King of the Hill

Prince Erik conquered his first ever Bogus Basin ride and beat his goal of doing it in under 2 hours. He thinks it was 1 hour 39 minutes and something, something seconds. Don’t know how he did compared to the pack but he did find Kirsten Armstrong after the race and she very graciously agreed to mug for our tiny cheap camera.



Can you believe how tiny she is?




Now, Lea has a great show-and-tell to take to school Monday. I’d skip school to see an Olympian in action. I’m still kicking myself for not going, but I couldn’t be happier that Prince Erik and Lea got to meet the only US Gold Medalist in Cycling during this last Olympics.

Tomorrow I’ll post my Month of Nothing week 1 results. Did I make goal? We’ll see.

Drooling with Envy

My little Lea just called to tell me Daddy has started his race. And guess who he's burning bike rubber with on the mountain today? 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist Kirsten Armstrong. Oh, My, HONK!!! I'm so wishing I now would have gone. I was hoping that she was there, being that she's an Idaho girl herself. But still.

Someone by the name of Lance Armstrong also entered the race but I have no idea if he is in fact THE Lance Armstrong.

I'm so enviously living the experiance vicariously right now through my 9 year old on the phone, it's making me dizzy.

Yesterday I spent $0 (A Big Fat ZERO)! I love this whole nothing thing.

As soon as I know Prince Erik has finished the race and not had a heart attack or made anyone famous crash and die I'll probably go pick some FREE blackberries and let my kids swim in a FREE lake. Until then I'm wearing out my phone with FREE Minutes to my kid.

Tour de Lopez

We had an amazing day yesterday and participated for the first time in a bike tour. Can I say, ‘WOW’!

Abner took care of the 3 girls at home for us and we dragged T-rev and Evo-man along for the ride.

Up bright and early before dawn so we could drive and make the Anacortes ferry ride to Lopez Island in the San Juans. Misty mornings are so pretty in the Northwest if your up in time to see them.

If you’ve never been to the San Juan Island’s in WA then you should add it to your list of places to visit. Beautiful!!!

Ferry rides are always fun the first few times you ride them. Here’s my friend Smiley and her family enjoying their second ferry ride. Can I mention that I'm jealous of the zoom lens.

They lucked out and drove on. Most of the bikers on the ferry walked on, including our family.

Here's T-rev enjoying a few moments outside the boat. The weather was still a bit nippy at this point so we spent most of our time in the cabin.

All too soon we arrived on Lopez Island. Along with hundreds of other bikers. Fortunately we were some of the first bikers off the boat.

Then we met up with Smiley and Wonder Woman and other family members to start our bike tour. You had the choice of 10, 17 or 31 miles. Most of us took the 31 mile route.

If you ever get a chance to bike an island - do it! You'll see everything from beach cottages on the sound to...

Evergreen forests.

Evo-man did awesome - especially considering that he went the entire way on a very heavy, cheaply made dirt bike.

Here's T-rev chugging along. Sporting a very fashionable socks-holding-his-pants-out-of-the-chain look. He also made the entire distance on a heavy bike.

From coastland, to forests, to rolling pastures, everything was beautiful. Those rolling hills did add a bit of a burn to the thighs. But of course the downhill rush made up for the agony of the climb on the way up.

I ended up taking my time on this trip and not keeping up with my biker babe friends so that I could shoot a few pictures. Here's me multi-tasking. Good thing the roads were great and there were no potholes or too much gravel to look out for.

And of course dashing Prince Erik was constantly going from the front to the back of our strewn out family line to make sure everyone was still alive and pedaling.

The weather was perfect. In the 60 degree range - which considering it was April - was pretty good. Blue skies in the Northwest, well I think we lucked out with the weather. Towards late afternoon it got a bit nippy and we were searching out the sun between the trees. Notice the camera on my back. I wouldn't go anywhere without it.

After the ride was over we still had to make our way back to the ferry. Our bikes registered 34 to 38 miles ridden. The best part was - everyone is still smiling! And at this point we were all in need of some ice packs for our hind ends. But completeing the journey was a big accomplishment and we were all excited.

T-Rev zonked while waiting for the ferry.

And Evo-man caught his Z's on the ride home.

Great day. I'd love to take the whole family next year!

Bike Seats, Sun Diffusers & Mr. Clean

So I finally put myself back in the saddle again, of my bike that is. And I'm positive that I'll be feeling it for a while that is. I made a valiant effort a week ago when my husband suggested we take ride together. Put on my hip bike clothes, and donned my helmet. Then as I actually tried to pull my bike out of the jungle we call a garage my feet decided to trip over a tent. With both hands full of my bike I did the only thing possible and sprawled gracefully on the driveway. Scraped up my knee like only a kid does and realized that both my tires were flat and my chain was off. Since Prince Erik was all ready to go, and my ego was already deflated by my klutziness, I told him he would have to go it alone that day.

This morning he made an extra effort to get up early to pump up my tires, adjust my chain and add a cadence/mileage counter to my bikes frame. Good as new, I had no choice but to join some of my awesome 20/20 Biker-babe girlfriends on a little ride. Twenty miles later, and a little ice I decided that I need some serious hind-end, bike seat breaking in to do before I attempt a 31 miler San Juan Bike tour in 2 weeks.

It was the perfect day however. Perfect for me is high 60’s and low 70 degree weather and I got just that. The bright glowing orb in the sky didn’t even bother me because I had on some snazzy sport sunglasses. And if the weather wasn’t perfect enough the route we took was beautiful. Want to enjoy some scenery? Hop on a bike. How’s this for a blind shot? You try riding a bike on a road with hardly no shoulder while taking a picture over your head.

This was a rarity however, usually I was the tail end of our threesome and my view was more often than not of my friends off in the distance ahead of me.

But they were kind enough not to let me know that I was slowing them down. So I get home and TaDa, Jell-O Legs set in and I was basically a useless bag of moan.

So Prince Erik came to the rescue again and loaded up the girls in the car and told me to go have fun with them and not worry about the house. So off we went, to buy some of that glowing orb in the sky diffuser that you can put over your eyes.

They come in very handy when said burning ball of gas makes an appearance after especially long periods of rain and clouds.

And they make impromptu head bands too.

I have to embarrassingly include a kitchen clutter picture someone took of my kitchen.

Hope it doesn’t send you to therapy. Because this is what Prince Erik did with his time at home while we girls were out playing?

Not bad for a guy. More than a guy, I lucked out because only a prince would clean clutter like that - without being asked. You can actually see the cabinets and the floor too.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to grace you, I mean terrorize you with more pictures because tonight Lea was trying to do some sneaky photography and ended up running around a corner with the camera the same time that Evo-man was coming around the same corner from a different direction. The camera then came in contact with a couple of hard heads and promptly broke the lens. UGH!!! Of course Lea was devastated as was I. So now the only camera (with broken flash) I have is the one that can take pictures outside during the daytime.

Until then I'll just let your imagination take over, and hope my San Juan Bike ride isn't too cloudy for pic's.