Yesterday was a great day.

Yesterday was a great day.

I am fully aware that it was Monday, and traditionally Mondays are not classified in the "great" category all that frequently, but this Monday was great.

The starting point for yesterday's said greatness was that I had the day off, and I spent the day with my family. The reason I took Monday, August 11th off is that it is the 15th anniversary of my wife's and my first date. Every August 11th for the past 14 years, we have remembered this day, and done something special to commemorate the day. It has, at times, come down to a competition to see who can remember the day first, and do something special. In past years, I have acted like I was going to work as normal, pretending to forget which day it was, only to drive to the local grocery store to buy a bouquet of flowers. Then I left them on the doorstep, rang the doorbell, and high-tailed it around the side of the house to hide and wait for her to find the flowers.

This year, as I have said before, I had the day off - but Kelly didn't know this. I had kept it a secret since November last year when I requested it off. Last week I finally realized that I had a three-day weekend staring me in the face, and no plans to take advantage of it. So, I decided to break with my plans and tell Kelly that I had the the day off, thinking that we could take the kids and go out of town - possibly up to her brother's in Haggerman, Idaho and stay in the rock house. I wanted to include the kids this time, since if it wasn't for that first date, there wouldn't be any family to enjoy the day with. She thought it would be fun, but too expensive to travel that distance (you suck, high gas prices!), but what if we had a picnic up Provo canyon at South Fork park, above Vivian Park? We agreed that would be the best idea so plans were made. Check out Kelly's blog, I am sure that she will post pictures of the park. it is truly a beautiful place, one of our favorite places in Utah county!

I, being that bike nerd that I am, immediately figured out how I could work a bike ride into these plans, and decided that Kelly and the kids would drop me off at the Provo river parkway trail at Geneva Dr. and I would ride my bike up to South Fork park to meet the fam for the picnic, then ride back down. We decided to take the kid's bikes and let them ride back down wit me - as far as they felt like going - with the plan that Kelly would pick them up if they tired out and wanted to stop.

The car loaded up and ready to go.

So we loaded up the car, drove to my drop-off point, and parted ways temporarily. Kelly went to Subway to pick up the food while I headed off to ride up the canyon. We let the kids play in the river for a couple of hours at the park, changed them into dry clothes, and drove down to Nunn's park - because the trail was closed at Bridal Veil falls because some idiot teenagers climbed up to the upper tram house, and burned it down a few months ago. A city worker told me that there was still falling rocks and burn debris from the fire, and they have closed the trail for safety reasons. That would still leave a 10 mile ride for the kids.

Kelly drove on ahead, and met us a couple of times where the trail intersected with the road to make sure everyone was doing okay, and to give the kids an out if they wanted to quit. I am happy to say that none of them wanted to quit, and they all made it the entire way. Jacob, my 10-year-old told me several times that this is the "funnest bike ride that he has ever been on" and he wants to go riding with me more often.

The view from the back of the pack.

Jackson leading the way. We are lined up by age in this picture. Funny!

On the way home, we drove thru Arctic Circle and got shakes for everyone. Me: 28 miles. The kids: 10 miles. A great ending to a great day!