Jaunt to the beach

Today the kids and I took a quick jaunt to the beach by our house.  It's only 1.3 miles round trip, but I'm counting it!!  Daddy was resting and I was a little nervous about supervising all 4 kids on their own bikes.  Mo does well, Colleen is 90% there and the littles...well, they're still working on it!  But it was a straight shot, so I figured why not?  I gave them the speech - you know the one.  It went a little like this...
1) We will be in a specific order.  Mo, Colleen, "Bert", "Ernie" and then me.
2) UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO YOU PASS!
3) If a car comes, go on the grassy part of the shoulder and STOP.  Do not go until they have passed you.
4) We will be in a specific order.
5) DO NOT PASS.
6) Obey Mom if you hear her yelling from the back.
7) DO NOT PASS.
etc...etc...etc...you get the drift.
As we were pulling out, I got choked up.  They were riding in a perfect line, all in age order, just riding!  I didn't need to pull anyone in a trailer, they were obeying my instructions, no one had training wheels or was whining they couldn't do it...so I hollered out to them that I was so proud of them and that I was thankful they were riding well!  "Ernie" shouted out "GO TEAM (our last name)" and I almost lost it...
(Side note - if you haven't read the other blog, you need some back story.  "Bert" and "Ernie" are our foster sons.  We can't share their real names.  Adoption is the plan and then their names will be different anyway.  "Bert" is ready to be adopted, like today, and be all around DONE w/his birth family.  He is very anxious and his trauma memories are going to take years to over come.  "Ernie" on the other hand is not quite all sold out on this whole thing.  He says he wants to be adopted, but we get the feeling he would be ok if he just went back and forth between 2 families forever.  Emotionally, he wouldn't be, but he doesn't understand that yet.  Anyway...back to the story!)
To hear anyone, much less "Ernie", cheer for our 'team' was pretty cool!  I had to laugh along the way - there were a few spills, since 'the littles' are still working on balance and all that, but everyone got right back in the saddle and carried on =)  We got to the beach to find that there really isn't one this year.  We didn't hang out there much.  All in all though, I would count this as a success!