My Race, Car, Grades, & Weekend

I have a lot to cover in this post!

First, I had a race at Sherwood Hills Resort in Sardine Canyon outside of Logan today. Teri and Kelly pre-rode the course with me Friday night and then they grilled up some yummy hamburgers for dinner. My race began at 9:00 am but it was already so hot! I felt sorry for my teammates that had to race later in the day (since the race organizers split up the race start times based on ability). I took third place, but the more exciting thing about this race for me is that I shaved 10 minutes off of my race time from when I last did this race two years ago. That's huge! It took me 55 minutes two years ago, and only 45 minutes this year. It was pretty awesome. And the other fun coincidence about this race is that just a week before my seat-pack broke so I was looking at buying another one on my way up to Logan but couldn't hack the price so I'd thought I'd try just taping my spare tube to my seat post and carrying all my other emergency supplies in my jersey pocket. Well, the prize for third place was a new seat pack! How providential is that?!  Apparently there was some sad news about this race after I left - another racer (no one I know) had a horrific crash and really messed up his neck to the point where racers behind him had to do CPR to revive him and he was life-flighted out of there. Sad, huh?

Second, my dear Lola, my 2000 Honda Accord, made a milestone today. She turned over 200,000 miles!! To celebrate I took her to Super Sonic Car Wash for a full-service spa day (car wash). Here's to many more miles and years of good service! 

Third, grades. I rocked my spring term class with another A. This was my Legal Issues in Public Administration class where we basically read a ton of legal cases and then talked about them. Our entire grade was based on three things: a multiple choice mid-term exam, an essay final exam, and class participation but that only counted for 5% of our grade so the bulk of our grade was on the two exams. Ugh. They were tough! I got a 76% on the midterm, but with the curve it ended up being an A- and on the A side of the A-, not the B+ side. So I knew I had to do really well on the final if I was going to keep my 4.0 GPA and get a A in the class. I dedicated eight hours of work on my final exam essay, and it paid off!! I got a 95% on it and got an A in the class. Woo hoo! Only one more year of grad school and only one more year to see if I can keep this 4.0 GPA!! :)

Lastly, I had a fabulous Saturday evening with some great girlfriends. Janie, Patti, Carrie and I went to dinner at the Foundry Grill up at Sundance. I was still in the mood to celebrate my car's milestone so I ordered a yummy and fairly-pricey cod dish, and then ice cream. Then Janie, Carrie, and I met up with Lindsey and Rob to watch the Robert Redford movie, All the President's Men, since this year marks 40 years since the Watergate Scandal. The movie was about the two Washington Post reporters that uncovered the scandal. I had a little trouble following it, but I still enjoyed it since I learned a little about the scandal. I love how Sundance holds these complimentary screenings of Robert Redford movies!

Carrie, Patti, Janie, and me

Another Nephew Married

Another one bites the dust - to a really sweet girl! Justin and Amy got married this weekend in Boise in Robyn and Doug's backyard. I've meet Amy before - when she and her two boys came to our house last year for Christmas Eve. She's really sweet and so are her boys. Our family is only getting bigger!! Sadly . . . I did not get a picture of Justin and Amy. :( Maybe I'll see if some get posted somewhere so I can steal one. I got a few pictures of some of the guests from our side of the family. It was fun, as always, to see Aunt Deanna and Uncle Kay and Dad and Joan. Even Jane (Brent's wife) and Penny and Mike were there. And we ladies in the family definitely got our groove on when we had to dance to some unknown music. Ha ha! Watching mom try to dance to the music was the funniest ever.

Aunt Deanna, Uncle Kay, Joan, and Dad

Joan, Dad, and me (Jane in the background)

Parker and me

Teri and Mom

Nostalgic Monday: Brownies and Girl Scouts

Back in the day, my mom signed me up for Brownies and then eventually Girl Scouts. I recently got out my sashes with the badges for a work presentation so I decided to take their pictures and post them here on my blog! I don't remember much, but I do remember getting the badges, selling the cookies, Mom being the "Cookie Mom", and going to a day camp once. I have no idea what I had to do to get my badges - especially the one with the hair brush and mirror, so obviously nothing difficult! I also remember our one-car garage being filled with boxes and boxes of cookies when my mom was the Cookie Mom. Good times!

MTB Video for Work

A little while back, my office filmed me mountain biking and I was paid to do it! I was going to miss the department retreat since I was going to be in Colorado, so we thought the video was a good idea to bring me into our office presentation. The idea of the video is to have the retreat attendees think I'm in the middle of my race and calling in to give my little presentation on what I do. I think everyone at the retreat had to describe their jobs so everyone else could understand all the working parts of our well-oiled-machine department. So the video is kind of cool - of me biking - and then kind of cheesy when I'm describing my job. But maybe interesting too!

Playing Hooky in Park City

Kendra's birthday was today and she invited me to take the day off to go mountain biking with her in Park City - so I did! We filled up on calories with Kneader's French Toast for breakfast. Yum yum. Then we hit Round Valley in the morning which was a good thing since it was all sage-brush and no shade, but quite fun with its twisty downhills.

By the time we finished Round Valley, it was nearly lunch time so we grabbed some Subway sandwiches and stuck them in our jersey pockets to eat on our next ride. The next ride was the highlight of the day for sure! We rode up Spiro and Mid-Mountain trails at the Park City Resort. It was a lot of climbing at the beginning, but it was in the trees!! So I took quite a few pictures. We rode out to a rocky point, took some pictures, and headed back the way we came. That's when Kendra took a jump then a tumble and ended our riding for the day even though she wanted to hit one more trail. But she was pretty scraped up and hurting. Thankfully she made it back to the car on her own.

Other than Kendra's little tumble, it was a fabulous day of biking. We logged 20 miles and over 1800 feet of climbing. Not too bad!

My Deserved Weekend O' Fun

Eight hours dedicated to my final exam paper plus ridiculous 5 miles per hour commutes to and from Salt Lake for a conference equals a much deserved weekend of fun. I got a lot of practice holding that sweet spot in first gear to go 5 miles per hour so I didn't have to put the clutch in as much.

So I took a weekend o' fun. It started with the fireman's breakfast for my little town's Art City Days with my friend, Michele.

My hearty fireman's breakfast of eggs, ham and pancakes.

Michele and I in front of our fire truck!

Then Ashlee and I took our mini vacay to Park City and stayed in a 4-star hotel - the Hotel Park City. We drove up there Friday afternoon,  hung out by the pool for an hour or so, went to dinner, rented some movies and watched them in the hotel room wearing the "plush" but not really so plush bathrobes, and munched on double chocolate gelato. Then the cherry on top was our shopping trip to the Park City factory outlet stores where I scored some really cute clothes. It was lovely.

In the Silver Star Cafe in Park City

The Silver Star Cafe - check out the outdoor seating!

Lounging with my gelato in the plush bathrobe. 

The Union Jack Quilt

I finished my Union Jack quilt! Isn't it darling? I'm really digging these smaller quilts. They don't take nearly as long!

Little Red Riding Hood 2012

Four years in a row now. Four times! I've ridden the full 100-mile century ride at Cache Valley's Little Red Riding Hood Century Ride event. Three of them have been with Teri! The past two years, she and I have ended up on our own most of the time and finishing somewhere around 7 hours of ride time. This time, we finished just a little over 6 hours of ride time. The difference? We drafted off my teammate, Kendra, and a few of my other friends. Drafting is really quite crazy because those in the back of the pack don't have to pedal all that much to keep up with everyone. The slipstream of the riders ahead of you suck you in and pull you! So our full pack of friends consisted of me, Kendra, Teri, Kari, Jenn, and Emma. Jenn and Emma decided to do the ride just the day before. Kendra and I know Jenn from mountain biking, and Emma lives by Jenn but is the daughter of Teri's neighbor, Jean. It was quite comical when we were loading up our bikes Saturday morning with the intention of meeting Jenn and her friend (who I didn't realize was Emma - who I did know was Jean's daughter) at the start. Jenn and Emma started to leave before us, but drove by Teri's house and noticed us. We had a great laugh when we realized they had been next door the whole night before when we were coordinating the meet-up.

At mile 25

Jenn and Kendra were the entertainment of the ride for sure. Them and their booby/booty shots for the cameras were driving me nuts! If you were to look at Jenn's Facebook photos, you would see that most of her photos are of her doing her booby pose. Good grief. The girl has no propriety! Ha ha! In fact, she tried to do the pose for our lunch photo, but I put one hand on her stomach and one on the back of her neck/head and pulled and pushed my hands to prevent it. Ha ha! The pose wouldn't have been quite so embarrassing if we didn't have men taking all of our pictures for us.

At the lunch stop

Me in the process of preventing Jenn's infamous "booby" pose.

Overall the ride went really well. Kendra pulled our draft for the entire 100 miles. Before lunch, which was at mile 50, we averaged 17.5 miles per hour. After lunch we weren't quite as fast since Kari bonked pretty bad, but she was a trooper and rode through her bonk. We had a little stretch of head-wind that didn't help her bonk, so Kendra, Teri and I created a geese-V around her to keep her riding but she could still only hold 10 miles per hour. Once she had a chance to the use the potty and eat some food, she looked a lot better for the last 15 miles but she was still very tired. Even with the slower riding after lunch, we averaged 16 miles per hour for the entire ride. Teri and I were quite delighted that neither of us bonked this year. Although, Teri did have some mechanical issues for the first 25 miles until a mechanic at the first stop we stopped at fixed it.

At the finish line. (Emma was MIA)

Me and Kari