bike riding and spring yardwork

Yes I know, its technically still too early to start on the gardening. HOWEVER, it is NOT too early to start clearing out the stuff I don't want any more and start making plans for how we're going to change it up. So, I started doing just that today. We're removing a BUNCH of shrubs, some are prickley and some are just ugly and those two types are being thrown away while the ones we ARE keeping will be transplanted out front. I also am removing one garden, tearing out my current concrete walkway, putting down a new brick front walkway, changing the layout of one garden completely, and putting in 2 new front gardens. LOL Yes, I am doing all that this year, along with having to reseed at least 2/3 of my property because of that water main break and a few other little issues with some shrubs that we tore out last year (they blocked the sun perfectly so that grass didn't grow at all in half my back yard) Oh, and we're removing 2 old trees from our front yard (one is diseased and the other is a climbing hazard because it isn't sturdy enough and the kids won't stay out of it) and we'll be planting some new trees in their place (I'm thinking cherry trees) All this will be part of our science lessons for next school year, so it will work out perfectly for us.

And on a TOTALLY kid-related note, today we dusted off the bikes and bike helmets for the kids, and Melissa decided that it is finally time to take off the training wheels. She's been at it for aobut an hour now (I love having a laptop and wireless home network) and has *almost* figured out how to ride without falling on her face. I am grateful of the bike helmet though, she's landed on her head a few times already. I have a feeling that if the weather holds out, by the end of this weekend she'll be zipping up and down the side street by our home. And YES, I was smart enough to take pictures of her attempts.



As you can see, it went pretty well with grandpa giving her pointers. If you are on my FaceBook list, I'll have all the pictures from her riding lessons available there, and will try to remember to add another post here when she's mastered the two-wheeler to share some more pictures.