Goings On

I don’t remember where I left off, except that it was awhile back now… so, anyway Christmas…

I was fairly blown away by Kelly’s prep for Christmas. Considering she has a newborn, plus 3, plus all she went through this fall, I don’t know how she pulled it off. I don’t want to get too sappy, but our kids were blown away.  I’m sure she’ll do an update with details and pics when she’s back on her feet…

Yeah, unfortunately, Monday night she got sick. Like real sick. I picked her bro Jeff up at the airport and apparently things took a left while I was out. We were due to hit the road for CA on Tuesday morning, but that wasn’t happening. I also found myself with a bad stomach, so yesterday was pretty much not awesome. Not to mention the kids (esp Haley) were just devastated not to be leaving.  They already missed Thanksgiving, so we are definitely still trying to get to CA. Hopefully tomorrow, but we don’t want sickies in the car for sure. Or at the grandparents!

Anyway, I was hoping we could get through 2011 without any more issues, but no such luck.

Top Commenter

And the award for top commenter goes to…

Jared Nelson!

Side note… damn son, it took me like 5 minutes to find a picture of you online. You need to work on your online persona. It’s like you live in the real world or something. Trust me, nothing good happens there!

Anyway, he commented on nearly all of the posts I posted last weekend, so he gets the award.

I don’t need the validation of comments or think we’ll ever get back to the halcyon days of 20 comments/post (pre-fb/tweeter), but it’s nice to hear something back and J-radness comes through more than anyone lately.

The award? Oh yeah, it’s a contract. It’s in the mail, Gardie!

Oh yeah, I just gave it some thought and maybe I do need the validation. I will do a contest some time after the holiday. Reminderize me when I flake on it.

Blogging form

And the award for Best Use of a Helmet on a home trainer goes to….

this guy:

Safety first!!

Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that blogging form is on the up right now. Quantity, not quality.

Settling In??

So, yesterday went well…It was probably the first weekend day that I can really say that about since Rory came home. I know we should be all gaga and, OF COURSE, we love our Rory girl, but I think we were all having a hard time adjusting and adding cold temps and limited day light (ie- everyone in the house all day) probably wasn’t helping.

Anyway, yesterday went much smoother. The morning was super low-key and HandM actually played together nicely most of the morning. I managed to stay in pajamas until getting ready to ride. Oh yeah, I got out for a ride. It was nice. Nice and cold! Morgs went to a friends’ house for the afternoon and we picked her up in the evening to go out for burgers and look at Christmas lights. I think it’s a new family tradition!! Definitely a lot nicer to drive around with the new vehicle. Everyone can see and they fight less having more room.

Hopefully we are on the right track.

 

The Hard Road 2??

For whatever reason, “The Hard Road” has come up several times in the past few weeks. Kinda weird as it’s been 10 years now. Anyway, I got an inquiry via email overnight…

Great to hear from you!!!! I was just watching this movie the other day! The movie really pulls you into the lives of the team. I was hoping their was going to be hard road 2. Updating their lives as pro cyclists. Any deleted footage?? Maybe a directors cut? After NetZero, what was the next pro team you went too?? How about the other team mates?? Thanks!!!

Kinda funny as Jamie was actually talking about doing a follow-up this past year as he and a couple of the guys ended up riding together again. I am pretty removed from the socal scene at this point, but it looked like a couple months into the season the idea went south.

I will admit I enjoy getting these kind of inquiries, so if anyone has any questions from back in the day, post them here…Nobody comments any more!!

Year in Review…

For those that don’t know, Kelly and I went to a really small school. There were only about 7 English majors in my graduating class (I was the only guy!). Anyway, every year, we Engrish majors keep in touch by writing a short review of the year. Since I already wrote it, I’d let you in on it as well… thank me later!

What a year!!! In April, I quit my job of the past four years and hit the road as an independent rep in the bike industry. This was a bold move as I would now be 100% commission based AND we had have to source our own health care. About two weeks after that, Kelly found out she was pregnant…so no one would insure us! With that, we were stuck with Cobra… which sucks! I mean I am glad we are insured, but it’s like another mortgage every month!! About another two weeks went by and Kelly was put on bed rest…As you can imagine, this cramped my style as a road rep. I have a huge territory (UT, MT, WY, ID, CO) that I was theoretically covering. And you can imagine how Kelly was feeling about the whole situation!!
About seven weeks later, Kelly was let off bed rest and the summer passed relatively uneventfully. Only relatively though, as our two super hyper britneys, Etta and Belle, escaped. We spent a restless night wondering where they could be. I found them at a shelter the next morning. They had been hit by a dump truck and were nearly euthanized. Amazingly, both pups made a full recovery and are doing great!
In September, I was at a bike show in Vegas for about ten days. I had a couple days to go when Kelly called…She had gone in for her regular appointment and they told her she needed to be admitted as she was going into preterm labor!! This resulted in me driving a moving truck through the night to get home. They were able to keep the baby from coming, but after 5 days in the hospital, Kelly was put on strict bed rest. She was still two and half months from her due date!!
After about two months, the doc said the baby was developed enough and Kelly was given the go ahead to move around and went off her anti-contraction medication. I figured she would immediately go into labor, but no, in a cruel twist, she ended up staying pregnant for three more weeks and was finally induced on her due date, December 1. After the most difficult year of our lives, baby girl #4 (!!) Rory Grace was finally born. It’s been two weeks today and mom and babe are doing great.
Through it all, we were very lucky to have incredible help from family and friends!
I hope you are all doing well and here’s to a slightly less dramatic 2012!!

Snow?

It took awhile, but I am pretty sure my conversion to Utahan is complete as I was pretty stoked to see snow this morning, despite having to commute in it. They weren’t calling for any, and even as it fell they were saying just a dusting, but it’s a couple hours later and still falling, albeit lightly. Hopefully, it is dumping up in them thar hills. For my out-of-state friends, we are way below normal snowpack at this point in the year. My brother and his family are coming to Alta this weekend and I don’t want them to be disappointed!

Anyway, as far as that conversion…ask me again in March? Or April? Or if it’s like last year, May and June. I’ll probably be over it by then.

Now that I think about it, I still don’t have a ski pass…

Weekending

I apologize for my suckage at web-logging recently. Like the song goes, “too much time on my hands”… Wait, that’s the opposite problem. I just can’t resist a Styx reference.

Anyway, life with Rory is trucking along. She wants to rock’n’roll all night, and sleep all day. It’s probably getting to be a bit much for Kelly. Piper has also decided that she wants to wake up around 6:00 every day. I am around then, as a rule, so I can handle that, but she has traditionally been one to sleep in, so if she keeps it up, it may become a drag-o-la. I gotta say it was nice this morning, just spending some time with her and the rest of the house asleep. We shared a bagel sandwich before I had to hit the road.

It was kind of a crazy weekend again. I think just having everyone in the house is tough. I took Haley, Morgs, and Piper to get a Christmas tree Friday night and we decorated Saturday morning.  The afternoon everything went to hell, but we rallied for the church Christmas party that night. It was nice, but trying to keep track of all the kids is enough to make me start drinking.

Isn’t it ironic?

Sunday I took the girls back to church.  I should get double points this week. Anyway, I wasn’t that into it (seriously, it wasn’t my best weekend) and skipped out of Sunday school to wander the aisles. While my spirits were not raised, this did give Kelly a chance to have the house (nearly) to herself… Rory was still there, but like I said, she is nocturnal.

Anyway, once we came back Pipes went for a naperoo as well and Kelly was working with the H&M on gingerbread houses. I stood there looking bored until she told me to go for a ride. Seriously, I was not on my best form this weekend and I know the church I’d just left recommends sitting around being reverent all day Sunday, but I needed to get out.

I didn’t have much time to work with as my ability to be a jerk gets outweighed by my guilt factor pretty quickly, plus the days are plain short right now, but ummm, yeah, it was short and sweet.

And yes, I was in much better spirits the remainder of the weekend. Is that childish? Probably.

Kelly Went Into Battle and all I got was this baby

As per, Kelly nailed the post on the birth of our 4th (!!!) girl. You are going to have to click through to get any details as I can’t really see covering all the same stuff when she’s already done a better job than I could hope to do.

Okay, for you lazy asses who refuse to go through, her name is Rory Grace and everyone is healthy.

That’s all you are getting though.