How did it become September 1st already?
We've had a busy summer, including trips to Pittsburgh, Cape Cod, and Milwaukee (post coming on that sometime), and business trips for Daddy Geek to southern California and Japan. Geek Girl continues to grow like a weed -- she's only about one centimeter shorter than Mama Geek -- and we discovered that 10-year-old girls use email like texting (ack). Geek Girl has also been learning to ride her bike, and has taken a few 10+ mile rides with me, including her first group ride. And she has read 84 books so far this summer (she just asked: "Do you think I can make it to 100?!")
Oh, yeah, and we moved houses within the same town.
But this post isn't about any of that.
Rather, we've had an interesting weekend already. We decided to things off right with a family bike ride along the W&OD Trail, and it was going to be lunchtime while we were on the ride, so naturally the destination was
Nielsen's Frozen Custard in Vienna. We had been there for custard before, but we learned on this trip that they also make some pretty good sandwiches. Mama Geek and I shared an Italian grinder, Geek Girl had a salami sandwich, and we shared a coffee custard and a "concrete" - vanilla custard with Oreos. Yum.
On the way back home, Geek Girl had her first real bike accident. I was right behind her and still don't know exactly what happened, but down she went and ended up with a pretty good scraped knee and elbow, and lesser cuts and assorted bruises. A kind stranger offered us bandages and such, and we got her patched up for the ride home. To her credit, Geek Girl toughed it out for another four miles to get home with only minimal complaints, and by the time we got home, she thanked us "for making me ride home, Daddy".
(Memo to Daddy Geek: remember to make a small bike first aid kit and bring it along for future rides, since grace seems to run in the Geek family...)
We'll spare you the wound pictures, but here's a picture of Geek Girl giving me the Pre-teen Death Glare after we got her cleaned up and the injuries properly dressed:
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Geek Girl is displeased with being asked to model her bandages
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Saturday was another beautiful day, so we walked over to the farmer's market for fruit and Geek Girl's post-accident breakfast treat:
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| Breakfast of Tough Geek Girls: freshly made mini doughnuts with sugar |
The library is closed today and tomorrow, so a visit to drop off some books and pick up a few more was key as well. Geek Girl's definition of "a few" leads to a stuffed backpack, and my back being 2" shorter than normal...but we wouldn't have it any other way.
Just for the heck of it, and to stretch out her arms and legs (we wouldn't want them to stiffen up after the injury, right?), Geek Girl and I went off to
Sportrock Climbing in Alexandria to try some bouldering. We traded back and forth and she did pretty well despite banging her knee into the wall a few times -- my grandfather's genes at work, I guess. One unexpected treat: they had a slackline for folks to try, and Geek Girl made two round trips with me giving her a helping hand. It seems Geek Girl had fun: she wants me to refresh my belay training so she can top-rope.
Today is yet another beautiful day, and less humid, so I indulged in a long solo ride on my race bike (thanks, Mama Geek!), through the northern Virginia suburbs, down into downtown DC -- this was perhaps unwise on Sunday of Labor Day weekend -- and up the W&OD trail home. It was the longest ride I've done since before I injured my Achilles back in March, and it was great to get out for so long, but something tells me it's going to be easy to fall asleep tonight.
Our last bit of excitement will be this evening's block party -- finally a chance to meet our new neighbors.
Oh, and it appears Geek Girl is excited about school starting on Tuesday; she spontaneously wrote the following poem this morning:
School starts! It's
Exciting! Our classroom has a
Periodic
Table of the
Elements!
Ms. M is my teacher
Boxes of school supplies
Exciting colors on the floor in
Radial symmetrical patterns
(c)
(The copyright symbol is important, apparently.)
Have a Happy Labor Day Weekend, folks.
