First bike ride to school

Kason had his first chance ever to ride his bike to school a few weeks ago. My kids have never had the opportunity to do so because we've either lived too far away, have had no sidewalks along busy roads or never have had bikes to do so. I know, my poor kids, huh?

Our elementary school is only about 3 years old and there has been alot of construction going on to the East of us. There is one road that connects all our neighborhoods together that was just finished recently which has allowed our kids to ride their bikes safely to school. They leave about 30 minutes earlier than they normally do because of their mile and a half trek they need to do to get school. It doesn't sound like much, but when your a smaller person on a smaller bike it does take some extra time. Kason is my first child to have this opportunity and he just loves being able to have his buddy Zac ride along with him. Here they are (above) just leaving our house.

Zac's Mom had the idea one day to go and get some pictures of Zac riding home. So she snuck some pictures of him with her zoom lens from a nearby park. She later showed him the pictures that she had taken and he thought that was funniest thing that she had done that without him knowing. After hearing what she had done, I decided that I wanted to go and do the same thing. So I waited at the same park, with my camera and zoom lens waiting for Kason to ride by. Let's just say Zac gave Kason the heads up and the next thing I know is he's spotted me. This is a picture of him trying to "escape" me from getting a shot of him. Good effort though, right? And yes, he's riding without a helmet. How do you get them to realize the importance of those things?

Here they are just shortly after Zac got a flat tire and had to be picked up. I'm glad they were able to slow down long enough that I could get a shot of them together. I was so excited for him to be able to do this. He's our first child to have this opportunity. One thing I saw that was so fun was there were about 3o+ kids riding their bikes that day. I couldn't believe the hoards of kids that cross the street with the crossing guard guiding them along. I hear it's like that every day. The crossing guard for our school lives on my street and he told me the other day that he fixes at least two chains that have come off of kid's bikes everyday. Isn't that crazy? We're very blessed to live where we do. To have a such good schools, friends, teachers and crossing guards who watch over our kids everyday.