Ride Report!!!

Yay. Great ride tonight. You know when something seems really daunting in your head, then you do it and you realize you made it into something it really wasn't. That happened to me tonight. I've always been afraid of riding Suncrest thinking its too long and steep. I thought I'd set a goal to make it to the top over a few weeks, going a little farther up each time. Tonight was my first attempt.

The hardest part was the first 10 minutes. Never fun warming up by heading straight up a mountain. By the time I hit half way, I knew I wasn't going to stop until the top.

(Adding photo of me at the top. Not sure where it will attach since I'm blogging on my phone app.)

I got to the top and called Rick to tell him I was going down the other side and asked him to pick me up at my parents house a few miles from the bottom. It was a really fun ride and not as daunting as I thought. I'm excited to extend the ride next time and ride through Alpine, out to the freeway, then take the frontage road home.

I was thinking on the ride about riding with Missy and Shelly before my mission. We'd ride some big hills and I learned not to think about how far to the top but to "just keep peddling". That would go through my head over and over when I wanted to stop. "Just keep peddling."

A few months later, I left on my mission and came up with my biking/life analogy. My mission was this big mountain. I was at the bottom feeling overwhelmed. I told myself all I needed to do was keep peddling. Not worry about the top, just focus on the moment and keep peddling. Fond memories for the ride tonight.

There was a hefty price for the ride though. I started down and was unprepared for how bumpy the road was. My loosely secured iPhone tumbled out of my bag and hit the road hard. Luckily the car behind me didn't hit it. Even with my hardcore case, I ended up with a cracked screen. Sad. Actually worth it though.

Holiday Weekend

Here's the run down of Memorial Day weekend.

Friday/Saturday- Rick and I cleaned the storage room. I wish I had before and after pics. You could barely walk in there before and now it is so neat and organized. Huge pile to DI. Huge pile to throw away. Feels good.

Late Saturday afternoon we headed to Provo. We picked up Rick's dad and niece, Michelle, and went to the Provo Cemetery.

Gene, Rick and Michelle at Rick's mother's grave.

My grandparents

We had a nice dinner at Rick's favorite Italian restaurant, La Dolce Vita. Then went to see Battleship (review on side bar). Michelle came home with us to spend a few days.

Sunday we were up early to go to Dustin's missionary homecoming. What a great experience. Dustin was a good friend in Orem. It took him a while to decide to go on a mission. He went when he was 24. Such an example of a very good person evolving into an amazing person. He gave up a lot to go, but obviously gained so much more with the experience. He is on fire with missionary work and serving the Lord. 

We spent a little time after seeing old friends and neighbors. I think it made Rick and I little melancholy to remember how fun it was hanging out with all the neighbors. We've missed that and so have the boys.

Sunday night we barbequed teriyaki skewers. They were yummy. This will be a new standard for the fam this summer.

 

Monday started with a morning bike ride. My hardcore sister joined us- she had a baby 6 weeks ago. We've been helping her find a bike this Spring, and this was her first ride with the new bike. The road is quite rural and usually traffic free; although, we learned that holiday weekends it is used by people coming back from vacation.

Ride Stats-

Location: South end of Redwood Road

Miles: 30

Sunburns: all of us

Dead snakes on the road: about 20 (also a dead owl - is that bad to think that is cool)

Large trucks with trailers that scared the crap out of me: Too many

Fun rating: 10+

Rick accidentally took video instead of pics. So this is the only image of the 4 of us on the ride.

Danny and Rick. You can see a glimpse of the lovely scenery along Utah Lake.

Rick's niece and nephew spent Monday with us. After the ride we headed up to Salt Lake to the new mall. Michelle has an internship in NYC this summer so she needed some new clothes. We found her a few new things and Danny bought some pants as well. Very successful.

We came home and Danny and Michelle watched a movie- after the long bike ride in the morning and shopping in the afternoon, I was in bed and asleep very quickly. Party pooper. 

Very satisfying weekend!

May Flowers

I love when my yard is in bloom. I often come home from work and walk around the yard to see the progress before going into the house. This week the roses have started to bloom. I cut a few to bring in for the table.

They smell lovely too!

I love this pink one. This rose bush was sent to us by Rick's sister. The unique flowers are awesome!

Our backyard has lots of ground cover. This is just starting to bloom and will be really pretty in the next week.

I planted some columbine this year and it's not doing too well. I'm wondering if it's not getting enough sun. Any suggestions?

I don't know what these are called. We planted them a couple of years ago. They are my favorite.

I also don't know what this is. Some sort of ground cover that is beautiful when it flowers. I was hoping it would spread more quickly, but still looks pretty in its little space.

The snapdragons are flourishing, even if the columbine is not.

Can't wait for these to bloom. Bright orange lilies. Last year the deer got to them before they bloomed. Fingers crossed they'll make it this year.

We planted a bunch of fuchsias. They are thriving in all shade in our backyard.

It also looks like we will have a nice little crop of boysenberries, raspberries and strawberries. I can't wait! Not bad for our tiny yard.

More of the Same

I was about to start this post the same way I start most every other post "It's been a busy and fun weekend". That seems to describe my life lately. I was looking back at the last several posts this weekend and it hit me how blessed I am to have such an enjoyable full life. Many Monday mornings at work while we are discussing our weekends my boss will say, "You never have a bad weekend, do you?" You know what, I rarely do. 

Reading some of my recent posts made me very consciously happy about my life. We've had some trials the past several months and I've struggled sometimes to not become depressed. I've had to consciously count my blessings and remind myself of how much I have to be happy about. It's nice to be back in an emotional space where it does not take as much effort to see that what I have greatly outweighs what I don't.

Now... on to the busy and fun weekend, which actually was a busy and fun week. The school year is coming to a close so we had a lots of events to attend. Here are a few...

Isaac's band concert. They sounded amazing! The improvement from the beginning of the year until now was very obvious. Isaac plays the trumpet and loves it.

Zane's regional track meet. He runs hurdles (obviously). He did well this year and seemed to enjoy it.

I know you're jealous of my mad photo skills. Nice framing of the pic, huh? 

Isaac's piano recital. He ROCKS on the piano. (as much as you can rock Bach)

This weekend Rick's niece, who is attending BYU, needed a break from campus life so she spent a couple of days with us. I loved having her around. She is a lovely person and such a novelty for me to not be the only girl around my house! We all took a little road trip to Antelope Island Saturday afternoon. It was beautiful. Perfect weather for a family bike ride.

 

Michelle and some buffalo. We also saw deer, antelope, an owl, lots of shorebirds and blackbirds, coyote, jack rabbits, and luckily not very many insects.

Zane, Isaac and Rick stopping to check out buffalo near the road.

We came home and ate chocolate covered frozen bananas, which we had made earlier. Yum!

Mine had dark chocolate, almonds, caramel drizzle and a little peanut butter granola.

I really enjoyed all the family time this weekend. I had so much fun on the bike ride with the whole gang. Usually Rick and I just ride by ourselves, but it was a fun dynamic having the boys with us and the added bonus of Michelle. Definitely contributed to my overall feeling of well being this week.

Weekend/Ride Report

It was a lovely and busy weekend. I had Friday off of work. Isaac had a camp out for Boy Scouts Friday night, so after dropping him off at school, Rick and I went shopping for some good hiking boots for Isaac. They are preparing for a 50 mile hike in the Wind River Range at the end of the summer so we wanted to make sure he had some good boots early in the season to break them in before the big trek. 

We shopped at this great place in West SLC. Several outdoor clothing websites warehouse their goods in the building. The front office has computers with all the websites bookmarked. You request item numbers that they will pull for you to try on/buy. Along with the shoes for Isaac, I bought a cute biking jersey for $20, and Rick found a clearance base layer for skiing next year.

Ride 1

After picking up Isaac from school and getting him off with his scout troop, Rick and I decided to do an evening road bike ride around Draper. After reaching our turn around point, we both felt like we wanted to keep going. We ended up at the house where I grew up in Sandy.

 

Always fun to see the old neighborhood. I used to do this same ride in reverse, starting at the Sandy house and riding my mountain bike down to Draper. Before the area was developed, the area where my current home is located was a mountainside covered with riding trails. It was fun to ride the old route; although, I swear some of those hills on the roads between the two were much less steep when I was in my 20's!

It ended up about a 15 mile ride that I expect will become of our regular evening ride routes.

Ride 2

Saturday began with yard work, planting a few shrubs and tomatoes. Then we headed out for our first mountain bike ride of the season. Actually, we've done mostly road riding the past several years, so this was the first mountain bike ride in a long time.

We rode the Bonneville Shoreline Trail from Sunnyside Ave to Dry Gulch (with a few unintentional detours). I forgot how different mountain and road biking are from each other. Really the only similarity is that you pedal. I struggled getting my feet clipped in as they are very different from my road bike clips. This resulted in one minor fall and some major bruises.

 

I also saw two snakes on the trail- one was a rattlesnake that jumped into the brush as I turned the corner and nearly hit him.

At one point we decided to take a small single track that kept on the low side of the mountain. The trail turned out to dead end and we had to push our bikes up the mountainside to the main trail. I struggled and was thinking what a big wimp I've become. Then I had the realization that I'm 43 years old and doing the same things I enjoyed in my 20s- not too shabby. If 20 year old me could see 43 year old me, I would have thought I was awesome. (haha)  It is fun to realize that parts of my life now are what I pictured I wanted them to be when I was younger.

I wish a had a pic from the ride (beside the bruise). It is a pretty trail that overlooks the whole valley. It was a lot of fun. Rick loved the mountain bike we found for him (great deal used). I think we'll enjoy alternating between road and mountain rides this summer.

Mother's Day

The boys spent the weekend at their mom's house so I got presents early (not a bad deal). They gave me all kinds of fun biking gear (knickers for colder rides, a new heart rate monitor, and a new saddle for my mountain bike). 

Sunday after church we went to my parents and had a big dinner with the family. We were in charge of dessert so Rick made crepes. Yummy.  We came home and watched the Survivor finale and Once Upon a Time finale. Much needed relaxing after a busy weekend.