Learning to ride a bike.

This may not seem like much to many of you; however, my experience with learning was not normal. When I was 8 years old my brother just older than me was trying to teach me to ride a bike. The bike that we used was too large for me and I could barely reach the ground when on it. It was also made of steel which made it heavy and hard to handle for someone big enough to ride it. If all this wasn’t bad enough, we were trying to learn on a gravel driveway that was slanted uphill. As I think about it now I am not sure why we didn’t try to ride downhill. Not that the hill was very steep in that direction. Each time I tried to ride I would fall over before I ever got going. I would try this a few times and get frustrated. We tried this a few other times with no success.

With this being the bike, you may wonder how I ever learned how to ride. Well, it wasn’t on this bike, it was on the bike of a friend. One day this friend was getting his bike back from the shop. I told him that I didn’t know how to ride and he said that he would teach me how. When he got his bike back from the shop, he showed me a few things such has how to turn. He lived on cul-de-sac so I was to ride to the end of the road and back. My friend was thinking that it would take me a while to get the hang of riding; however, I got on the bike, rode to the end of the street, turned around, and came back as though I had been riding a bike for many years. After I got back he asked about this and I told him that I really had never ridden a bike before. I guess the help that my brother had given me helped me to ride a bike once I had one that was the right size for me. 

Sharing Childhood Stories

Today we had a lesson on Family History in Sunday School. This got me to thinking that I have many stories about my childhood that my children don't know about. So, I have decided that I am going to try to write one story a week. A few of the topics that I will be sharing are: learning to ride a bike, my first childhood memories, spending a lot of time at the University Mall when I was in 4th grade, some of the childhood jobs and had and how they didn't teach me money management, and others. This will be a trip down memory lane and I hope you will come along for the journey as we reminisce about old times.

Halloween Costumes

Last week my wife and I worked long hours making a Halloween costume for the contest at my work. Thursday night I wrote a blog post which never got posted because it got deleted some how. Anyway, we were up until 2:00 in the morning on Thursday getting everything finalized on the costume. On Friday morning I was so excited to win the iPod Touch that was being given away for the best costume. This is until I got to work and saw some of the other costumes. I started to doubt I would win. Its amazing how much people will work for a great prize like an iPod Touch.

Today the voting was finalized and the votes were counted. I am sad to say the iPod went to someone else. However, he had a great costume. This guy looks a lot like Johnny Depp and he dressed up as Edward Scissorhands. He looked really good. Infact one person asked who let Edward Scissorhands enter the contest.

Before starting to put the costume together I wondered how much would be too much to spend on a costume and it still be worth it. Granted since we made the costume we now have a nice jacket, shirt, and pants. These can be used again for another contest. It's still disappointing to not win the big prize. Well, their is always next year.

Ding-Dong

This evening, I drove past the old neighborhood where I used to deliver newspapers. This reminded me of an experience I had while going around to collect payments. I stopped by one house which was always late making payments. The lady I was going to collect from would tell me to come back later. It was later, so I was stopping by.

I rang the doorbell and waited for someone to answer the door. No one did, so I rang the doorbell again. Still no answer so I figured that no one was home. Besides, who doesn't answer the door when someone rings the bell? Anyway, since no one was home I decided to just ring the bell a bunch of times. Ding-Dong. Ding-Dong. Ding-Dong. Ding-Dong. Ding-Dong. Ding-Dong. Over and over. I did this for about a minute or so. Well, low and behold, someone was home and this got their attention. Finally, someone answered the door and said to me, "that is not the way to ring the doorbell. Go back out and ring the bell right." She then closed the door and I rang the doorbell again. She answered the door and asked what I wanted. I told her I was there to collect for the paper and she told me, again, they didn't have any money to pay for the paper.

Who's Lying?

OK, so it really has been a month since my last blog. I thought I was joking, but I guess not. Here's the lie. I was not born with 11 toes... I was born with 12! Yes, all the others are true. I did have the cops called on me when I was eight.

I didn't learn how to ride a bike until I was eight; however, my brother, Mike, did try to teach me on a bike that was twice my size. This being the case, it was hard for me to reach the pedals. One day a friend of mine let me use his bike. It was my size. I got right on, rode down the street and back without any problem. He asked me if it was really true that I didn't know how to ride a bike.

As for learning how to swim at 12, I had volunteered at the SCERA pool during my 7th and 8th grade years. As part of volunteering, I got to go swimming twice a week. I had lots of opportunities to be in the water and learn how to swim.

OK, I wasn't really born with 12 toes... I was born with 9!

Tag, I'm It

Well, someone I know decided to give me an opportunity to post another blog. I have been tagged to give two truths and one lie. So, first off, I lie each night when I go to sleep. Is that good enough? I'm being told this is not the way to do it. Okay, I'll comply and do it the way it's supposed to be done (maybe).

First, here are the destructions because there supposed to be here.

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 2 true facts about yourself and 1 lie.
3. Tag 4 people at the end of your post by including links to their blogs.
4. Have people guess which one out of the three is false.

1. I was tagged by "Jenny from the Block".

2. First, I was born with 11 toes. Second, I have had the cops called on me. And finally, I didn't learn how to swim until I was 12. Well, I want to make this even harder by putting in a fourth one, so here you go. I didn't learn how to ride a bike until I was eight.

3. I am going to tag the following people Karen, Becca, John (Becca's Husband), Mark (My Bro). I hope they still like me after making them post something on the internet.

4. Well, I did four statements to make it harder. So, you get to decide if one is a lie or if two of them are lies. He He. Have fun deciding.

I hope you don't mind waiting for awhile because this is my post for the month. I'll let you know whats what in December.

Okay, maybe Jen will get me to do one sooner so she can find out the real lie(s).

Marital Bliss

Before I got married I had a phylosophy about getting married. Their are only about four things required for a wedding: someone to get married too, a place to have the wedding, someone to perform the ceremony, and a couple of witnesses. This is all that is requied to getting married. However, if you want a wonderful day that will be remembered for a long as you live you will need a few more things. I am writing this because Jennifer's and my wedding day was the most wonderful day in all the world (at least up to this point). I think having a baby will rank up their as one of the most wonderful days; that will have to wait, at least for nine months. So, how was our wedding day the most wonderful? It took three months of preperation. Granted some people have done it in two or even one; we wanted to be alive for our wedding so we took three. I recommend not going past three months. We spent those three months planning our invitations, who we would invite, what food would be served at the luncheon and reception, what cake we would have, how the reception would be decorated, and many other such things. We also needed to get a dress for Jennifer (well she did that one without me). By the way, JEN LOOKED NICE IN THAT DRESS, RARRRR. We needed to get a tux for me, get the honeymoon planned, etc. All of this planning went into our wonderful wedding day (also some loss of sleep on Jen's part, she took care of that for both of us). Despite all of this planning and preperation the day would not have been wonderful if it had not been for everyone who pitched in and helped. I would like to say thank you to everyone who helped make our wedding day wonderful. It truly would not have happened if it had not been for all of you. THANK YOU!!!

As for being married it is wonderul. Each day life gets better and better. My love for Jennifer grows and it's hard to leave for work in the morning. The work day takes too long and the weekend goes by too fast. One thing I have found about being married is that you can never know how wonderful it is unless you get married. It is like life just instantly becomes 10 times better. For everyone who has not had the chance to experiance marriage I wish you the best and hope you find that someone special soon.

P.S. For everyone thinking I was hinting that we are expecting, sorry the answer is no.