The other thing you'll notice is that this blog post looks like it was published on Monday, when really I am just putting it up today (Saturday). It's a weird blogger thing....
I know I've mentioned it a few times, but today I thought I'd talk about Sam's fascination with all things on wheels...
Actually, I'm not sure fascination is the right word. It wasn't like he obsessed over trucks, trains, bikes and cars from the minute he could obsess, it was more like an interest that simmered quietly throughout his life as he got on with a whole lot of other things.
Samuel certainly liked trucks and trains and bikes and things right from the start; but then again, what self-respecting child doesn't?
From the time he was a toddler, we would strap him into the bike seat and take off on rides around the place, and he was riding bikes from an early age too.
He was about 5 when he got rid of his training wheels. I don't remember much of it except that it took about a day. I took him out to the reserve out the back (so that if he fell down it would be onto grass), and eventually got him to the point where he barreled along happily, not realising that I'd let go a long time ago!Anthony remembers one time when they dropped the car off for me one night, as I was doing the night shift. With both dogs along for the walk, they set off on the (about) 3km journey back up the steep hill(s) to our place. Both Samuel and Anthony thought it was hilarious when our dog cheese managed to tow Samuel (on his back) all the way back up the first hill.
Over the years we'd often get on our bikes. When Sam was between 9 and about 11, we went through a bit of a bike riding phase. We'd often ride around the lake, or over to my parent's house, or Anthony's mum's place. Sometimes Ollie would be on the back of my bike, other times it would be just me and Sam. That was nice.
Sam would also quite often ride to the shops (about 1.5km away) for us, especially when he got his new bike.
We bought Sam a new bike for his 11th birthday. I love the look on his face as he sees it:
It was (is) a very nice gold Diamondback bmx, which he was very excited about. 
It's currently sitting upside-down in his bedroom, although Anthony has ridden it a couple of times. But Sam certainly got some good use out of it. When he wasn't on one of his other wheeled thingies that is...Because Sam also loved his skateboard.
He went through a bit of a skateboard phase, from about 10-12, where he got busy learning the tricks and buying stuff like new trucks and stickers for his deck. He even bought himself a fancy skateboard with some money he ended up with one Christmas (I think).The skateboard was superseded by a ripstick, which has been a bit of a craze over the last few years. I think he must have been 12 when he got into it, and I bought him one with my tax return that year. He was very good on it, taking to it straight away.
It's a bloody hard thing to ride - you have to balance on it and swivel your body from side to side to get it to move. I could never manage it, but Sam took to it straight away. He was often out in the street for hours, practicing and wowing the neighbours (they couldn't understand how he stayed on it either!).But even the ripstick didn't last long, as scooters came back into fashion, and he ended up with one of those. He was pretty good on it too. Before long he was doing heaps of tricks, and spent a lot of time at the local skate park doing tricks with his friends. He wore through at least one pair of shoes using the brakes on the thing, and had a couple of pretty gruesome stacks, but as usual, he did pretty well on it.
I don't know if it was just because he was a teen living in this wheelie world, or if he just had good equilibrium, but Sam always did very well on anything with wheels. And that's my memory of him for this week. Sorry it took me so long to get it up.
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