A Walk to Remember...though I wish I could forget it!

Two nights ago, we went on a family walk/bike ride after dinner. Gavin just learned to ride his bike without training wheels and so he LOVES LOVES LOVES to ride his bike now. He was the one who begged to do our nightly trip around the block, Gavin's second time on his bike. Russ was pulling Holden in the wagon, I was walking Bella, and the Landon and Gavin were riding their bikes. (Blake stayed home doing his new favorite thing... baking cookies.)

Generally, I keep Bella on a very short tight leash because she is CRAZY! She could pull a covered wagon with her freakish strength... but I digress. We have lots of dogs in our neighborhood and they either have no fences containing them, or they have invisible fences... either way... we have no idea whether they can come out of their yards or not. However, Bella has been doing much better on our walks so I had given her a little freedom on the leash to roam more. We got partially around the neighborhood when a little white dog came barrelling from his house after our little Bella. Bella freaked out and took off across the street toward the dog, and at this same time, Gavin was pedalling his heart out back toward us. Russ and I start screaming for Gavin to stop, but being a bike riding novice, using his breaks was out of the question. I let go of the leash, thinking that if it was tight he would run into the rope, possibly with his neck and be yanked backward off of the bike landing on his back... option number 1... yikes, no thank you. SO...I went with option number 2, I let go of the leash thinking it would just fall the ground, or at worst, hit his chest, and fall to the ground. Unfortunately, neither of these options occurred. We were petrified to witness the leash boomerang itself around Gavin's neck and yank him off of his bike throwing him to the ground. Praise God, he had his helmet on! He still received two head abraisions. His face and neck suffered so much rope burn, it is so pitiful!

What a frightening night for us. Knowing what could have happened just freaks me out! We made him sleep in our bed so that we could keep an eye on him and make sure he did not get a concussion from the head injuries. I am so thankful that God protected him and he is ok, minus some burns. No more loose leashes for Bella and we had a crash course on break usage for Gavin... no pun intended!