On Tuesday it was pretty nice outside, although I hadn't realized it until Abby came in my office to ask me to take the training wheels off of her bike.

The question was phrased something like, "We need the things to take the wheels off my bike." "A wrench?" I asked. We went for the toolbox.

Outside, Nana was looking over Abby's bike, which was laying in the yard. I figured I could take a little time and do a little dad work, so I got down with the wrench and pliers and removed the bolts that held on the training wheels. I took the removed wheels into the garage and set them near the pair from her old bike. She was never ready to ride the last bike without training wheels, even though I followed her around, holding on to the seat.

Abby was sitting on the bike at the top of the driveway and was kicking off to coast down toward the road. I wasn't too surprised to see her coast, feet off the pedals, all the way to the end. She put her feet down to stop, then walked the bike back to the top of the driveway.

On her second trip, she put her feet on the pedals, and when she got to the end of the driveway, she made a big loop, turned around and came back. She even navigated the narrow space between the two cars. With no help.

Shortly afterward, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself riding Abby's scooter, chasing Riley in one of the electric Jeeps, chasing Abby on her bike headed toward the cul de sac. We spent a couple of hours just riding around, and every time she drove by, she would say, "Daddy this is so. Much. Fun."

Today was Abby's 8th birthday, which we helped her celebrate by bringing soft pretzels in for her 2nd grade class, and holding an ice cream buffet party for the kids in our neighborhood. It seems like Abby had a really great day, and although today's date stands out on the calendar, I'm looking forward to every milestone we can share, both little and big.

I feel obligated to write about the BBQ, even though as an event, I think it stands on its own. The people who came seemed to have a good time, and the people who couldn't come... well... maybe they had a good time, too.

First off, it was hot. Super hot. Outrageously hot. I wished we had enough room inside the house to hold everyone, but it all turned out ok.

About 45 minutes before the BBQ was to begin, the pig roast guy called to say that he'd had a little car trouble. Apparently, while driving to our house, one of the doors fell off of the company van. Fell off. Crazy. So that was our one thing that went wrong. Thankfully, things didn't get worse.

The best part of the day was that I got to see some people I don't get to see a lot. Of course, Pat visited from Washington, which is nice. Berta's sister Mary Ann and her husband were there. Stan and Johnny came. The guys from D&D came, and so did Tony from the PHP meetup. Of course the guys from Rock River Star wouldn't miss a BBQ with beer. Some neighbors even wandered down.

There were also a lot of people from Berta's office, and I feel bad I didn't get to spend more time with them. I did get to meet one of Berta's co-workers that she talks about all the time but never comes to any of their company events. So that was nice.

Everyone's kids had a great time. We pulled out the moonbounce, which was entertaining. Berta got a ton of little water pistols that were fun, but I think the water balloons were appreciated by everyone, adults included.

We did the pirate treasure map. I think it was a big success. The kids (and parents) had fun searching for the clues, and the map was a big hit. I think next time, I'll have to do one for the parents, too, with more sophisticated clues.

The food was great. Everyone brought great stuff. Good salads, dip, applesauce, and desserts. The pig went over well. The BBQ sauce... I really need to get some of that for later in the summer. It was good.

In the evening, I did some really lame "magic" tricks from this mentalism video I've been learning from. While waiting for Michael to sober up (fail!), we unwisely got out the fireballs to juggle. That was a crowd-pleasing end to the evening. Yes, if you left early, you missed the fire-juggling.

Apart from some lost kids shoes, I think the BBQ was a success. The cleanup wasn't too awful the next day. My only real regret for the whole day is that I didn't get any of the Bousum's sangria.

Last Tuesday was Riley's third birthday. Berta stayed home to prepare things for the day. She took Riley out and bought a lot of balloons and a cookies-n-creme cake that he picked out himself.

Since we ordered a few things for him from the mail-order toy catalogs as gifts, they were a bit delayed in coming, so we didn't have any gifts to give him on his birthday. Instead, we all went to the toy store and picked out a few things that Riley liked.

He picked out one of those claw/grabber things, where you squeeze the handle and the claw at the end of the extension arm closes. He also picked out a big two-headed rubber dragon from among the rubber dinosaurs. We convinced him that he might like this staff-glider toy that comes from the cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's a "wooden" staff that turns into an air glider, and he's been flying around on it often since then.

Riley's a good kid for three years. We've got the regular three-year-old torture to deal with. People say that the twos are terrible, but they don't talk about the threes. The usual frustration at two years that causes the terror is their inability to communicate what they want, but our kids have been talking for quite a while. It's in the three-year-old's independence and need to do things for himself that causes the difficulty with Riley these days. And he sure is stubborn about some things.

In the relatively short time he's been around, he always seemed like he was going to stay small forever. Comparing him to pictures of himself when he was younger, you can see how big he's really getting. It's hard to imagine that he's going to continue to grow up, but I guess that's part of what these birthday milestones are about.