Spring-y Break????

Yes, that's a question. I wanted to underline and bold and italicize the word spring (something like this: Spring) in the title, but I can't figure out how to edit the font in a blog title and apparently there's no underline option anywhere anyway. So, back to my thought...has it truly been a springy break (spring-like weather) or just a spring break (a break occurring during the spring season)????

We had very springy weather last week, although it was not yet the season of spring. This week, we had spring break and the weather was not so springy. Weird, I say. Weird.

Let me rewind a bit so you can understand how our spring break activities were planned. On a typical school day, the first 15 minutes are set aside for silent reading. That is, the first 15 minutes of the day Monday-Thursday. The other day is "Friday Write Day." So on Fridays, the students are given a prompt and have 15 minutes to write about the prompt in their journal. The last day of school before spring break was a Friday, so the prompt given was "Describe the best spring break." I don't usually journal, but this prompt sounded fun, so I quickly emailed my response to Nick. It said something like: it would be fun to pack for the move, go to Nick's bike race, relax, exercise, go somewhere to camp/hike/bike for a few days, snowboard, spend time with the dogs. Really pretty much just a laundry list of things we could do...lots of options. Sooooo, Nick and I talked and decided we would hang out in Eagle til Wednesday packing, exercising, spending time with the dogs, then go to Moab for camping/hiking/biking and finally return to Eagle Friday. We would have the rest of the weekend to go to the mountain, do some more packing, hang out...that kind of thing.

The part about being in Eagle worked out just as planned. Nick's race in Grand Junction went well. The weather was warm and I wore shorts and a t-shirt to watch him race. It was also Wrigley's birthday that day, so we celebrated after Nick's race with a little party-pit-stop at PetSmart! What puppy doesn't love a PetSmart birthday party??!!

Nick at the Start line of his race.

Forgot to mention, Wrigley got to eat mommy's Red Lobster leftovers as his special birthday meal:-)

Sunday was nice - church, worked a few hours at the Boot, had a cookout with Torrey and Alana and group....and then, about 2 hours in to the cookout, a massive wind storm started. It started raining/blowing/snowing all at one time. It was described in the newspaper as a "mud storm" and it was nasty. As we prepped for our Moab trip, we saw the weather wouldn't be the greatest, but figured it wouldn't be too awful :-)

The drive to Moab was pretty cool, thanks to a scenic byway our principal had told us about. We drove through town and were able to land a sweet campsite.

Nick posing for "Senior Pics."

Once we had everything unpacked, we took the dogs to go play on all of the rocks. Nick was having races with the dogs and they would chase him down the face of the rocks. One time, Sophie lost her footing and fell...a looooooooong way down. She bounced off the rock, yelped and hit the ground with a thud. Unfortunately, I have the incident on video. Fortunately, she is ok. We checked her over for broken bones and I made her stay awake to be sure she didn't have some awful head injury :-)

CAUTION: THIS IS SOPHIE'S SCARY FALL VIDEO...IT MAY FREAK YOU OUT!!!

So that ended Wednesday with a little bit of excitement. The nighttime weather was cold and rainy and windy, but we kept nice and warm in our tent and large sleeping bags.

Thursday we woke up to partly sunny skies but cool weather. Oatmeal made over the fire was just what we needed! The weather was supposed to be questionable, so we had decided a drive through Arches National Park (along with a few hikes) was just what we needed. The drive was awesome, the scenery amazing and the rock formations totally incredible.

Natalie holding up Balanced Rock...and a very unsettling signage!

Us posing at the Balanced Rock!

Nick at the South Window

Natalie has been put through the South Window!

We had a blast and the weather was totally cooperating...until lunch. Nick got the cooler out so we could make sandwiches and suddenly there was snow, total white-out snow. It was unbelievable! So we ate in the car, then read books in the car for about an hour. After that we continued our drive all the way up to the very top. Since we had a few hours before dinner, we thought we'd kill some time and go to a bike store before we headed back up to camp. When we came out of the bike store, the snowstorm had started up again. And continued as we waited it out at the Moab Brewery where we had some awesome pretzels. And then a second round of the awesome pretzels. Finally the snow stopped and we headed back up to camp. We had some lovely snow on and around our tent.

The fire did nothing to help keep us warm because the winds were about 15 mph with gusts up to 30 mph! I sat in the tent and read for a few hours, and was unable to get warm. About 7:15 we decided it was brutally windy and not going to get any better over night. In record time, we packed up our tent and got everything smashed in the car, hoping to get home to our warm beds last night. But......

We had heard there was some awesome powder on the mountain yesterday and that it had snowed down valley all day too. By the time we drove in to Grand Junction last night, I was dead tired. I stopped at a Motel 6 (thank you for allowing dogs Motel 6!!) and got us a room. I told the girl working there that I just couldn't see myself driving up to Eagle. She said well, no, you can't - the canyon is closed. So, good thing we stopped! We finally arrived home this morning, spent a few hours shaking sand out of everything and putting stuff away. There's a huge batch of chili in the crock pot, calling our names as we await the NCAA tourney games tonight.

There are still 2 more days of spring break left...what's next?

Turning of the Tide.......

This blog may be kinda sentimental........ (I've been told that I am too sentimental by Natalie's sis...) So back when we began blogging, I wrote a blog about Wheelfast, the bike shop I had been going to for the past 3 years. It was just about beginning a new relationship with the new LBS and yada, yada, yada.

Well, with that being said since we have moved here, I have formed a decent relationship with Charlie at Mountain Pedaler. I have bought a few things from him, gone on rides with him, joined his mountain bike racing team, and hung out at the shop and drank beers with him. Yet there is one thing that I have not had him do.....until now..... Work on my bike.

It was so easy, and kind of routine before, when we lived in IL. Since I was friends with Matt and Jake, I could just drop off the bike the day before a rest day, tell them what I wanted done, and pick it up at the end of my rest day, and it would be done and ready to go, no matter how busy they may be.

I have a rest day tomorrow, with my first race of the season on Saturday in Grand Junction. So yesterday I stopped by to see Charlie to see if he could get my bike in for a new chain and a simple tune, and he was slammed. Spring is here, and people are ordering new bikes like crazy!!! I felt bad even asking him if he could work on my bike tomorrow, but when I mentioned it he said sure, he would be happy to get it taken care of, and I could pick it up at the end of the day. As I was walking home (after a pit stop at the nearly everything store to get my sweetie some gummy bears and nyquil) the thought ran through my head..... (imagine that, a thought in my head.....) NOW it is sort of official.... A NEW mechanic at a NEW bike shop is working on MY bike. I have almost entirely made the switch to a new LBS.

I'm sure from time to time I will still order things from Wheelfast, and I know Natalie will, as she is also very comfortable with their service, but for now at least, I have made a giant step in a new direction.

Friday the 13th...a piece of cake...errr, pie :-)

Today is Friday the 13th, but it doesn't feel like it at all. People seem to get all worked up about Fridays that are 13ths, not sure why. Today was the last school day before Pi Day, so maybe that's why it wasn't so much the 13th in my mind but more like the 14th. Pi is a fantastical (yes, that's the word I meant) number. We have been working hard preparing for CSAP's and so I thought taking a break to discuss our favorite 16th letter of the Greek alphabet would be fun. Extra credit was offered for anyone able to memorize more than 3.14 (for those of you who haven't caught on, 3 = March and 14 = the 14th day of the month) or who brought in a pie. We watched Pi videos and ate pie (in one case even a pizza pie...drrrrr) and read a book about Pi. All in all a busy but fun day in 7th grade math :-)

Also went by and saw the houseon my way home. They have siding on and are patching up the walls inside. It's looking great!

This and that...

It's very weird...we have been so busy lately. "How can you be busy when there's only two of you??" some might ask...which, well, I have no answer for that!

The house is really coming along. They are starting to put the siding up on the outside, and the inside is looking super-cool. Nick stopped by on a bike ride the other day and the construction men told him we have the best lot! We are looking at an April 10 closing date (still pending).

On Wednesday, the high school booster club sponsored a dodgeball tournament. So our principal paid for us to have a middle school team. We failed to come up with a name (mostly communication issues?? lol) so we were called Gypsum Creek Middle School...how very original. Here's the team:

from the top-left by row: back row, Steve (principal), Torrey (7/8 social studies), Mark (7 science), 2nd row, Derek (gf Jeanine is a teacher), Nick, Natalie, 3rd row, Deb (7 LA/reading), Tiffany (7 LA/reading), front row, Kent (Deb's husband). Not pictured: Jesslyn (8th LA/reading)

We were toally awful...2-5 for the record. But, the teams we beat (Fanny Packs and Ball Dodgers) were good. In fact, their loss to us was first-place Fanny Pack's only loss :-)

Yesterday was a half-day for teachers, so we enjoyed our afternoon off by taking the dogs for a hike up Boneyard. We actually had four baby weiners (instead of our regular family of three) because we borrowed Mark & Melanie's dog Molly. She's a real good girl and we hope the dogs can get to be really good friends since Molly lives in Gypsum, which is where we are moving!

Rusty running along

Molly taking a break!

Today we are heading down to Glenwood to run some errands and go to a Latino Expo. One of our students invited us since his family owns a meatmarket in Gypsum. Ought to be interesting :-)

Also, a personal note to a certain someone...Said sweatshirt was indeed promised in late December/early January. I am very much aware it is now going on mid-March. I can assure you, progress has been made on this project! The sweatshirt (size M) was purchased a few weeks ago, made its way to my house, sat on the kitchen table for over a week, and finally landed in a box about a week ago. The box has continued to sit on the floor, where it will remain until I get myself in gear. Love you :-)