The Slayer - April 28, 2011

April 20, 2011 -  James' new bike! The Rocky Mountain Slayer. He researched for months and finally chose his bike. Then it came without pedals (!?)

April 24, 2011 - James bought some shoes and pedals off the guy who helped him put the bike together. And a bike stand - which is very handy when maintaining and cleaning the bike. Hooray for a new bike!  Now to pick just the right helmet and jersey and maybe some spandex bike shorts??

April 28, 2011 - James takes the new bike out for it's inaugural ride - in the area around North Salt Lake.  No photos of James, just a video of the guys he was riding with.  Mostly guys from Backcountry.  They'll do rides throughout the summer.  Last year James was able to 'check out' bikes from Backcountry and learned where to go for some great mountain biking. But this year, they sold all the bikes that James was 'testing'.  I don't think James is sad about that - did you see his shiny new red bike?

Biking - April 22, 2011

James is playing basketball with the guys from Backcountry, and I got off work a little early.  Finally a beautiful day (we've had a lot of rain this spring!).  So I decided to get the bike out and go for a ride on the Legacy Parkway Trail.  I've been from the Center Street Trailhead to the south toward work quite a bit, so today I decided to ride North and see what there is to see on the bike trail.
Important for next time: check the tires - after a long winter, they're underinflated and that makes riding the trail a bit difficult.  After about 3 minutes on the paved trail, I wanted to turn around and walk the bike back to the car.  But that would've been a waste of a pretty day.  I told myself I'd ride for 30 minutes and then turn around.  At about 30 minutes, I was close to Bountiful Lake.  And that was worth exploring.  So I kept going and rode the bike around the lake before heading back to the car.

10.9 miles total in an hour and 38 minutes.  Not a fast ride - I had to keep telling myself that riding the bike (underinflated tires or not) was faster than getting off and pushing the bike!  It is a beautiful day.

Wild Rose Trail - April 15, 2011

Now that ski season is over, I want to go hiking!  This is the trail that is closest to our apartment - The Wild Rose Trail.  Guess it isn't quite hiking season yet.  I still got in a little hike on a pretty day (James was playing basketball with some guys from Backcountry).

And this gathering of heavy equipment is very close to the trailhead.  There is a pipeline project that we've been seeing across the valley and even across the state a bit.  I'm thinking that the Wild Rose Trailhead might be involved in a bit of construction soon.

Happy Birthday Kristen!

Last ski day at Solitude - April 09, 2011

The last ski day of the season is always a little sad.  There is a TON of snow in Utah and Snowbird will be open for another couple of months - but that would cost more money.  Today we used our last tickets at Solitude and enjoyed skiing in another snow storm!

This is me at 18 weeks pregnant - the Dr. said I could ski up until about 20 weeks, so I guess I'll have to put the skis away for the season after all!

Brighton with the Prices! - March 31, 2011

We LOVE it when the Doug & Suzie Price's come to Utah!  They spent their Spring Break skiing/boarding every day and invited us to come up anytime we could make it.  Thursday March 31 (Happy Birthday Jed!) is the last day of the month, and this month I work the 'late' shift at Life Flight - until 9 p.m.  So I took most of the day off and we went skiing at Brighton with the Prices! 

James and Michael went exploring everywhere.  Jordan (who hurt his shoulder recently playing rugby) was trying to be mellow, so he and I mostly skied with Doug & Suzie.  Shelby was in snowboarding lessons for most of the day.  It was beautiful and sunny and we really, really had a good time.  So sad to leave and go to work for the rest of the night. 

Jordan, Michael, James, Jessi, Doug, Suzie and Shelby

Shelby!

March Date - Jazz Game - March 28, 2011

For our official March Date Night, James traded in some Gold Points for Utah Jazz Tickets.  Pretty nice seats.  The Jazz are having a re-building year.  Coach Jerry Sloan retired.  They traded Darren Williams our star point guard for a couple younger players and some draft picks.  But it was still fun to go get hot dogs and cheer for the guys from some pretty good seats.

Then we dropped by the "Fans" store to check out the apparel.  James picked up a new t-shirt and shorts for his own basketball playing.

And I got a $3 tiny jersey (age 24 months) for our Little Bandito - It's a #8 Darren Williams jersey and since D-Will is no longer a Utah Jazz player, all his gear was cheap!  Won't it look cute on a little boy, or a girl with cute little pig-tails!

Deer Valley - March 26, 2011

Today we used up the last of our vouchers from my Visit Teacher.  Thank you again!  It was a pretty decent day for 'not quite spring' skiing.  Windy!  And I only took one picture the whole day.  Can you find James in it?  Even in his bright orange coat he disappears!  He's just below the peak and looks like he could be a branch of a tree.  Grateful that we're able to ski together.  James skis the trees next to the groomers and sometimes I follow him out into the 'interesting' stuff.