I dropped the Big Dummy on its side for the first (and second) time today. Fortunately there weren’t too many witnesses–just the fifty or so families gathered at the fire station for the open house. I was trying to engage the kickstand while the wheels were on the grass but the bike was centered over a cement plate. I think I would have been fine parking it completely on the grass, but as it was, the bike tipped away from me. Not a stellar moment in demonstrating how fun and safe family biking is. It was surprisingly easy to get the bike upright. The big kid scurried out from under the bike so I only had one kid plus bike to heft, but it was much easier than lifting the city bike (which I dropped a few times). As soon as I got the bike up and tried again to set the center stand, it tipped over towards me. Third time was the charm, though, and I finally got the bike parked and locked and we ate Top Pot Doughnuts and wandered through the remodeled fire station.

Done with the fire station, we killed a couple hours at nearby Cafe Bonjour which has a bike rack right out front, but were later surprised to discover the SAGA School has no bike racks as we arrived for the Kinderfasching costume party. We left with one painted puppy face and two balloons. The boys had the idea to stick the balloons in the holes of the Yepp seat foot straps (better picture here) and they stayed put once I fastened them down. They even made it through two unbucklings and rebucklings as we stopped at Trader Joe’s on the way home (because three stops just isn’t enough when you’re on a cargo bike and full of sugar).