A Family Day.

The day started slowly. For me, anyway. Everyone else seemed able to get out of bed, but I had a really difficult time. A Saturday morning shower helped, as did a quick batch of pancakes. At Rafi's urging we headed off to the bike sale at Mellow Johnny's (Lance Armstrong's bike shop here in Austin). I really liked the first bike I tested and had it set aside with my name on it. It was a hybrid with straight handlebars. But then while I tended to Mateo, Rafi kept looking and discovered this beauty:

Say hello to my new bike! I need to think of a name for her. I still can't believe I own a $1700 bike. Now, I want to make it perfectly clear that we did NOT pay that much for this bike. The sale was really REALLY good, so I got it for 60% off. I just love it when the discount is higher than the actual price!

And for our money I not only got this beautiful bike, but I will also be receiving a custom bike fitting (which I'll do next week), a woman specific seat, a year of brake and derailleur service, two tuneups, and an espresso (they have a coffee shop inside) included for free.

Thank you, Rafi, for my new bike! It's much nicer than what I would've ever picked out for myself, and it inspires me to ride again. And thanks to Victor who dropped everything to come help us with our bike decisions, and thanks to his wife Ingrid for coming with him! Oh, and a big thanks to Mellow Johnny's for not only giving me a kick a$$ deal on my bike but also for providing a fun atmosphere, music, and free food and beer!

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All that biking got our tummies to growling, so we grabbed some healthy lunches and drinks and headed to Zilker Park for a nice picnic. There was evidence in every tree of kite catastrophes from the kite festival a couple of weeks ago. We sat under a nice shady tree, and our friend Andres joined us. Mateo and Rafi had lots of fun running around.

Eventually we lured Mateo into the car with the promise of a cookie. He ate half of it, handed it back, and conked out for the rest of the ride home. It had been a long day for all of us. He watched a Veggie Tales movie and then went to bed early. Rafi and I stayed up working - he on actual work stuff and me on the Peru blog posts. Going through 510 photos is a lot of work! (Hence why I didn't edit any of them.) And now that I'm all caught up, I hope to get back to my frequent, but short, blog posts.