by the character their color resembles in the Cars movie. A few examples: Red is Lightening McQueen, blue is Dinoco, Green is Chick, Light blue is Sally, Gray is Jackson Storm, Yellow is Cruz, etc. He also identifies them by their car make, so all Semis are Mack, Jeeps are Sarge, all trucks are Smokey (from Cars 3) so a red truck will be a Lightening McQueen Smokey. It's cute. 

They might need to make a Cars 4 movie for me, so they can create a character that is white, cause Peter doesn't know what to do with that one. Or the limousines. And can I just say I love love love Peter's little voice. He is sooo adorable.