Glutton for punishment......

I am really not a glutton for punishment, but it seems I always seem to act like one. Not only do I have a two year old who is in the full swing of the terrible two's, a ten month old who really hates to be put down or when he does want to be put down he wants to be free, but now added to all of that I have a 12 week old puppy who knows nothing. The puppy falls between Kai and Jasmine as far as understanding what he is being asked to do. Chris and I basically jumped into having another child when we decided to get this dog. I am not complaining but man I don't know how people with more then two children do it. Just when you get one of them set up the other is into something or wanting something. It is impossible to get anything done unless you do it when they all are sleeping....... but that doesn't work because you usually crash too from burn out.

Oh well what is one to do. We are starting the slow process of trying to make this house a home, banishing any white walls we can in favor of a color palette of earthy tones inspired by the rich teracotta colors of the western United States, and bright flowers from the garden. We have lived in dorm rooms, apartments, houses, and condos over the last seven years of our lives in which we were only allowed sterile white walls and I just couldn't do it any longer. Most people are afraid of color, they won't put it on the wall for fear they won't like it, and what I say to that: "paint is cheap."

At least spring has sprung here, although it has had a rainy start to the season. It is so nice to be able to get the kids out in OUR yard. OUR yard, OUR house, OUR garage, it still sounds very strange to refer to us owning this place. Spring and summer are always a welcome part of the year to me, not only because I hate being cold and that tends to be a constant state for me during the winter, but because it allows Jasmine to really get outside and burn off all of that energy a two year old has. Mom and Dad got Jasmine and Kai a swing set for a house warming gift and is she really loving it.

Well I suppose I should get unpacking since there is a plethora of boxes everywhere.

Are the Stars Aligned Against Me?

I am starting to think that I have some sort of bad luck streak going on or this is some kind of warning. It is about a week and a half from D-Day (Ironman 100 mile bike ride) and try as hard as I can, every time I go to get on the bike to start training something comes up, breaks, changes, etc. I swore that I would bike to work at least twice this week.

It rained instead, finally the forecast showed Sunny weather Thursday morning. When I got home Wednesday night I was in a bit of a rush to do dinner, rake the yard, take care of the kids before bed, and head out to hockey; yet I still needed to squeeze in some time to adjust my rear derailer so that my bike would shift correctly. This of course being the problem that laid me up during my last attempt to bike in. I managed to get it adjusted and went for a quick test ride. It worked well, and I headed off to hockey. Of course being a bit of a later game, I didn't get home until 12:30 or so and after searching everywhere among the moving boxes trying hard to find all my bike gear I finally gave up around 1am. Being later than I had planned to stay up, I jumped in bed and grumbled as I changed the alarm clock from 5am to 5:30 (at least an extra 30 minutes would help). I promptly fell asleep and woke to light coming in through the window. Then it dawned on me (damn puns) that at 5:30 it shouldn't be light quite yet. Oh crap I thought, there goes another day of riding but when I looked at the clock it was only 6am which was my intended leave time. So I quickly jumped out of bed and grabbed everything I had and ran out of the house.

Finally I had beat whatever was against me, I was on the open road and realizing just how out of shape I had gotten since last fall when I quit riding. But that didn't matter I was doing it, I was getting in at least 40 miles this morning. The highlight of the ride came about 6 miles into the ride when I reached the top of the Baraboo Bluffs and was passing by the steep slope signs for the upcoming hill. I quickly pulled off and adjusted my ipod to something more appropriate and cranked it all the way up. Snapping back into the bike I quickly shifted into the lowest gear I could get into and peddled as hard as possible, it wasn't long until the cars where no longer flying by, I looked down at my gps and noticed it clocked me at around 47 miles per hour. Wow I was flying now and loving it. The hill down the bluffs lasts for about a mile and a half which happened to be just long enough for me to start thinking about what would be left of my body if I bit it at this speed.

I quickly turned my attention to other thoughts, and as I reached the bottom I was so pumped that I didn't realize how easily I was holding 20+ mph. Over the next 4 miles I was so excited to be out on the bike. It was then that I hit the low point of the ride. I was just on the border of Prairie du Sac when I rolled over some rocks and heard a loud snap sound. Then I felt the backend roughen up, and I quickly pulled over to notice that I did indeed blow out my back tire. Can I not win! Luckily I called my cousin who lives in Prairie du Sac up and found she had not left for work yet and begged a ride off her. So as I sit here at work typing this I am happy I at least got 15 miles in today but upset that it wasn't the planned 40 and now I need to go buy some more supplies. That is what I get for actually using my last tube and not buying extras :) Yes Dan you are going to kick my ass.

Hey Look Mom I'm Air Conditioning the Neighborhood

Well it is done, Wednesday we closed on the house with no troubles, after hauling some essentials we actually moved in the same day. Since then we have made many little trips taking a car or truck full here and there.

Saturday was the official move date and I was very surprised when almost 20 people showed up to help move. We started at 9am and finished up before noon. Wow that rocked, now as I sit here posting to my blog and notice the number of boxes surrounding me I think it is going to be a long time before we unpack!

I know Owen was asking for us to post a virtual tour but I think it may be awhile before you can even see the walls through the mounds of junk stacked up. So stayed tuned we might have pictures by next summer :)

Bad Luck

Dan, James, and I decided to do the Minnesota IRONMAN Bike Ride this year as fun way to get together and enjoy the outdoors at the same time. However it seems that I have been cursed with a string of bad luck this year that I hope will not affect the outcome of 100 mile ride at the end of April.

To start I hurt myself playing hockey at the beginning of this year suffering from a high ankle sprain. Something I had never heard about and would have thought was nothing special. Now 4 months later as I am finally able to return to sports, however not yet fully recovered I am starting to grasp how serious it is. In fact the doctor actually told me that I should have broke my ankle because I would have healed up sooner and not suffered the chance of reinjury in the future. Now if that wasn't bad enough my last ride last year resulted in a number of broken spokes, a flat tire, and of course my tire was now out of true.

As the weather near the end of May and beginning of April was starting to look nice for a change I decided to get my bike back in for repairs. No sooner did I get it back home and plan to start riding regularly again then the weather decided to plummet into the low 30s and 40s and a permanent rain cloud moved in. Almost two weeks later we finally have clear blue skies. I was so pumped last night, I packed up everything for work and set my alarm clock nice and early so I could ride the 24 miles into work today. I was looking forward to getting in close to 50 miles round trip today as I enjoyed the low 50s this morning and the clear blue skies as I started out. About 3 miles into my ride I downshifted as I hit my first hill, it wasn't until a little way over the top that I realized that I couldn't shift back into a higher gear. I pulled over and took a look trying to figure out what was wrong, unfortunately my untrained eyes where unable to find any problems so I was forced to turn around and head back home in a low gear. I actually found it to be quite frustrating trying to maintain a normal speed when you have to basically run in place to do it. I guess on the bright side I got in 6 miles today.

So after driving in I realized that with only working Monday and Tuesday this week before taking off the rest of the week to close and move into my new house, that I am most likely going to not have time to get it fixed and will be putting off training for yet another week. Wish me luck, hopefully I will survive the end of April :)

Puppy Luv

As we quickly approach closing day (April 12th) Shannon and I have noticed how much Jasmine and Kai have loved hanging out with friends and family who own dogs. This is actually nothing new, most of my family have dogs of various size and shape and I have grown up with them most of my life. The period I have spent in college and then working while living in apartments is about the longest I have gone without having a dog. So not too surprising when we starting discussing the possibility of getting one now that we will have our own place with a nice yard. Over the last week we have started to search out places to buy a dog and found a place we where happy with. After a few trips and checking out a number of puppies we found the one that fit and bought him. He, being a 10 week old black Labrador puppy. Of course we still haven't closed on our place yet so we had to leave him there until after we move in. But I can say it is official now. Sorry Dan, we should really kill your allergies now :)

Verona Tourney

This last weekend signified the second year and the start of a fun tradition. Since moving down to Madison I have found a number of guys living in the area who I played hockey with all the way through high school with. Last year a couple of us decided to create a team to play in a hockey tourney hosted in Verona. Instead of asking friends from the area we got the wild idea to see if we could put together a team of Rhinelander alumni. As we organized things we where not sure how well we would succeed and to our surprise not only did we get enough guys we had about 5 extras show up the day of.

We had so much fun last year even though we took second place that we decided to make it a tradition and do this every year. Now on our second year we had most of the same guys showing up a few missing and a few new this year. The only real change is instead of second we won the tourney!

The weekend was a blast, my parents came down and watched the kids Saturday evening so Shannon and I could hang out with the guys and their significant others. One of the guys who puts most of this together hosted again at his house and we had a great time hanging out and chatting, we even found Rhinelander Beer! Well I don't know that Rhinelander beer is worth bragging about in normal circumstances but for the weekend it was worth the laugh.

Kai Walking

Well I think as of this weekend it is official. Kai starting taking a few steps here and there over the last week but nothing I would call a definite walk. However, this weekend things changed, he has successfully made it from one end of the room and back on multiple occasions. Every day he seems to get a better handle on it and even catches himself before he falls over. The other cool thing is that he can stand up without grabbing on to anything. Pretty impressive stuff for a 9 months old!