Bike MS- 2009

Alright, so I guess you are all probably wondering how the bike ride went. First off, let me start by giving you the grand total of our donations: (Drum roll please....)

$621.00!! That is exactly $121.00 over our goal. Thank you so much for your donations everyone, you have all been very generous! Because we made over 600 dollars, Gabe qualified to be in the Saphire Spokes Club, which means he won a jersey that you will see in the pictures in just a moment.



And now, for the pictures...



We got to Logan the day before the race, and there was a lot of stuff going on. There was a free concert, and they were giving away a ton of free stuff, plus... the main event, Gabe and I got to meet Bob and Randy from Harmons... oh yeah, I bet you are all wishing you had been there now!



But seriously, they were so nice, and very down to earth. They even gave us some cookies! (Which of course means they qualified to be Jordan's new friends!)

This is a picture of Gabe the morning of the race, sporting his new Jersey and of course, his biker shorts, complete with a nice cushiony "butt pad."

We were able to meet Gabe at his lunch stop, where he surprised me by showing me his bike computer which read that he had already gone 74.4 miles. I thought it was strange that he would have a lunch stop when he only had less than a mile to go... but as it turns out, Gabe had decided that since he was making such good time, he would take the 100 mile route instead!

Gabe was looking pretty tired at the lunch stop, and he told me he would probably take it easy for the last 25 miles, and just go slow... or so he claimed...

After the lunch stop, my cousin, Candy and I had to track down Gabe because I needed the car keys from him. So this is Gabe, about 15 miles later.

Ok now, this picture is Gabe as he's about to cross the finish line... sort of... well as it turns out, Gabe beat us there!!! So much for taking it slow the last 25 miles, right? So this is a picture we took after I got there and he had already crossed the finish line. You see, my cousin and I had met up with Gabe when he had 10 miles left, and then we just followed the bike route back. It was a two lane road and there were a lot of bikers, so we had to go pretty slow. By the time we got to the fair grounds and switched over the car seat, got Jordan in his stroller and then walked over to the finish line, Gabe had already finished. I was just down around the corner and down the street a little ways. I was really sad I couldn't be there, but Gabe was just too darn fast to keep up with! My cousin suggested we get his picture at the finish line anyway, so that's what we did.

Gabe began the ride at about 7:15 am, and ended at 3:15ish. He said his total riding time without breaks was about 6 hours, 8 with breaks. His bike computer said that he averaged about 17 mph.

This last one is my favorite picture, he looks just like an Olympian, doesn't he? Sorry to gush guys, but hey, not every girl can say their husband rode a 100 miles for them, can they? I am very proud!

I just want to give you all an update on our progress thus far.

Gabe has aquired a bike that he thinks will work great for the ride. It is a road bike, which he says will have less drag because it has skinny tires. He had to do a bit of fixing up, but he has it in pretty good working condition now, and he even rode it from Payson to Provo last week.

We have had many generous donations. Our grand total thus far, including online donations and donations given to us directly is.... $376.00!!! Thank you so much for all who have donated so far, we are making great progress towards our goal!!

Best Dam Bike Ride

Hey everyone! As many of you know, I was diagnosed with MS about 6 years ago. Well, my wonderful husband has decided to get actively involved this year by participating in the MS Bike ride of 2009. (And yes, it is actually called, The Best Dam Bike Ride) He plans to do a 75 mile bike ride coming this June on the 27th, but he needs to earn at least 250.00 in donations before he can even ride. If any of you would be willing to donate to our cause either big or small, we would greatly appreciate it! The proceeds of the event will go toward MS research.

If you would like to donate, you can contact Gabe at 1gabeo@gmail.com, or you can just go to this link and dontate on the national ms society's secure website.

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?px=6838170&pg=personal&fr_id=9532

So, the other day I was feeding Jordan some chicken nuggets. I was breaking them up and then blowing on them before I would hand them to him. After the first or second one, I noticed Jordan holding one up to his mouth and then he made kind of a shshing sound with his teeth at it before he put it in his mouth. He thought he was blowing on it. It was so funny. Gabe and I took a video of it and I am hoping I can post it. We'll see... I haven't tried to post a video in quite a while because my last computer wouldn't do it.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!!

I really like to get into the holidays. I love traditions, and being festive. I always thought of the holidays as being a magical time, and it is my goal to make sure each holiday is, for my children. Jordan is still a bit too little to really understand, and appreciate my efforts, so this year, though I had wanted to do a treasure hunt along with it, I opted to just do a holiday dinner.

We had green chili glazed chicken and green rice(I added food coloring) with broccoli, and then we had chocolate cake with green mint frosting, for dessert. I bought those mugs at the dollar store. They are freezer mugs. They have a layer of some sort of liquid inside, and you freeze them so they keep your drinks cold, without using ice. I figured that they were still reusable so it wouldn't be a waste to buy them.

After dinner, we took Jordan to the park, where we found a bunch of other children who were dressed all in green. Jordan enjoyed going down the slides with daddy, and running around the park, especially the benches, where he made friends with an elderly man who was clipping his fingernails at one of the benches. Jordan is a friendly kid. He loves to wave at strangers. It sometimes surprises me just how fearless he is. He is so innocent and not judgemental. He will wave at anyone and smile.

So that was our St. Patrick's Day, and by the way: What do you suppose Gabe's reaction was when he walked in and saw all of my efforts?

"Why is it St. Patrick's Day themed?"

Ah Gabe, gotta love 'im!

I keep telling myself I need to be blogging more, if anything so that I can have these memories documented. I have the worst memory, so I know that even next year perhaps, Jordan's toddler escapades will begin to blur.

Here are are a few recent pictures of Jordan.

Here he is with his best friend, and cousin, Max. Jordan and Max are about 8 or nine months apart, and have recently, in the past couple of months, began to really play together, Max comes over twice a week, and these boys have fun running around in circles, going "uuuh Uuuhh uuuuh uh uh" as loud as they can, and giggling as they go. They get along great for the most part, and get excited to see eachother each time.

In this picture, they are watching Seseme Street on Jordan's Ipod together. I thought this was the perfect photo op!

Jordan used to suck on a pacifier when he was a little guy. In fact, he couldn't fall asleep without it. I used to worry a little about how I was going to ween him from it when need be. But then one day, he decided he was done with it. He weened himself. Well, many months later, I find that he has become a finger sucker. He doesn't seem to do it for comfort, however, it's mostly when he is zoning in on something. And he doesn't really have a preference of which finger (or fingers), to suck on either. In this picture he was watching Mary Poppins at a store display. He was liking it so much that I stayed in that area and just let him watch it for a while.

Well that's all for now, folks. Keep tuning in again for some more Jordan, and fam, updates!