i like to ride my bicycle...

Bicycles!

Since our stay in Hawaii - the children have been begging to ride bicycles again. They love any sort of bike and ask all the time if we move can we get a bike. They ask if they can have one in our place too - but they usually say very quickly, "I know, I know - we don't have enough room". Which we don't - so that is why it's fun to find a place where we can ride together as a family & get some of the cravings out for a bike ride.

Since Bryson's schedule is somewhat open right now with work, I had a feeling he would be off today as it's the last holiday weekend in the summer. I hoped that work might stay a little calm, so that we could go back to Governor's Island! We went there exactly one year ago today when Nana & Papa Lord were in town - which I just went back to my old blog and realized I posted a 'Coming Soon' post with a few pictures & hardly any descriptions of what we did. I can't believe a year later and I still haven't finished that --- and OTHER projects!

Well, a year ago to date, we went out to Governor's Island. It's a natural island that is out in the New York Harbor - it's a short ferry ride from Manhattan or Brooklyn - you can see the Statue of Liberty close at hand from the north shore of the island (we must really have a thing for North Shores! That's where we stay in Oahu, we live on the Northern tip of Roosevelt Island, and we loved the Northern part of Governor's Island....funny to think about actually!

We did miniature golfing and walking around the island last year, however the one thing that we had told the children we would do was bike riding and by the time we got to the rental hut on the island they weren't letting any more bikes go out for the night. The kiddos have not let us forget that we need to go back to ride bikes!

We took the ferry over from Brooklyn since I was already there on Thursday @ Pier 6, and realized a ferry left right from that Pier. I also needed to take back some items to Ikea which is only about 10 minutes away from the Pier. We decided to drive and make a morning out of the errand before we took the ferry over to the island. By the time we parked (which luck is usually on my side, as I've been able to find street parking this entire week when we go out for an adventure!). When we got to the end of the Pier, the boat was just leaving and we had 20 minutes to pass until the next ferry came along. Thankfully - the Pier is full of the different playgrounds that we had discovered on Thursday - that way it was a playtime until we needed to load up.

We hoped on the ferry & some gentlemen we were standing next to offered their seats - which I gladly took, however Madeleine was rather keen to stay right by Dad as much as possible today :)

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After walking through the island to the family bike rental shack - we made our choices and then were off to explore the biking paths around the island. It was a little bit muggy outside - however look past Bryson Sr. on the first bike - and you can see a glimpse of Lady Liberty from this vantage point.

Our view from where we stopped for a snack and to refuel with water. Speaking of fuel - little Bryson saw a dial on the front part of Bryson's bike and asked him if that is where we needed to put the gas in!

This bench was over by the tire swing, and I decided to move it closer so I could watch the kiddos. Have you seen anything so clever and functional as this bench? It was so easy to move - if we ever get a backyard I'd love to put some benches like this back there.

Last year it was the Unicycle Conference or meet-up on the same day/weekend. We enjoyed watching a few tricks each time we saw them!

What a fabulous day! I'm so glad the kiddos reminded us that it was definitely time to go on a long bike-ride together as our family. We all had a really, really good time!

Until next time Governor!