New Abe music video

Click Here to Check out the new footage of Abe's new music video singing his favorite song about Nephi.... or go to the video link above.

LOTOJA

I WON LOTOJA!!!

OK, OK, not really of course. But after 10 hours on the bike and still being alive I felt pretty good about the victory arms at that point.

Here's my down-low on Lotoja 2006 for those who may care to know. I must say to Layne and Jami - I'm sorry you couldn't make it with your move and all - the race was incredible and I'm sure you would have had a night-and-day better experience from last year. The weather was absolutely amazing, and so compared to what everyone said about the blizzards and over half of the riders dropping out last year, everyone was very happy about that. I know there are some who claim to love it when the weather gets nasty and thrive on the challenge, but for me, the 206 miles in the saddle is definitely challenge enough at this point.

I planned to ride the day with Steve Wilson and the group that we were with which was mixed with some ogden guys and some Salt Lake guys, and the plan was great until about half way up the first climb over Strawberry Summit. It was a long grind over the first climb and Steve was able to stay with Mike Swenson and the lead pack that was driving a pretty hard pace (for me) up the first climb. I dropped off the group about half way because my heart rate was climbing steadily and at mile 50 out of 206 I didn't think it was prudent to kill myself on the first climb. Looking back that may have been a mistake, but I doubt I could have held their pace even if I wanted to at that point.

As I started to drift off the lead group I looked back and realized then that there were only 5-6 of our group of 5400's that were ahead of me and everyone else had already long been dropped, so that gave me some hope. I got over the summit fine and with decent time on my own and then was totally recovered by the time we got down the 20 mile descent into Montpelier, and I was with a group that had formed on the way down.
At the feed zone in Montpelier I nearly went down when a guy in front of me fell. I swerved around him. The second of the 3 climbs I felt great and passed a lot of people on that climb from groups in front of me, and then the 3rd pass was pretty short also and the only challenge was a steep pitch the last mile. Mile 110 felt very very good to know that the climbing was done for the day.

On the way down from the pass a group of very fast riders from behind caught up with me and Scott and we rode with them for the next 70 miles at a VERY fast pace. Mostly they pulled and I held on for dear life, which was almost threatened a couple times with some extremely close calls. One time a girl slammed her breaks and skidded right in front of me and I barely missed her wheel, and the closest incident was in Jackson Canyon when a similar thing happened, I had to quickly swerve to avoid slamming the person in front of me, and there was a guy behind me who's tire was coming up on the side of my back wheel who I clipped. He went down very hard, and I somehow stayed up. Unfortunately I lost the pack at that point and it kind of shafted me. I was on my own for the next 25 miles and I lost some time, but I finished overall in 10 hours and 5 minutes in 145th place overall out of 900+ riders which is better than I could have expected, since I went there to try to finish the race without bonking.

That's Wilson duking it out for 1st place in the 5400's with Cameron. Steve ended up taking 1st in our group at 9:46:00 overall which was very impressive. The winner overall came in at 9:15:00

It was a fantastic day! I finished feeling great, and was very glad to have had no wrecks or flats. I highly recommend doing Lotoja to anyone who likes cycling. It was phenomenal.

Super-Breanne!

Whenever I put this shirt on Breanne, Abe shouts "Super-Breanne!" She does sort-of look like a superhero in it, eh? Anyway, I just had to post a pic of her 'cause she is super cheery after her nap today. She'll be 6 months tomorrow! Wow, how time flies.
Oh, and I have to tell a funny/cute story about Abe while I'm here too. You Moms out there know that it can be a bit tricky to get your morning shower in sometimes. You try to find activities that will keep the little ones occupied for at least 10 minutes while you're unavailable, hoping you dont hear any blood-curdling screams just as you finish shaving one leg and are about to move to the next one. I've found the best time for me to shower is while Breanne takes her mid-morning nap. I keep a child safety handle on her door so Abe cant get in her room and wake her up and I usually plop Abe in front of the TV. The other morning Breanne was taking her nap and Abe was watching a Living Scriptures video (LOVE 'EM), so I figured I had a few minutes. As I began showering I decided to clean the grout lines around the tile in my shower 'cause they were starting to look nasty. I got pretty consumed by the job and must have been in there at least 20 minutes before I even started cleaning myself. I realized it had probably been quite a while and hurriedly soaped off and ran out in my towel. As I hollared for Abe to make sure he was okay, I noticed the video still on downstairs with Abe nowhere to be found. Then I noticed Breanne's bedroom door open and little giggly voices coming from within. Abe had somewhow opened her door with the child safety handle on it and climbed into Breanne's crib to console her, as she had obviously been crying (tear streaks down the sides of her face). They were as happy as clams tickling and giggling at each other and I had this overwhelming feeling of joy and love for them and especially for big brother Abe who's kindness and sensitivity led him to bust into Breanne's room and save the day for a crying baby. What a SWEET boy. :)

Camping

After a very busy few weeks with work, Aaron decided to take Labor Day off. So we headed to the mountains for a little camping. It was fun, although we didn't sleep much. It may have been a few degrees above freezing in our tent, and it was 31 degrees outside when we finally got up at 5:30 a.m. (after shivering in bed for a few hours trying to keep our kids warm). At least we got to spend some quality family time together, eat smores, and watch Aaron fish.

Here are the kids swinging in our back yard; one of our favorite post-dinner activities.