The weather here in Spokane has been beautiful!! So, last Wednesday we decided to go for a walk. We loaded Ella up into the stroller, strapped on Hunter's bike helmet and set off for the bike trail that runs along the river. It's only about a 10 minute walk from our house, it's so great! Anyhow, Chris was pushing the stroller and I was walking next to Hunter on his bike. We started down the hill that goes from the road down to the trail. I told Hunter "stay on your brakes just like you did last time so you go slow down the hill." Hunter agrees and down we go. All of a sudden Hunter starts FLYING down the hill. I am yelling "BRAKES HUNTER!!" and take off running after him. He just keeps picking up speed. As I am running down I realize that he is not going to stop and the end result will be either him riding into the very swollen fast running river, slamming into the big tree on the other side of the trail, or flying over his handle bars into the jagged rocks that line the side of the river.
At the bottom of the hill there just so happened to be 3 men standing by their bikes talking to each other. One man sees what is happening. He runs over to the bottom of the hill, holds out his arms and stands right in the path of Hunter. Right as Hunter reaches the man, this stranger sticks his arms through Hunter's and lifts him up off of the bike. Thank God that that man was there. When I finally reached the bottom I quickly said to the man "thank you so much," and knelt down in front of Hunter. His eyes were huge and with a panicked voice he said "mom I was on my brakes..." and just started sobbing. Which of course made me start sobbing. I picked up my big 5 year old boy and held on tight. His heart was beating so fast and so hard. I felt nauseous. I could have lost my son, or at the very least had a badly injured and broken boy.
Chris made it down to the bottom of the hill with Ella. He was pretty pissed. He said he was yelling at me to take Ella so he could run after Hunter, he tried to ditch the stroller off to the side but the hill was too steep. He said he felt so helpless. I never heard him, I was solely focused on Hunter. Chris did say that Hunter was on his brakes the entire time. Apparently when you are on a bike with training wheels and lean to one side the back wheel can leave the pavement. Well, in a small bike like that the brakes work the back wheel. So, Hunter was in fact on his brakes, and the back wheel wasn't turning, only his training wheels. Poor Hunter, I can't imagine how scared he was, knowing that he was doing what he was supposed to do and it not working.
I just thought I had better share this story so all you moms out there know not to let your children ride their bikes down hill, especially if they are on training wheels. The interesting part of this story is that just a few days before this happened the kids and I had walked the same route. When we first started out though, Hunter's new bike had a flat tire so we had to go back and switch them out. Hunter's older bike is one of those that is in the shape of a chopper/motorcycle, where it is shorter the seat is further towards the back, the tires are much wider, and the bike itself is really heavy. So we had gone down the hill before but on this other bike, the wider tires allowed for contact on the pavement. Thank God. Hunter
is still saying at least once a day "I'm so glad that man saved me."
After Hunter and I settled down he wanted to continue on our walk. I had brought my camera so I could snap some pics, so I did. Before we had left the house I had a little photo shoot with Hunter (and attempted to take pics of the two kiddos together), anyhow here is a lot of pics....
Before..
The best big brother
Sitting on Bubba's back.
Her new cheesy smile
with her eyes closed
See my teeth!
He is just so beautiful!!
On our walk...
The Spokane river.
Thumbs up, we're all better!
Isn't it beautiful out there?
See how close to
the river?
Hunter took this pic
of Chris and I.
Ella was exhausted after her
long walk : )
