Christmas 2008

Ah, another year has passed, and after vacuuming nearly 3 lbs of fallen pine needles, the tree has finally been taken down and all the decorations put away.

This year we've celebrated Christmas & New Years in a fairly mild manner, keeping things simple and relatively uninvolved- a nice change!

We spent Christmas Eve with my parents, and were able to meet Oliva & Jason- Bryan's new girlfriend and her 3 yr old son. We made gingerbread houses again, and of course, Bryan smoked us all. My "Ol' Swiss House" didn't have a chance compared to his delux "temple." Lame. I always lose now this competition now. Mom & Dad gave us a Belgian Waffel maker, money, jewelry, and some other nice stuff.

I woke up Christmas morning to a whole stockpile of new bike parts, including all new plastics, beautiful pipe (which I'm holding in the pic), and gear which literally transformed the entire appearance of my bike. I've wanted black plastics since I saw them last year. Chris spent ALL DAY Christmas day putting together my "new" bike, which included custom graphics that he'd designed and ordered. We drove the bike into the front entry so we could work on it and be warm, and here are some before & after pics --I was completely stoked. My bike looks completely hot now, I have to admit - I don't even want to ride it in fear of scratching it!

I gave Chris a very manly, uber-powered kerosene garage space heater as well as a "Boom Bucket" all-weather portable iPod player for the pool and all our camping excursions. I wanted him to rock the toasty garage too! ;-)



Lincoln got "The Mouser" from Santa Clause, which has been the source of many exciting hours. It's so freakin' cute to see him play! He loved the wrapping paper, drinking the water out of the tree holder, and sleeping on the wrapping paper boxes.

We hope that friends and family received our cute Christmas card this year and hope that 2009 is a fabulous one for all!!!

Grandma Georgia's 90th B-day

Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's 90th birthday we go! We drove to Vernal to the home of Norm & Pam Pease, Chris' dad & mom, where they were hosted the luncheon to celebrate Georgia's near century on the planet. Chris & I gave her the first of the Jan Karon books, "At Home in Mitford" and a nice bookmark. She loaded up on all kinda of sweet notes, cards, and gifts from all of the family, friends, and community members who showed up to honor her. It was really nice, and fun to see everyone. We were even able to snag a family photo, which I'll post on here once it is received.
Happy Birthday Grandma Georgia!

St. George

Chris, Myself, Phat Jimmy, Charlie & Luwana Canfield, and Shane & Cooper Eliason all hit trails outside of St. George this weekend. We put about 90 miles on the bikes and had an "epic" ride due to abnormally nice weather and soft, no-dust trail conditions. We went through some of the old Rhino Rally big bike course, and hit a bunch of HUGE clay hills that were like riding a roller coaster. It was great because no one was hurt (I got a cactus to the leg that is kind a blue and swelling) and all the bikes were fine.

I was hauling down this trail into a wash. Jimmy was in front of me, parked and watching as the rest of us dropped from the trail, down a 4' step and on. HOWEVER, I picked the left side of the trail and saw Jimmy flagging me "no! no! no!" so I slammed on my brakes-- but it was too late; the front wheel of my bike was already over the edge and I crunched my pipe, again. Turns out he was worried I didn't know how to "jump" my bike and thought that I'd endo over the handlebars when I hit the ground. It was pretty funny; I was totally centered on the edge of the ledge-- like that one time in high school when I high centered my mom's van on the cemement parking barrier in the Layton High School parking lot. The guys had to come grab my bike and pick it up and off for me. Wish I would have got a picture of that.

On the way back, Chris hooked us up with a room in Cedar City so I could see my Grandma Bernice. Ironically, my father, Lawrence, was also in town so we all hooked up at the Sizzler for all-you-can-eat shrimp and to catch up. It was great getting to see them again.

Think we are going to go down and ride and camp from Christmas - New Years in Mesquite.

Speaking of Christmas: Got home to set up the Christmas tree last night, and woke up this morning to a downed tree-- yes ornaments all over the place, glitter, tinsel in a bind... it's a mess. My poor tree is now lopsidded and jacked up. Charlie Brown tree... ;-(

Had a great weekend - and I'm getting into the Christmas Spirit!

Page, AZ Final Race Report

I sucked. I took 4th place, and will not be placing in the Top 3 over-all. This is a pathetic picture of me nearly in tears, seriously considering NOT finishing the last loop.

Ok, so there was this new little girl who raced: she is 13 years old, like 100 pounds, and she placed 3rd in the NATION. She spanked me like a naughty schoolgirl, and even beat Trish by like a good 10 minutes!!

The course was some of the deepest, nastiest, most horrible whoops ever (a "whoop" is a little/deep "hill" in a series of closely compacted hills, that you have to either roll your bike up and over, which is exhausting, or you have to hit them so fast you skid over the tops of them - which is scary as hell). I forgot to pack earplugs, so I did not get ONE MINUTE of sleep the previous night before. I was already pooped before the race began and just didn't have the energy to perform like I needed to.

Secondly, I was NOT prepared with the skill and speed necessary to do well, and got my ass handed to me. Here is some crazy cool footage of the Big Bikes trying to get up "THE HILL." We didn't have to go up this hill on our course, but you can see how deep and sandy the terrain was, and how difficult it can be once you lay your bike down, to pick it up and get going again without sinking.

youtube.com/watch?v=vUSZRGocVwM

Third, I feel this is somewhat of a conspiracy: toward the end of the first loop, there as a 45-degree angle turn-off that was market with yellow ribbon (signaling a wrong-way) as well as some pink ribbon down in the near distance (signaling the correct way and part of the course) so initially I thought it was a wrong way, HOWEVER-- there was a little kid standing at the intersection POINTING to GO DOWN the turn-off. I ended up miles down the course, in the middle of the freakin' desert, in some construction site. I had to turn around, find my way back to the nearest race workers and ask them for directions. Turns out, the turn-off was NOT part of my course, and that I had lost nearly an entire loop's worth of time by the time I was back-on-course. So Trish ended up LAPPING me, along with another girl who placed 3rd place.
I am trying not to believe it was a ploy to see me fail. After speaking with the other racers, the course was poorly marked and we ended up missing a couple turns throughout. But I was the ONLY one that got re-directed off course. I'm trying to chalk it up to an inexperienced/young race worker's mistake... and not something else.

More drama: Chris was attacked by some dude who is a member of the Sage Riders club (the club that hosted the race). I was sleeping back in our room, but apparently he and a couple of our other friends walked into another hotel to go watch some footage of the race, when this huge drunk dude (A member of the Sage Riders Motorcycle Club) asked him, "Are you Chris? Let's go outside" started mauling him!! The drunk dude got pulled off, so Chris walked back into the hotel lobby, upset and loudly asking where this dude was, what his problem was, ect. Then the dude attacked him again! The police got called, so when people ripped the huge guy off Chris the second time, apparently he "went for a walk" in the desert and was nowhere to be found when the 5-0 rolled in and cuffed Chris.

Long story short: Chris didn't go to jail. But when Chris walked up to a couple of our close friends (who are also Sage Riders) to ask them for information about the attacker with the police present, they flat out REFUSED to even acknowledge they even KNEW Chris! These are people that we've been really good friends with?! So Chris had his feelings really hurt, and he was pissed at how spineless our friends where. The whole circumstance has spiralled out of control due to people only seeing/hearing part of the episode and blaming Chris in person, on the phone, and on the Internet. It's not pretty.

All-in-all, I don't believe we'll be driving 700+ miles to go to the Arizona race next year.

I'll let you know how I place over-all when the points are tallied and become available.

Start Your Engines

We are off this weekend to the very LAST, LAST race of the Desert Racing Series. We will be in Paige, Arizona Friday-Sunday this weekend, dueling it out for the last possible chance to beat Trish (#1W TNG) and take 1st place.

Chris has prepped my bike to perfection (as much as it can be at the end of a grueling, damaging season) and I'm about to head out the door to jog 1.5 miles, stretch, and do some push-ups. I'm loading up on carbs and water--- and getting ready to dish out a big serving of

EAT MY DUST - TRISH!!!!!

Wish me luck. If I don't take 1st at this race, I loose 3rd place on the Over-All scheme of the points system, and that will really blow.

Jericho Ride

Went riding in Jericho yesterday with Kerry (Old Buzzard), John Schultz, Ross (Spamburger), Mike (lthom), some new dude named John, Chris and myself. I felt slightly silly, as I was the most inexperienced rider there, the youngest, and the only Chick, but it was completely swell. I was "in the groove" in the morning, and completed the 1/2 half of the day without injury or accident-- AWESOME!

They had me racing through some really tight, technical, steep, rocky stuff, and I had to hold my breath on a couple of the sections... but it was so exhilarating to get THROUGH the tough stuff without eating shit.

The second half of the day was slighly more challenging. Cherelle and Jake showed up to join us too - and Cherelle, I'm sure, feels my pain today! We had already completed 32 miles before lunch, and after lunch, I only made it another 12 before I threw in the towel and BEGGED to go back to camp via the road, not the trails! I crashed like 7 times, falling face-first down a steep rock slab, hitting Neutral instead of 1st 20' from the TOP of a super-steep hill which resulted in me stuck and scrambling on the slope... among a few other tragedies.

My bike weighs 213 lbs. so I only have about 3-4 crashes where I PHYSICALLY have the upper body strength to pick my bike up. After that, I'm toast-- and I have to rely on the other people in the group to help me upright my rig.

We did hit one super duper muddy hill which will now be know as "Mud Slide Hill-'O-Death" and had to traverse through "Little Dutchman's Gorge-O'-Pain" but I made it out with only a few major bruises.

I totally feel ready to KICK SOME TRASH at the very last Paige, AZ race that is taking place this coming weekend. BRING IT ON!

Chris' 36th Birthday - American Fork Canyon

Chris turned 36 this past weekend, and we celebrated by taking the weekend off and camping up American Fork Canyon. Though it was a cold and stormy, we had a completely fabulous time!

I gave Chris a much anticipated Helmet Camera so he could mount it to his helmet and take videos of our rides 'n races. I also gave him a nice dose of the new Armani cologne "Armani Diamonds"--which is delicious!

We invited a bunch of people to come up and meet us for a ride, but I believe the weather forecast was a deterrent. We did have Russ come up for a sweet afternoon ride, but missed out on the other folks. Too bad, because the weather on Saturday morning, after the rain shower, was awesome! Slippin' 'n slidding through the muck and mud eventually turned into some sweet conditions when things dried out a little! I have to admit, I was a little nervous trying to get down what I will now endearingly refer to as the "Indiana Jones Ravine of Peril" -- but managed to descend the muddy, rocky, ravine with all limbs intact, and no giant rolling rock chasing us down the mountain.

We didn't loose our dogs to the Hippies this camp trip, nor did our littlest puppy get disoriented and fail to return to camp; we didn't get the trailer lodged in a post-monsoon muddy mountain grave, and Chris seems to be happy- so I'd consider it the entire adventure a success.

It was refreshing to spend some alone time in the serene mountains again before the snow fell, and to hang out "as a family" just the 4 of us - Chris, me, Keno, and Shet.

I hope he enjoyed his time there and is excited about starting a new year. 36 years old... wonder what this one will bring!

Happy Birthday, my Super-Sexy Moto Man!