Naptime Shopping

We had a productive Saturday morning by bike.  First, Alton and I were off to a little meet 'n greet for his preschool class for next year.  He will still know at least half of the kids in his class, including one of his best little buddies.

After a fun hour or so of rare weekend playtime at school, Alton came home for a small lunch and naptime. Andy had some work to do in the garage (bike projects, what else?), and so we removed the child seat from the back of my Xtracycle Radish for a little mommy-only errand time.  Not having the weight of the seat + child in the back feels so zippy and light to me now! I had actually been planning on taking one of my smaller bikes for this trip, but one of the things I wanted to accomplish was purchasing a baby shower gift, and when I checked their online baby registry ahead of time, I had my eye on a pink baby bathtub, so Xtracycle it is....

Onward to Safeway, where I had a hankering for Mexican meal fixings: beans, avocados, sour cream and sauce for guacamole, and margarita mix. I even stashed a bag of tortilla chips in my handlebar basket to keep them from being squished by the other groceries!

My last stop was at Home Depot, where I picked up a few paint samples for a room we're painting, and a soda for Daddy's caffeine fix. I snapped these items sitting on the deck, but there was still plenty of room in my "Freeloader" side bags for these things along with the baby shower gift, purse, and groceries.  All three of my stops were within 1 mile of our house, which just goes to show that you don't necessarily have to live in an urban environment to make biking work for your myriad family errands. I get wistful sometimes of reading family cycling blogs of folks with dining and shops that are a small handful of blocks down the street, and wish that I had more businesses close to our house to patronize. BUT I have more at my fingertips than I think.

Home and parked, so that Andy can go help Fabi and family start moving into their new house: by bike, of course! He conducted an experiment with our Bakfiets, where he removed the wooden cargo box in exchange for a bolted-down plywood deck, ready to move large and awkwardly-sized items. He even screwed in eye-bolts for bungee tiedown points. He's excited to participate in his first move by bike, even if so far he is the only cycling participant in this move!