We have another broken bone in the house.

The current story is that Jack and Max were wrestling, but there is a fine line between wrestling and fighting. I’m guessing once the statue of limitations runs out, they will fess up to a whole lot more.

Three girls for Little Mermaid…

We continued the story and pulled out another tooth the very same day.

She walked in this morning and proudly announced that she had a loose tooth. Not even an hour later, with the encouragement from Grandpa giving an extra dollar for a pulled tooth, we had that baby out. She was a super star!

We made a quick trip to visit Carl’s parent’s ranch.

We first stopped at Mt Rushmore and Sylvan Lake.

Off to the ranch for fun with the cousins.

We were working on spelling and I asked him to write his word.

Can you guess?

Jack worked on his on the patio door. It’s not so bad to write each word 5 times when there is a huge blank glass to write on.

Lydia Larsen

Advanced composition Narrative essay

November 9, 2018

The Epic Bike Ride

Have you ever been on a family excursion were nothing seems to be going the way that is should? While camping at Itasca State Park, my family and I want on such an outing. It was early September, the time of year when most children are already in school. My parents had bravely decided that they would take the entirety of the Larsen clan on a unusually long bike ride. Never before had we gone on a bike ride that was as lengthy as this. Biking sixteen miles is an ambitious endeavor for any group with small children, and we went with eight children, the oldest of which was twelve. Unfortunately, the ride did not go as easily as my parents had hoped. Problems were abundant. Yet, thanks to the assistance of a caring stranger, we all lived to tell the tale of this crazy adventure, on which many things did not go the way that they should.

The sky was mostly cloudy. The breeze was mild. The temperature was cool. Mom and Dad, who must have been feeling extremely brave, told my seven siblings and I that we were going on a bike ride. Not just any bike ride, a sixteen mile bike ride, on Itasca’s wilderness trail. Briefly stoping at the local bike rental shop, we rented a pull behind seat for Dad’s bike, that was called a Wee-Hoo, were Max, who was four at the time, could sit comfortably. Ava, the youngest, who was two-yeas old at the time, was pulled behind mom’s bike. It was the afternoon when we finally embarked on our endeavor. When Grace, Adie, Silas, Titus, Jack, and myself were seated on are bikes, and Max and Ava were situated in their seats, Dad lead us single file along the side of the road. Over what seemed innumerable hills, we tracked onward, the grayish sky loomed

above us.

Before five minutes had passed, unwanted scenarios began occurring. Whining, crying, and

complaining, my eight year old sister, Adie wanted nothing more to do with this bike ride even though we had left the campsite a few minutes ago. Unrelentlessly wailing like a two year old, Adie had lost her mind and there was no hope in sight of her finding it. Struggling to keep her going, we pressed forward. Jack, who is my most adventurous brother, continued rapidly advancing along the trail until he spectacularly crashed into a unseen obstacle. Jack roughly tumbled off is bike. Promptly jumping to his feet, he bellowed, “That was awesome!” Relief flooded my parents. They had thought that he had probably broken several bones and was seriously injured. After stopping several more times to reattach the chain to Silas’ bike, we continued onward.

As I innocently rode along the trail, I heard a hiss coming from my front tire. My bike skidded to a stop. The large gash that ran across the front tire deemed my bike unable to proceed the remaining several miles of the trail. To make matters worse, while my family sat regrouping in a small parking lot adjacent to the bike trail, Moms bike, which lay sprawled on the ground, was ran over by a pick-up truck. All these events were far from what had been anticipated for this family bike ride.

My parents knew that somehow we had to make it back to the campsite. As we sat in the parking lot eating the pomegranates that Mom had packed us for a snack, a pick-up drove up to us. After conversing with Mom and Dad, the man inside kindly agreed to bring my nonoperational bike back to our campsite for us. Although Mom’s bike was slightly bent, fortunately it was still functional. With max squished in the pull behind trailer with Ava, and Jack riding on the Wee-Hoo, we swapped bikes amongst ourselves so that every one else had something to ride that sort of fit them. I rode on Adie’s bike, which was just little too small for me, Adie rode on Silas’ bike, Silas rode on Jack’s bike, and so on. It was laughably comical to watch Silas ride Jack’s bike because it was far too small for him and he had to petal vigorously to keep the bike going.

Thankfully, Adie had stoped her wailing ever since Mom, who was desperate to quiet her bellyaching, bribed her, stating, “Adie, if you stop complaining right now, I will consider getting you a bunny!” Adie managed to pull her self back together and whenever she wanted to complain she reminded herself, “I am not going to complain because I want a bunny.” While we again rested in a parking lot, the same man that had taken my bike returned. “ I just wanted to see if you guys were okay.” He explained. Dad and Grace went with the man back to our camp site to retrieve our van to rescue the remainder of us. Because everyone was tired, trying to continue the remaining five miles of the bike ride would have been a miserable ordeal. Thanks to the help of that kind man, who was a complete stranger, we all made it safely back to the campsite.

This bike ride was long and crazy, yet today, my family has fond memories of that day when nothing seemed to be going the way it should. On that cool fall day we encountered many problems that we had never anticipated, such as having to bribe Adie with a bunny to get her stop complaining. Fortunately none of the problems that we faced were life of death situations and we eventually made it back to the campsite. Much thanks is owed to the stranger who kindly assisted us in dropping off my broken bike and insuring that we survived the bike ride. Biking alone together with your family on a chaotic adventure, can seem miserable at the time, but remember that it will make a wonderful story for years to come. The tale of this family excursion has become a Larsen family legend and gone down in our history books as: The Epic Bike Ride.

It’s not too often that he falls asleep on me anymore. This might just be a last. That makes me a little sad and I don’t really want to get out of this chair. I want to hold onto this moment a little longer.