Fun and Exhausting Day

I love a good Saturday. I got up early and was on my bike by 7:15. I met Allison at Liberty Park and we rode the 45 mile round-trip ride to Saltair. I was bummed I had to turn around early last week on this ride so we decided to do it again this morning. It was fun, but I was tired and hungry by the time we got back. I also did something wacky to my hand. My pinky finger down into my arm are completely numb. It makes typing this quite interesting. I've been a spaz all day with my "bum hand" (nod to GB). The guys at the bike shop said I'd inflamed a nerve and suggested getting some special pads for my handlebars which I ordered. But I'm wondering how long this lasts. I think I'll scour my essential oil collection tonight and see if anything will help. It's really weird. I picked up my face soap in the shower and it just fell. Then I couldn't get my pants buttoned because only half my fingers work. It's like I got a huge shot of Novocaine in my hand.

After biking, I got some errands done. Bought a new mattress and TV. I thought I'd found a mattress last week, so I told Steph to come get my old one. Then I decided that I just couldn't buy anything from RC Willey. (I've had bad experiences there before) So I've been in the guest room (a.k.a. Princess Room) the last few nights. Anyway, I'm excited for the new stuff. New stuff is always fun.

I picked up a bunch of pizza from The Pie and headed down to mom & dad's. We had a family yard work evening. (steph will you send me the pics) We got a lot done, but oh my, that is a huge job. I don't know how mom & dad do that! By 9, I was ready to fall over. I feel like an old lady, achy back, legs, bum hand, really tired. I stopped to see Aunt Janet for a minute on the way home. We had a nice chat on the porch. I miss having a porch in the summer evenings!

Kasey

Krista, Maddie (Krista's friend) and Katie.

Kane, Will and Maya. Will has a snake painted on his face from the community parade.

Asher bringing garbage bags to everyone.

Even, baby Lukie had a shovel and wanted to help!

Now I'm home and I'm not sure why I'm not in bed. Duh.

Going the Distance

(I'm sorry this has turned into a lot of biking blog. I'll try to diversify in future posts)

I've done a couple of distance rides this past week and I have to say that it's really fun, even better than straight up a canyon and back down. (Not that that isn't fun too.) Last Saturday, I rode Antelope Island. Last night, I rode with a group from Liberty Park to Saltair (however, I turned around early so I could be back to the park for my tennis class). Here are some things I've learned from the experiences.

1) This is going to be expensive. I now NEED a computer and extra cages for water. Also, one pair of biking shorts isn't going to cut it for multiple rides every week.

2) I'm pretty slow. (the computer is going to totally help with this) The gang has been teaching me to group ride and it's much easier to ride behind someone, although a little scary. It was nice getting pointers on cadence, etc. Seriously, love the group for being patient and making it fun.

3) A solid breakfast is good, but doesn't tie you over the whole ride. I need to pack some Cliff Bars.

4) When you're riding alone on Antelope Island you can sing along with your ipod as loud as you want and nobody, except the roaming buffalo, will know (unless you post it on your blog later).

5) I still love that little clicking sensation when my shoes connect to my bike. I especially loved it when there were 10 of us riding and all clicking in at the same time. Something about it just makes me happy. Maybe it has to do with my tap dance roots.

Tomorrow we're doing a canyon ride. Tonight I'm shopping for some gear. :)

And to Scott, Monica, Milo and Holley-- thanks for the the fabulous, huge, warm cinnamon rolls on my doorstep when I got home. I was so tired and hungry- just what I needed. I have great neighbors! Are you sure you want to move??

The Mountain Bike

I rode with the biking group tonight. It's the first time I've gone with them this season. Two things: 1) Fun to be on the mountain bike again. I forgot with all the road riding so far this season how much I love trail riding. 2) To quote Julia Louis-Dryfus in her Seinfeld days, "It's always good to be the only girl". :)

I've enjoyed riding solo so far this season, but this group is great. I believe the broken jaw a few years ago was due to having more confidence than skill. That next summer, I felt seriously lacking in both. The guys really helped me get them back at an equal pace. I feel like if I was in the same situation again, I could hold on to it and my face would never meet that ugly giant boulder. Although, for the record, I'd prefer not to try it again.

We rode Dry Creek to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail today. I love this ride! First, it's close to my home. Somehow rides seem more legitimate when I can ride right from my condo. It brings to mind an article I read by Dave Barry about how people take stairs and elevators all day just to go to the gym in the evening and do the stair-stepper. It seems a little silly to load my bike on my car and drive somewhere to ride. I know there are a lot of great rides not so accessible to me, but proximity definitely ups the ride's value in my book.

Beyond that, it's just a great ride. Dry Creek is a steady, but not too steep, uphill climb. Just enough to make me work hard. It's technical enough to be challenging, but not so much that I'm off my bike all the time. At the top, the Shoreline trail is an incredibly fun single track overlooking the Salt Lake Valley. Today, it was green with wildflowers blooming, and the evening light made it the ride perfect.

The boys like to ride down The Bobsled which is aptly named. For me, it's total panic at the first, and then, just when it starts getting fun, it's over. I prefer to turn around and ride back down Dry Creek. It is my favorite- downward rolling single track. Good times! The new guy in the group really enjoys the ride down Dry Creek too, so he and I met the gang back at the park. It was a very satisfying evening.

Bugs

We celebrated Kane's birthday this weekend. Betsey and I decorated cupcakes like bugs for the party. (BTW, I have a good friend named Betsey and I'm not referring to myself in third person in this post)
Maya was showing us what she learned in her first ballet class- she is so stinking cute!

Bug cupcakes. We cut cookies and frosted them for the wings.

Maya and her cupcake.

Kane eating his cupcake. He was being very shy and didn't want to pose for the photo. He also was pretty upset having all the attention while we were singing Happy Birthday. Cutie.

This was the cupcake Kane choose. Betsey made it. I went with varying colors of the same design. Bets went nuts on the creativity.

Krista and Kira, looking beautiful and enjoying the cupcakes.

Great Movie

I know I've blogged a lot this week, but I have to gush about the cutest movie I saw last night. Young @ Heart. It's a documentary about these old people who sing. Not just any songs though, it starts with them doing "Should I Stay or Should I Go"- and it just gets better from there. My favorite was a music video segment to The Ramones "I Want to be Sedated". Some of their songs are pretty funny considering their ages like "Golden Years" by Bowie. But they do all kinds of stuff including Cold Play, Prince, James Brown, Sting, and Sonic Youth - just to name a few.

Seriously, go see it. It's a great feel good flick, but take your tissues as you will cry in a number of places.

We lucked out and the group was in town this week and attended the show. They answered questions after the film. One cute lady had quite a bit to drink before the showing and was rambling on and talking over people. Hilarious! They really are amazing people and their director is a genius! I think it will be playing at the Broadway for another week or so. Don't miss it.

Team Sports

Do you remember a few years ago they had those commercials on TV promoting young girls being involved in sports to boost their self-esteem? I hated those commercials. Nothing made me feel as insecure as being forced to play sports as a kid. I have a 2nd place trophy from the Beehive Basketball team. My contribution consisted of being thrown the ball, completely panicking, then passing it to someone else as quickly as possible.

This week, I willingly participated in a team sport. I started playing in a tennis league. About a year and a half ago, 8 of my girlfriends decided we wanted to learn to play tennis. None of us had ever played before. After I learned a few basics, it was pretty fun, but as soon as we started playing points, I would totally choke. However, the more I played I slowly began to enjoy the challenge of playing points. I'm still no athlete and lose most games even though I think I'm pretty evenly matched with the women in my class. Regardless, it is so much fun. No matter what the score, I'm constantly thinking how enjoyable it is- especially in this beautiful Spring weather.

A few of us in my class joined the USTA summer league. My first game was this week. I was a little nervous. We lost 0-6, 3-6. (Here come the excuses.) I think the first set was due to playing too timidly- that's one of my issues with team sports, I just want to be nice. Also, my partner and I had never met before where the opposing team had played together regularly. In the second set, most of the games made it to deuce. I was bummed we couldn't play the 3rd set as I think we could have done better (easy to say since we didn't play it). I think another big factor in the loss was that everyone was in these cute tennis outfits and there I was in my hiking gear. I left the match and promptly ordered some appropriately intimidating apparel. Watch out! :)

Weekend in CA

What a fun weekend. How I love old friends. The weekend couldn't have been more rejuvenating if I had stayed home. (although, more sleep would have helped).

It's fun being with Alisa, Sean, Shelly and Brett and families, because they don't treat me like company- just extended family. So it was all pretty low key, hanging out, chatting- although we played sufficiently as well.

I was bummed that my flight was delayed. When I landed, Alisa told me Shelly had tickets to My Fair Lady and was going to take me, but I was too late. Bummer. But I had a fun dinner with Sean and Alisa, then hung out with their family. When the play ended Shelly came over and we all went for ice cream.

Saturday, we shopped at South Coast Plaza and all bought something. Then Shelly and I got pedicures.

Saturday evening we had dinner at Sean's brothers wedding reception. We were going to play games later, but (get how cool my friends are) everyone opted for watching Battlestar Galactica instead. I love my friends! Shelly knew where to get these yummy mini bundt cakes and we all had our own in celebration of Alisa's birthday.
Here are a bunch of the kids playing on the computer while we were eating cake in the other room.

(Sean face! - Shel do you remember that)

Sunday was church. As we were walking in, Brett mentioned that Shelly and I met him in that chapel almost 20 years ago. I had forgotten that. Shelly and I met Sean a couple days before he went into the MTC. We got to know him through letters and tapes. We spontaneously drove to CA for his homecoming. He asked Brett to sit with us. Little did we know then that he was Shelly's FEC. Coincidentally, Joel Richardson (my friend Nathan's little brother) was giving his homecoming talk this Sunday in that ward. He went to the same mission as Sean. I was a little freaked out thinking it's been half my lifetime since I was there to hear Sean's homecoming, and Joel was born back when Nathan and I were hanging out at BYU. It's crazy how fast time goes by.

Now I'm back home, back to work today, and wishing I could see my friends more often!

I'm Such a Great Friend :)

I had plans for the weekend to go do some hiking in the San Rafael Swell. I've been craving some good hiking, warm/hot weather, and red rock. Unfortunately, there was a family emergency with one of our group so the trip was canceled (hopefully just postponed).

Here I was with a whole weekend and not a thing planned. That is rare. I thought about just having down time, cleaning my house really well, hiking locally, finding some new places to bike, seeing some movies, hosting a BSG party, the possibilities were endless. Although, it seemed I was in getaway mode and nothing would satisfy like the idea of getting out of town. I started considering some last minute excursions. I've been trying to get to both California and Colorado to visit some girlfriends. So I started looking at plane tickets and decided the good ol' OC would be my weekend getaway.

I called Alisa & Shelly to make sure they'd be available. Alisa was having breakfast with Sean. I thought, "How cute, they're out to breakfast together. I love it when married friends still enjoy each other and do fun little stuff like that." Not thinking that it was about anything else. Alisa was stoked and totally supportive of the weekend spontaneity. I booked the flight and called her back. She then reminded me that it was HER BIRTHDAY today. Duh. (sounding familiar, Steph) Some great friend I am! So I told her we needed to start over, and said, "Hey Alisa, I was thinking as your birthday present I'd fly in for the weekend so we can celebrate." No fooling her though. We did have a good laugh.

Really, I didn't forget. I'd seen it on my calender multiple times in the last week. I probably would have called her later today just to wish her happy birthday. For some reason, my brain doesn't multitask like it used to. I was on the what-to-do-this-weekend track which was all encompassing to my almost-forty-year-old brain. What's the deal? When did I become so absent-minded?

Luckily have a nice friends who just laugh at (with) me.

My 15 Minutes of Fame

Thanks to Boyd for sending me some photos he took on his iphone

Christy explaining the film to us, and Jon setting up the camera

My friend Christy is making a short movie so a few of us went downtown this evening to be extras in one of the scenes. It was a lot of fun. We were the audience for an opera and did some group scenes and some close up reaction shots. I've always had a fantasy about being a movie extra- silly I know. But it was fun new thing to experience and cool to see how Christy and Jon worked. When it's finished we'll all get to see it then she will submit it to film festivals. I'm sure my "enraptured" face will wow 'em and my career as an actress is about to start. :)

Valerie, Kiera and me