Sleeping Maleah

It's hard to tell where Maleah will be found sleeping when we check on her before going to bed. Here she is just inside her bedroom door.

Armstrong Trail

We decided earlier in the week that we would ride the Armstrong Trail from Mosgrove to Ford City on our new bikes. This week we've been conditioning ourselves (mainly our butt) by riding 5 miles at the high school every other evening. This morning we arrived at Mosgrove around 10:30 and dropped Maleah off with Grandma and Grandpa Slee before headed for the trails. Connor was a trooper the whole time, not once did he complain about being tired from riding his bike. He lost focus quite a few times and had to be reminded to stay in the middle of his Mom and Dad while riding and to come to a complete stop and be aware of his surroundings at stop signs. Other than that, he did awesome for his first 13.75 mile bike ride.

Connor and Brian decided to take a break and allowed me to photograph the moment. As you can see, the trail is wide and a nice packed limestone surface is mainly what we rode on. It was a perfect bike riding day with it being in the upper 70's and low humidity.

At another point, we decided to take a break and have a snack and drink. Mommy and Connor got their picture taken this time.

One our way back, we wanted to stop off at Butter Milk Falls but we came upon this huge tree that fell across the trail. We will try to get back to the falls later on this summer.

After going back to Mom and Dad's camp site and visiting there for a little while, Brian and I took a 5 mile bike ride by ourselves north of the campsite. We rode past the Army Corps of Engineers Lock & Dam #8, and was forced to start back from the rain. We got rained on for less than 5 minutes and we dried quickly. So for today's first official Rails-to-Trails ride, we rode over 19 miles. Next week we may ride from Mosgrove to Templeton or ride Brockway to Ridgeway. Either trip will be no less than 25 miles. Yes, I'm sore this evening, but my butt will get use to it!

Maleah broke a tooth

We can't catch a break this summer. With everything that's been going on with the Smith household, I hate to report that Maleah broke a front tooth this afternoon.

I didn't see the event happen, but Connor come running into the house telling me that something was wrong with Maleah's front tooth after falling on the driveway. My heart sank, I went running to see that she cracked her front tooth. The fracture itself doesn't concern me too much, it's that the nerve was bleeding and that's not a good sign. I'll take her to see the dentist tomorrow and he will likely say that she needs to have the nerve removed from the tooth and that can only happen 2 ways, either extraction or a pulpotomy, (root canal). If I would be dealing with a boy, I'd probably have the tooth removed, but since we're not, I'll do the root canal to keep her smile intact for the next 3 years (hopefully).