Thanksgiving Weekend

Wishing you and yours, a Thanksgiving as great as ours.



Sophie's Eyes



Ayla's Eyes



Hiking on Windy Saddle



Ayla playin Miss Annie Oakley



A two headed cowpoke



Watched a few Paragliders



The Colorado State Capital



One of the many Gothic Churches in Denver



Jeremy on Dakota Ridge



Jeremy's new to him, 97 Ford Explorer

You could say we've had a bit O Snow Lately

27 inches...And yes, it was entertaining to our little girls to watch daddy jump over the 5 foot tall rail of our patio and bunny flop in 27 inches of snow. Note to self: make sure there is a pillowly base beneath...Concrete...even with 27 inches of fresh pow pow, makes for a hard landing....just sayin



The ladies though, are willin to pose when 2 hours later....27 inches melts away



The Red Rocks Amphitheater



And the new family Fav dining spot



a bit of exploring by bike, Pueblo, Colorado



and a little hockey

Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day

Then the day goes all to the chickens. Really though, this is Nate. Works at the Golden Bike Shop, cool guy....just wears a chicken suit for kicks....whatever gets your rocks off brother. Wear that to the Pint to Pint and I'll wear my ballerina Viking costume, it'll make a good ol time even that much cooler in a riding a bike kind of way.



Saturday was National Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day and in all things great about our local mountain bike club, COMBA...they held a spectacular event just for the wee ones. More then 60 kids participated and the trails at Bear Creek Lake Park held just the right amount of mellowness and spice to keep em interested but also enjoying themselves.



So the morning started off with a variety of skills workshops where Ayla kept begging to just go ride, Self diagnosed ADD runs in the family and daughter like father, she just has a hard time sitting around and watching someone else do something while we get to twiddle our thumbs.



Kids helmets are so cool. I wish my melon was smaller so I could have flames and flowers....well, the flowers would have to be skulls and crossbones or some other version of uber cool, for a guy that is. Chicks can pull off the flowers so well.



So we joined the small girls group of 4-6 year olds but I had Ayla on the trail a bike since she is still learning the world of two wheels where we ran laps around a doubletrack circuit and we got to cheer on the other little girls riding downhill and making a small steep climb. We rode till about 11:30 and stopped for a well timed lunch of pizza and hoogies from Woody's out of Golden, Colorado.



After lunch Ayla decided she wanted some singletrack and being one not to deny my daughter of the simple pleasures in life I was more then happy to oblige. We rode a few miles with many giggles and smiles and made our way back over to the Pavilion where we found everyone packing up except for one other trail a bike. This was Sean and daughter Sienna. Ayla talked Sienna into riding some singletrack with us which made her father really happy since he couldn't quite say the words to convince his girl that singletrack and mountainbiking are as synomonous to eachother as an icecream sundae is to the cherry that tops it off. Understand, I was going to make that a reference to beer and its head but I was applying the analogy to that of one four year old speaking to another.



Whoot! Whoot! Sienna on her 1st singletrack...I think she is hooked

Not even a mile in the singletrack, Sienna's trail a bike had a flat. Her father didn't even have a tool on him much less a pump or patch kit. Being the always prepared, pack more then I ought to mountain biker that I am, I fetched my tools out of my 20 + pound Wingnut and had them set up in just a few minutes...even had the 15 mm wrench to take the wheel off Sienna's trail a bike.



Ayla is really still having a good time..She is concerned that Binky, the stick in her hand may fall and suffer the fate of all other sticks, being just a random stick on the trail.

15 minutes later and Sienna's father who I still want to call Sean but I honestly forgot had a flat on his Salsa. Goatheads run rampant on the Front Range and tubed tires such as the ones" I want to call him Sean" is running suffer the wrath of the prickly little buggers. Using the tools out of my always prepared pack we got him up and running again and we back on the trail with our girls giggling and smiling all the way.



"I want to call him Sean" and Sienna pulled off on our next lap and Ayla decided she wanted to keep riding. Happy to continue on singletrack we took off towards Mount Carbon and just as we were about to make the climb up, Ayla decided she had enough. It was 2:30pm and we had been at the park and riding for most the while since 9:30am. More then impressed with my girl for the day of riding we turned around and passed two other riders on the way back to the car where Ayla proclaimed," We won, we won, we were so much faster then them, Daddy!"

Sophie's 2nd Birthday

Our little baby is two years old..

a few highlight pictures from her birthday party

Sophie and Momma


Chasing Ayla for the shot


Blowing out Candles


I think she likes her presents


Where's Daddy? Taking the pictures


Vincent showed us that he is part fish






Sophie and Daddy


The cool girl


Ayla abusing Andy and his daughter Justin(the girls regular babysitter)


Uncle J and the V dog


Ayla showing us some Balloon Sha Fu


see the rest here

Month of Transitions

August has always been a month of change and this month in 2009 seems to be out most challenging yet! Where shall I start.....?

1. Jeremy has decided to leave Whirlpool, for a variety of reasons, but is quite looking forward to getting back on the road with Best Service Company out of Denver. I figure its a good thing when the boss man says he likes "the warm fuzzies" and doesn't like his guys to work longer than 8-9 hours. So, fingers crossed that all goes well!

2. Ayla starts school this month! All this past week, she spent the days at her school for Summer Camp - which she LOVED! She was overwhelmed a bit, but really grew into her own independence quickly. I was SO proud of her when she hung her backpack up, gave me a hug, and happily called out "bye mom" as she ran into her class. Sob.... Anyways, the next few weeks will be filled with orientations, open houses, meeting teachers, registration, getting supplies, paying tuition, phase-in day, and finally FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL on Aug 18!!! WOW!

3. Our lease is up on our current rotten apartment so after much thought, we have decided to give up house hunting and find a new rental. And we found a GREAT one! Quiet, semi-secluded, and huge - a town home about 5-10 minutes down the road from where we currently live. :) Moving is set for the weekend of the 15th of this month! Geez - as if I didn't already have enough on my plate! Again, wish us luck ... that I get out of August with a still somewhat sane mind. Haha!

4. Sophie has her birthday on the 10th, too! You, of course, are all invited to her cupcake social by the pool on the 9th. :) Just something simple with lots of sugar. I don't even know what I am getting her yet.... bleh! She has a whole closet of clothes arriving soon from a friend of mine, so she is not in need of anymore. I think I might be getting her some Lego's or something... But, my sweet baby is turning 2!! She is talking constantly (although, it is still words that only mama and Ayla can understand). She didn't quite know what to do with herself while Ayla was in summer camp. The first day we dropped A off, Sophie flipped out on the way back to the car, screaming and looking back for "OOoooooola!!!!!" Poor thing. She settled in quite well and was a model child when Ayla wasn't home. HAhahaha!

5. My little knitting/design biz has slowed down a bit with orders, but it has given me more time to get design work done. I have lofty goals of getting a sock design book ready for publishing by next year, so that has sort of consumed me lately. I also have a big themed stocking with my TLC group set for Aug 18 that I have been getting ready for - I've made felted bowls, baby socks, a lace scarf pattern, a tee pattern for kids with hearts on it, and I will be stocking some sock spots. Here's what my to-do list looks like for today (just with my biz) - sew heart tee, felt bowl set, finish writing scarf pattern, sketch out design for skull tank top, and finish knitting my "Bitches" sock for book.

Ok, I think that is the gist of everything major. LOL Keep an eye out for an email/snail mail address change note. :) We love you all!

First day of summer camp....

Summiting a 14er

Well, I cheated. Yesterday I took Ayla and Sophie and drove the highest road in America, the Mt Evans Scenic Tollway. Tabetha was out of town for a Yoga retreat and I had the little ones. I considered taking the singlespeed, putting the girls in the trailer and try dragging and yanking them up the mountain. Thing is though Ayla has just about outgrown our trailer, the girls squabble alot in the trailer, and I just felt like being a lazy goat this weekend so I left the bike alone.



My Sweet Sophie at Lube's Bar-B-Q the day before.



Ayla playing in one of the few snow patches remaining on Mt Evans. Funny thing while only a few patches remain here at 14,000 ft...there are still plenty of mountains below 12,000 ft that have snow cornices over 10 ft tall.



From the tippity top. The top of Mt Evans is somewhere around 130 feet higher then the parking area and 1/4 mile up. I strapped Sophie to my back and Ayla refused to budge saying she'd rather ride my shoulders. I don't think either one enjoyed this as much as I did.



That is until the mountain goats started showing themselves.







Looking West towards Guanella Pass

Just as we were getting ready to leave I saw a familar face, Eddie Odea ride up on his bike being led by his teammate, Yuki Saito. Eddie is an old friend from the east coast and he still lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife, Namrita. Both of us were blown away by the chance encouter and quickly made plans to meet at a local Microbrew near Denver to catch up.



After leaving Mt Evans I made the drive over to the base of Jones Pass to do some scouting for the big ride next weekend. The view of the top of the pass did not look very promising with what appeared to be 10 ft snow cornices hanging from the ridge but seems JJonas was up there the day before doing a scouting mission of his own and says it should be good to go.


Photo by Jim Jonas...Top of Jones Pass. Jim rode to the top of Jones Pass, Made his way down Herman Gulch and tried to Summit Grey's Peak only to be turned around by a no bikes sign...Good thing my route takes us away from Grey's onto the legal Bard's Creek.