Goals

We've been working on getting Ellie to ride her bike without training wheels for a few years. She has been SO resistant to learning.
When the kids learn to ride their bikes and are able to ride to the Marsh Tower at the beach with my dad they get a bell for their bike. It's kind of a big deal. We've been trying to use this as motivation for Ellie but no dice.
Well I told her this spring that our goal was for her to learn to ride her bike before we went to the beach this summer. She was resistant at first but somewhere along the way she decided to really work on it.
When we left for the beach she was doing ok on her bike by herself. (video is Ellie a week before we left for the beach.)

She still needed help starting, had some handlebar control issues, and was having trouble breaking. The first day at the beach she learned to start herself. By Monday she was starting to ride on the bike paths and on Wednesday she rode to the Marsh Tower with my dad! She was SO proud of herself and we were VERY proud of her too!

The rest of the week all she wanted to do was ride around the island on her bike. She kept saying how much fun it was to ride on her bike (I may have told her "I told  you so" once or twice). She was even brave enough to go on TWO bike rides with my dad and Emmie. (My dad is notorious for taking family members on grueling bike rides.)

Ellie made it to the Marsh Tower!

Celebrating Ellie

(Ellie riding on the bike path!)