I have been kind of a goody goody my whole life. Not perfect. At all (just ask my sister!). But just, well, very black and white on some rules of life, you know? For example, I always wait for the light to turn green to walk across the street. I have a HUGE fear of “getting in trouble” or anything to do with authority which may play into it all. I’ve also never tried beer and very rarely drink at all.  In fact, I just recently discovered I like some sweet wines which makes me feel like an official grown-up! Chris says I never really experienced college and he’s right in the sense that I rarely/never did anything wild and crazy. I guess I never sowed my wild oats. Not that drinking has anything to do with crazy behavior but in college it kind of does right? HA!

To this day I’m pretty naive about quite a lot of things. Bars, drinks, clubs and anything happening after 8pm seem to fall on that list. I’m sure that’s true for a lot of young Christian women. I joked with someone last night that during the years C and I broke up in college… he partied and I prayed. HA! No matter who did what in college, he and I are pretty happy with our quiet life now. Neither of us drink much and with our schedules it’s hard to even be that social, unfortunately, although we do have amazing friends.

What I’m finding more and more is that I love stepping out of the box. Simple things like learning how to water ski this summer or going to my first boot camp. Meeting girl friends for a glass of wine or getting a sitter just so C and I can go for a bike ride together. Little things, but just allowing myself (and us) to think outside the box, get a little more adventurous and just have more fun in life! The older I get the more and more it’s sinking in that this is IT. We have this one life and while we have to work and pay bills and do all the normal everyday tasks like cleaning toilets, we need to also seriously enjoy ourselves! I’d love to talk to my sister each week and say, “you won’t believe what we did last week!” A new story, a new adventure and a new memory to tuck away and bring out in the midst of folding that huge pile of laundry!

So last night when Chris suggested a sitter I pretended like money wasn’t an issue and said SURE! I was on my way home from a session pretty far out so since I had time to chat I called my friend/neighbor Kelly. When she mentioned that her husband, Tim, was going to ride in the World NAKED Bike Ride that night I KNEW we had to go! When I got home Chris was dressed up super nice and said he was excited to take me to a nice dinner and to the MO Botanical Gardens to see the lanterns… something we’ve been wanting to do all summer. When I told him my idea he laughed, changed and we were ready! First we did grab dinner together then Kelly dropped her girls off at our house (to share our sitter) and we hit the road! That’s right, instead of driving from Webster to The Groves (7 miles away to the city) we decided it would be cool to ride our bikes. Seven miles didn’t sound so far even though I bet I’ve never gone more than 2 miles before!

Just before 8pm Kelly, Chris and I set off! About half-way through the ride I asked Kelly to take a quick shot of C and I because I was so proud of what we were doing! Do you like my neon pink shirt? We actually ran to the store so I could buy that because I was so nervous riding so far so late at night! Anyway, I love this shot of us! Thanks Kel!

When we finally arrived (after riding through some seriously sketchy parts of town with my expensive camera strapped to my back) we were SO excited to have made it! AND we beat the other riders!

When we didn’t see anyone Kelly tried to call Tim… we were going to be SO mad if we got the destination wrong and had to turn around! She didn’t reach Tim but luckily we figured it out pretty fast!

We knew Tim was wearing shorts so when the first riders arrived and all had some sort of clothing on I sort of felt like, “Whew! They’re not actually naked!”

Until more and more riders got to the end point where we were standing and we realized that OH MY there were actually quite a few naked people! Completely NAKED and riding bikes!

This guy had actually welded two bikes together and where the seat on the second bike should have been, instead it was this platform to hold THE POLE DANCER! HA!

Sorry if that offends you… but this was NOTHING! Pasties? Bring them on! Full on nudity? Wow! You can’t be prude and be watching this event ride by! The whole time I just kept saying, “I can’t believe we’re here! I can’t believe I’m seeing this! I can’t believe this is happening in the middle of a busy street in downtown!” It was surreal to say the least!

HA! Just to show you how OUT THERE people were. Not OUT THERE in a weird way just, well, HANGING out there! OMG you guys it was insane! And the ONLY reason I’m even showing you all of this is because despite seeing hundreds of naked people I never really needed to see, I HAD A BLAST! It was so freeing! For one of the first times ever I felt like my chub didn’t matter! That ALL bodies were beautiful! It was awesome for me to be standing there, uncomfortable in my spandex (I can’t ride my bike without spandex pants!) because of my weight, watching people of ALL shapes and sizes totally comfortable with THE WORLD seeing them!

It kind of goes down in the history books as one of the craziest nights of my life! And I LOVED it!

So while we were laughing and gawking and just in disbelief that we were witnessing all of this we made two new friends. And when I said, JOKINGLY, that I should ask someone to take a photo with me, one of them started grabbing people!

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? HA! I made my new friend get in the shots with me! I mean seriously, how many photos do you have of yourself with naked strangers? Because I have several now! HA!

Pretty soon we spotted Tim and his friend!

He had his bike shorts on, no worries!

Then our new friends took us to my first ever gay bar called “Just Johns!” If it helps to describe how naive I am… I didn’t understand what “Just Johns” even meant! I’m such an idiot. OH and we didn’t have our IDs so we weren’t going to be allowed in until our friend’s vouched for us… and then the bouncer pulled one of them aside to ask him what his chance was of hooking up with Chris! HA! He totally got picked up at a gay bar! I knew my husband was HOT but that cemented it!

And in case you were wondering, yes, I did order a drink and for the first time ever I actually drank it all! Which of course led to some dancing!
IT. WAS. HILARIOUS! I am the WORST dancer! The worst. But OMG did I have fun! Crazy fun! Non-normal-Jodie fun and it was awesome!

After that we went back outside for a while and then headed home. We got home around midnight after BARELY making it the 7 miles home (that ride seriously almost killed me!) and I just couldn’t stop smiling.

I don’t think I need to ever again see that many naked people in one place. And I don’t know if I ever need to go to a gay bar again (although i totally would!). And I doubt I’ll ever go bike riding into the city so late again.

BUT.

I could. And I would. And I am SO glad that Chris and I love each other enough to have adventures you know? And I’m SO thankful to have friends that will do crazy+spontaneous things with us! AND I’m so glad for my parents who are taking the kids for us tonight so we can recover because I am TIRED (and I think C caught what the kids had last week b/c he feels terrible today)!

Kelly thinks it’s funny that I am interrupting my normal cute baby photo-filled posts to show you sweaty naked strangers. And I might have seriously offended some of you. But what I hope came across is that I truly believe in pushing ourselves outside of our comfortable box. Stepping outside our neighborhood. Meeting new people. Creating fun memories we’ll never forget!

Here’s to hoping you had a fun weekend with your spouse too! Because nothing says love like posing on a random street corner with a woman who hot glued candy to her nipples!