Taylor's Eagle Court of Honor - May 16, 2010

All I know is that he is growing up WAY too fast! Taylor's Court of Honor was a wonderful evening with a lot of great neighbors, friends and family there to support Taylor.

I am just so proud of him.

work hard, play hard, rider harder.

I'm so grateful

Spring in St. George, is it FINALLY here? 

I hope it stays around for longer than a day or two.  

I have enjoyed the sun so much these last two sunny days. 

It puts me such a good mood that I think about 

everything I am grateful for all day long.  

So, here is my list:

I am grateful for.....

the sun, it lifts my spirits and I can wear my sandals to work!

my chiropractor, I can move with less pain today!

(I've been laid up for a week with horrible back pain)

a beautiful sunny day for a bike ride on singletrack

serenity in the desert

Sadie's safe return from her Spring Break vacation in California 

and her good friend who took her there.

The Dixie High School Soccer program,

the coaches are great and give so much 

time and attention to our boys

a 4-0 record for DHS soccer 2010! 

Go Flyers

 My mom, I really appreciate all she has ever done for me

I hope she is feeling better soon

Dance.....

it keeps Sadie busy and she loves it

I am lucky she has the best instructor in town

who influences and challenges her on and off the dance floor

My personal bike mechanic 

who takes such good care of me and my biking needs!

Spending time with my brother and his family

they are so cute and fun to be with

Letters from Grant 

and the spirit that we feel in our home 

as he shares his mission experiences

 Sunday dinners with all the kids

it's nice to see Guy IV every few weeks!

I am GRATEFUL for today...... 

work hard, play hard, rider harder.

Team MOM

My brother, Mike, and a few of his buddies are training to participate in an adventure race in Moab at the end of this month.  They came to St. George for a mountain bike ride this weekend and asked if I would like to go along.  Of course I did!  So I met them at the bottom of the Barrell Roll (Santa Clara Bridge) and took them to some singletrack they had never ridden before.  We climbed up to the Barrell Roll trailhead and then down the wash and up again to the Rim Runner area.  It is always good training to start with that climb.  

(Mike & Jeron)

 

About half way through the Rim Runner section we ran into a few mishaps......

1. Mike wiped out on a turn, crashed his helmet against a rock, and taco-ed his front tire.  His head was fine, and the guys bent his front tire as straight as they could so he could finish the ride.  I was paranoid that he would have another crash with such a wobbly wheel!
2. Then, Kel hit his rear derailer against a rock and it snapped in two pieces.  There was no way to jimmy that back together so we were going to strip the gear and turn it in to a singlespeed to finish the ride out.  The master link was odd and not easy to work with.  I had tools but we were struggling to get the chain apart.  Who always seems to show up "Just in time?"  GUY!  He struggled also get the bike ride-able but he is  a great mechanic and did what he had to do to get us up and running again. 
3. Jeron and Andy were coming up to the scene and one of them crashed, so like a domino, the last one followed the lead and crashed too!  They were very minor and had no mechanical problems.

 This is Andy just chillin' while he waits. 

This is a great view from the ledge.

So, we are off again. 

One singlespeed

(actually two now since I always ride one!)

and

One WOBBLY, but spinning, wheel 

See Mike's Wobbly Wheel

Kel took another spill as we were climbing up the Sidewinder trail.

It's not an easy trail to climb in one gear.  

Kudos to him.  

I was just so glad that Mike finished the ride without another incident.  

Thanks for having me along, I had fun.  

When we got done they all voted me in as 

Team Mom 

because I kept "taking care" of them 

and fed them or reminded them to eat long the way.  

Haha, that's just what I do!

Till next time, guys - call me again

Good Luck in MOAB

work hard, play hard, rider harder.

BTW - Mike, you NEED a new bike:)

Weekend with Girlfriends!

My girlfriends and I had a quick trip to Vegas two weeks ago.  

Oh what fun and silly things we did.....

Our first stop after settling into our hotel room was

Deseret Industries

 

You just never know what kind of gems you will find in another town! 

LaDawn and I gave Jana only 15 minutes to browse

because you know how carried away 

you can get looking for a great deal.

  We should have bought the shoes, just for fun!

It seemed like one of the highlights of our trip was

all the delicious food we ate!  

We went to Macaroni Grill for lunch.  

The scent of garlic was 

SO STRONG (MMMMMMM)

when we walked in, 

I don't know if it made us hungrier or quenched our appetites a little.  

The waitress has to write her name on the paper on your table upside down so that you can read it to remember her name.  We were all impressed and decided we would see how well our names looked after we wrote them upside down.  

Not too bad, actually!

Oh how easily entertained are we....

 

A few highlights of the trip were.....

Our new purses, 

especially Jana's coral "Spring Fling"

There's nothing better than a great Clearance Rack 

with sweet merchandise just waiting to grab your attention.

This is a great picture of you two beautiful ladies

The water show at the Bellagio

The midnight crepes

(one of the best parts of the trip?)

Oh how absolutely delectable they were.  

Glazed pear with walnut and caramel

Fresh berries with cream

MMMMMMMM.  

More food...

Mimi's Cafe

Let's see, what other highlights?

Jumping on the bed, 

(Jana, you have some silly pictures of that, right?)

Running a red light, (oops)

Going to bed WAY past my bedtime,

(I can tell I'm getting old because this really messes with my schedule and my body reminds me of it for several days after the fact)

Sleeping in past 10:30, UGHHHH

(Only in a hotel room with very dark curtains!)

I had a great time ladies, 

thanks for a fabulous getaway. 

After breakfast we went our separate ways. 

Jana and LaDawn went home and I went south.

I stopped in Boulder City to ride my bike at Bootleg Canyon before I drove to Pearce Ferry to pick up Guy and his buddies who floated down the Colorado River from Whitmore Canyon. 

 The bridge below Hoover Dam looks closer to completion, FINALLY!

  What a marvelous attraction that has been to watch the construction over the past several years.

work hard, play hard, rider harder.

Celebrating Sadie's Birthday

So, Sadie's 14th birthday was on Monday, Feb 22.  To celebrate, she had a few friends over Sunday night to start the party early!  She chose lasagna, German chocolate caramel brownies & ice cream for her birthday dinner.  Hayley, McKenzie E, McKenzie N, and Sadie decided to tough out the cooler outside weather for dinner.   

 Thanks for coming over girl's, it was fun.

 

The next day, her actual birthday, I took her, Hayley and Annie to a photo shoot.  The shoot was for Sadie but her best friends got to strike a few poses with her.  We are anxious to see how her pictures turned out.  Then we all went to dinner at Durango's (dinner #2) and then shopping.  Of course, Sadie had the most fun because she came home with clothes, but it sure is fun to have all the girls around.  

By Friday you would think we should be done celebrating!  No Way!  We went to Pasta Factory (dinner #3!) and then to the Colbie Callait concert at the Dixie Center.  This was Annie's idea to celebrate Sadie's birthday.  She coordinated months ago with all of us. 

Hayley, Annie, Sophie and Sadie posing at dinner.

Me, Sadie, Annie, Sophie, Hayley, Becki, & Carly.  

We had a very fun "Girl's Night Out" with Annie, her mom and sisters, and Hayley.  

One of the members of Colbie's band opened for her.  

His name is Justin Young, he is from Hawaii

and has an incredible voice.  

He is actually her guitarist and vocal backup. 

He was awesome.  

Her concert was great and fun. 

She is a great entertainer.  

She would give us backgrounds of why she would write a song and it would give the song a whole different meaning.  I liked her music before the concert but I find I enjoy it now even more.  

Sadie and Annie screamed so much

(too much) 

that their throats hurt later on 

and we had to get them ice cream to sooth the burning!

This is just one of the many silly faces that Sadie entertained us with while we were waiting for the concert to start.  I guess she and her friends give her faces names if she can duplicate them more than once.  

What a HAM!  She keeps us all laughing.....

 

We need to get together more often for "Mom and Daughter" nights.  We all had a lot of fun.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MERSADIE

Are we about done celebrating yet?

work hard, play hard, rider harder.

I Fell off of my Cloud - Hard

Oh how I LOVE to ride
the Gould/JEM/Hurricane Rim Loop.  

It is a 20 mile single-track wonder in the desert above Hurricane, UT. 

It has been difficult to ride this trail lately due to wet and freezing weather which don't mix well with our lovely clay soil.  The sun was shining last week (Friday, Feb 19th) and there was a very short 

window of opportunity. 

The clay was somewhat dry, tacky, but very ride-able.   

Carpe Diem - I took it.

  I haven't ridden this trail since early last November. 

I love the variations that this unique mountain biking experience offers

as a fast cross-country ride

not to mention the incredible cardio workout you get too.

The climbing, right out of the gate

(if you start at the radio towers) gets you warmed up QUICK!  

Then the tight, twisted single-track rolling 

through the Gould Trail is phenomenal.  

I enjoy that seven mile stretch so much 

that I don't hardly notice the climbing

and I am to the JEM Trail before I know it. 

It seems as if I just started my ride.  

This is not to say that I am fast 

(I'm not really and the older I get, the faster I WAS!).  

I just enjoy it so much that the time flies quickly.  

I enjoy the serenity and scenery all around me.  

Then, the thrill of the downhill is before me.  

The JEM trail was in the best shape I have seen in a long time.

  The downhill was fast, 

it was carved so smooth 

from the riders who groomed it before me.

The Hurricane Rim section of the trail

is the fun, slower, technical portion with a lot of good climbing. 

I enjoy the "plates", as I call them, of rock along the rim. 

The trail mostly follows the rim

of a very deep canyon over the Virgin River.  

The views are magnificent in every direction. 

I was feeling strong on my bike, lots of energy.  

Some days you have it and some days you don't, this day I DID!

I was strolling along up Serpentine Hollow 

(where have all the signs gone?), 

up Gooseberry Lookout,

over Vertles Ride

I'm enjoying myself so much I start daydreaming

I'm on cloud nine, I love riding this trail

UUUGGGGHHHHH

The next thing I know I pick a wrong line 

over a jumbled pile of rocks 

that seem to be different since the last time I rode. 

I froze,

I have NO momentum 

and the only place to go is DOWN.  

Why can't I move?  

I kind of saw this coming a few seconds before 

and I did nothing to prevent it.

I'm not talking down to the level ground under me, 

I'm on a slight cliff-like ledge into a jumbled gully.  

I fall HARD below my bike 

(which is now on top of me)

The first thing to touch was my knee

to an extremely HARD rock, 

it had no give in it

Next was my elbow, no, it was my hip.

Like I said, I was falling down hill 

The pain in my knee was excruciating, 

I thought I could have possible shattered it.

I still have to get to the truck

If I don't get moving the pain will set in

I immediately got up to assess the damage.  

The knee hurt but it still worked! 

And if I keep moving it won't stiffen up as quickly.  

The blood was very minimal. 

At first it was hard to ignore the pain 

and put pressure on my knee to keep pedaling.

But the longer I rode the better I felt.  

I only had two miles to go.  

I just had to climb out of Chinatown Wash

and over the lookout and I was homefree.

By the time I got to the truck 

I couldn't really feel the pain anymore,  

UNTIL I stopped moving

My knee THROBBED all the way home. 

I tried to keep it moving in the car but there isn't enough room.  

I soaked it in the hot tub and took some Advil.  That helped a lot.  

By the time I went to bed it all felt much better.

I broke the buckle on my shoe ($20), 

have some scrapes on my knee and elbow ($pride),

some very deep purple, green, blue bruises

on my knee, legs, hip and elbow.  

And my arm, which I tried to catch myself with as I was falling,

has been very sore all week.($more pride)

It's amazing what muscles you can strain when you go down.  

It has been SO LONG since I went down on my bike, 

I almost forgot what it's like.  

Lesson learned ($priceless), 

FOCUS,

be alert, 

pay attention, 

strengthen my cat-like reflexes!

don't daydream,

don't enjoy the ride so much 

ENJOY THE RIDE - ALWAYS!!!!!!

work hard, play hard, rider harder.

SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE

I read a book just recently while I was traveling called 

"Simplify Your Life 

100 Ways to Slow Down and Enjoy the Thing That Really Matter"

Here are a few of the ideas that I enjoyed.  Now, keep in mind, these are quotes from the book and some of them are out of context.  These are not my ideas, just ones that I think are good.  I learned a lot from this book and recommend it to anyone.  I can't quite commit myself to all 100 ideas, but I already live my life according to over 50 of them.  

We want to free ourselves from the commitments, the people, and the obligations that kept us from having time to do the things we really want to do.  It has greatly reduced the stress that comes from doing things we don't want to do.

Wise men and women in every major culture throughout history have found that the secret to happiness is not in getting more but in wanting less.

The idea is not to deny yourself the things you want, but to free yourself from the things you don't want.

People are tired of being driven by entertainment market forces.  They're coming to realize the best thing in life are free, and that doing less can mean having more - more serenity, more happiness, more peace of mind. 

Speed Cleaning, by Jeff Campbell and the Clean Team available from Dell Publishing 

Unplugging the Plug-in Drug, by Marie Winn.  

This book explains TV addiction, and offers an easy, step-by-step program both you and your children can use to reduce or eliminate the use of television.

Stop The Mail (literally, junk mail), P.O. Box 9008, Famringdale, NY  11735-9008

One of their (media) primary purposes is to get us to buy the products they advertise.  Month after month, year after year, they create expectations about our lives we're often not even aware of.

It's not surprising that, through the lure of page after page of enticing four-color ads, advertisers set our fashion and cooking and eating trends, and regulate and promote our social lives.  They encourage us to smoke, drink, and drive fast cars, and to buy expensive clothes, jewelry, furniture, and hundreds of other products that, for the most part, we don't really want, often can't afford, and which seldom live up the their advertising claims.  

Mathoms 

(I love this, and have a shelf of many suitable mathoms)

  A mathom was an object of any value for which a use could not be found, but which the owner was not prepared to discard completely.  

Rather than spending untold hours shopping for and agonizing over gifts that are never quite right, you can go straight to your mathom box and find something that's absolutely not right! 

I've also let my friends know that they are free to pass on (or possibly fob off) these "treasures" to someone else whenever appropriate.  

Living simply is not a matter of living cheaply or of feeling deprived.  On the contrary, it's an opportunity to get in touch with what is really important in your life, and to reach a level of moderation that will create not only a feeling of contentment and security, but also a sense of being in control.

Teach your kids to save half of what they earn from their allowance or part-time jobs.  Kids can learn, just as we are learning, that we don't have to have everything we see or everything the Joneses have.

Kids can learn, as we are learning, how advertisers appeal to our emotions rather than our needs.  Kids can learn that if they don't have the money, they can't afford it, and that buying on credit can often lead to serious financial difficulties.  

There are dozens of medications we could do without if we just changed the way we live, so that the problems go away and eliminate the symptoms.

Take time right now to think about a few special rituals you could create either on your own or with your family that would make each day memorable.

People do what they want to do.  Understanding this has made it possible for me to see the fine line between being supportive and getting in the way.  When it comes right down to it, we can't change other people.  They change when they are good and ready.  We all have to get out of our own predicaments. 

Most often what people really want is a supportive ear. 

Now I just listen.  Boy, has that simplified my life. 

When I Say No, I Feel Guilty, by Manuel J. Smith

This classic bestseller from the 1970's will give you the verbal tools you need to reduce your commitments and make your time your own again. 

Just because she may like someone, she doesn't have to give up her free time to be with them, 

unless she wants to. 

Constantly reliving past events only complicates your life.  Reinterpretting them as positive steps forward, and then moving on, will keep things simple. 

Our culture is not structured to readily accommodate those who choose to simplify.

(It's me again, now I'm expressing my own thoughts)

While I was out of town reading this book I rode (my bike) to a quaint, SIMPLE, little town, 

Bumble Bee, AZ.  

Here are some SIMPLE pictures below.  

I am ALL for living SIMPLE, but I am not quite ready for this!

This house is on one side of the road below the school house.

 

This school house is a private residence

These houses are across the street from the school

  

That's the whole town!

  Then there is a really nice "DUDE" Ranch up the road a 1/4 mile before the town.

This is a very beautiful area if you like the desert.  It is located about 1 hour north of Phoenix, oustide of Black Canyon City.  I ride my bike in this area.  I thought I was out in the middle of nowhere and then all of a sudden, there is this little community.  

Life is DEFINITELY SIMPLE here!

work hard, play hard, rider harder.

Spring in the Sonoran Desert

Guy and I went to Phoenix for President’s Day weekend.  This was our first in three years that we haven’t traveled to Tuscon for this holiday to race at the 24 Hours of Old Pueblo.  It was really nice to actually ride where we wanted to and not have to pay for it!  I will admit, though, that I do miss the camaraderie and excitement that you get at the race.  The weather was perfect for riding the whole weekend.  It was 60-65 with a slight breeze.  I even got a slight sun burn the first day.  I need some color, so I will take whatever color I can for now.  We rode one of our favorite trails all weekend, the Black Canyon Trail.  We found 3.5 more miles of new single track north of the Bumble Bee exit.  I love the healthy, vibrant ocotillo that grow in this desert.  The temperatures have warmed up here so much and they have had a lot of rain so everything is turning green already.  The grass is erupting like a green velvet carpet of the desert floor.  The flowers will be blooming within the next month I would suspect.  Maybe we can come back in time to see it before it gets too hot and everything is a crispy brown.  The ocotillo was blooming everywhere.  The pictures are along my favorite section of the BCT trail below Rock Spring.

.

Guy is usually out of site while we are riding but he always seems to appear out of nowhere when I get to the river crossing.  I guess maybe I just know how to time it right!  Thanks for taking such good care of me out there. 

work hard, play hard, rider harder.

If you can't beat it, Join it, the rain that is...

Well, we have had rain here in Southern Utah about every other day this last week.  On Saturday, I was hoping to get out and enjoy a very long bike ride.  Not going to happen.....so, my friend called and said it was a great day to take photos.  She asked if Taylor and Sadie would like to be models so she could practice her photography skills.  Taylor wasn't too excited about it, I actually had to force him.  But Sadie and Annie (Sadie's PIC) couldn't wait to get started.  Sadie has a very hard time posing outdoors because her eyes are extremely sensitive to the sun.  On an overcast rainy day like this, she was game!

Sadie started out with a dry straight hair do.  In minutes it was curly and still cute.  I wish my hair looked that good in the rain!

   

I love the water beads from the rain on the door behind Taylor

....and the jagged brick wall behind Sadie.

 

This wasn't a great picture of all of us but it was a funny moment.  

{sing with me}We are a happy family!

 

I love his SMILE!  you can see it in his eyes

 I really like the effects the rain created......and the "D" in the background

All in all, it turned out to be a great day for a photo shoot.  

Good job Jana

work hard, play hard, rider harder.