My New Toy!

Last year I bought my first motorcyle, my little "Minja". I decided that this year it was time to upgrade to a bigger bike. Two weeks ago I found my new toy! It a 2006 Honda Shadow Aero. I haven't come up with a name for it yet, so if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. Today was the first long ride I have been able to go on because the weather has been so cold and snowy. I rode out to my parents house. It was a little chilly, but soooo fantastic!

Happy Monday!

My boss just used the term "Man Crush" in a meeting. It totally made my day! Happy snowy Monday!

Zion Century Ride

One of the items on the my list of things to do before I die is to do a Century ride. Last weekend I got to check it off. For those of you who don't know what a Century ride is, it's a 100 mile bike ride. I picked the Zion Century ride because I thought the beautiful scenery would distract me from thinking about how tired I was and how much I didn't want to see people in spandex anymore. Plus it was a good excuse to head to St. George to see Joy, Joel, and Baby Mason!

My friend Yvette was nice enough to do the ride with me. She was only planning on doing the 60 miles, but ended up doing the whole thing because she's so hardcore.

Everytime I do some sort of a race, I put on a fake tattoo.

The morning of the race was only about 35 degrees and so we tried to bundle up to stay warm.

Joy was nice enough to come see us off.

Waiting for the gunshot.

The ride starting in Bloomington and wound around the backroads of St. George, Hurricane, LaVerkin, and took us to the mouth of Zion National Park. We stopped at mile 55 for lunch. The first 55 miles had a lot of uphill and a lot of wind. In some parts the wind was so strong that I had to pedal even when I was going downhill. It took me 4.5 hours to get here.

I've never had a Subway sandwich taste sooooo good!

Here we are at the finish line, so happy not to be sitting on tiny little bike seats! For some reason the course took us on some random loops so we ended up doing 107 miles. Since the wind was in our favor on the way back, it only took us 2.5 hours.

Overall the ride was amazing and I would definitely do it again, hopefully next time I'll train better and be able to cruise up the hills like Yvette.

Why I Love Winter

Here is a list of reasons to love winter:

1. Thanksgiving = family, friends, food

This year Joy and Joel got a new surprise, little Mason!!

2. Christmas = family, friends, food, and flying monkeys!

Mom - making us eat breakfast before we open presents, as usual.

Dad in his Christmas vest.

Grandpa

Brian - enjoying some snowflake fun

Andrea and cute little Abby

Flying, screaming monkey!!

3. Snowshoeing

4. Snowboarding

4. Ice Climbing

5. New Year's Eve Parties

6. Yurting

Long Time No Write

It's been a really long time since I posted anything to this blog, but as I was sitting here watching SuperBowl commercials (not the actual game), I thought it was about time I added something.


It's now February of 2009, I'm not really sure where the rest of 2008 went or where 2009 is already going. Here's a brief recap of the end of '08.

In April I applied for a permit to hike The Subway in September and actually got one. So in September a group of us headed down and finally hiked the Subway. Beautiful scenery, great friends, and hiking around in the dirt and water, what more could you ask for?

Everybody needs a temporary tattoo when hiking.


Denae is pretty excited about her dinosaur sandwich compliments of Becca and Blake.

We had a few Sasquatch sitings.

Jodie, you're cute!

This is Levi's GQ pose.

Denae's gangsta' look

My little lizzard friend.

At the end of September, Prue and I headed to NYC to visit Brian and Heidi and to run a 1/2 Marathon in the Hamptons. It was such a great trip filled with fun, friends, and food. We ended up running a 1/2 marathon and having a marathon eating trip. We discovered an amazing cupcake shop called "Sugar Sweet Sunshine" and I think our lives have been changed forever.

Brian and Heidi's family increased by 1 at the end of June, so I finally got to meet the newest addition, Parker SangSoo, the cutest little Buddha look-alike around.

The race was absolutely beautiful! It may have been my favorite 1/2 ever! The course was in The Hamptons and wound through neighborhoods, wooded groves, and the beach. It was so fun to run at sea level.