dang, look like slim thug rollin' on 60s -YO.

gracen reads jon a story about a princess, while griffin (in his buzz lightyear gloves) thumbs through the hunting catalog.

keeping with the christmas spirit we decided to go out to breakfast at ihop on the way home from watching the kids open santa's gifts.

mom and dad scan the senior breakfast menu

The four stages of eating cotton candy

stage 1: have dad open the bag

stage 2: reflect back about when you were a boy and used to eat cotton candy at the state fair with a look of total contentment.

stage 3: convince yourself that: yes, you can eat the whole bag.

stage 4: start to feel ill

for our first christmas jon bought me a roomba robot vacuum cleaner. it is like a maid that doesn't bad mouth you when you turn your back. it is a robot, it is awesome!

for all of you that know my obsession with a clean floor, the gift couldn't be more appropriate.
merry xmas and sleep well. one more day 'til xmas now!

This is GREAT: SNL - The Chronic of Narnia Rap

had a good long bike ride before i take 10 days off of the bike and travel to texas with jon for the holidays. anne and i made it about 12 minutes to this port-a-potty stop by CU's practice fields. then we were on our way to wallstreet.



went up four mile to wallstreeet (not to be confused with the one in n.y.) where we avoided the windy conditions and had a wallstreet history lesson along the way.



one of the history lessons we learned from a plaque along the ride was there is still gold in the gold mine in wallstreet, co.

we didn't see any gold, but we did see some shady characters with no teeth and bad bed head hair.

went walking on pearl street with anne and mark (and the top of jon's head) after they took us out for a great wedding present dinner at sushi tora in boulder. i took this shot while walking down the street. i didn't know that window shopper mark, and devil eyes lannan were so intrigued about. then i saw...


how much for the over-stuffed chocolate lab puppy in the window?... well, that would be $47.00 + tax.


went to amante for some gelato after our pearl street window shopping.

giddy up, 3.5 more days 'til xmas!

no pictures today, i forgot my camera on my ride. let me tell you though, it was AWESOME. i could have worn shorts it was so warm today. not very windy either like it normally is when it is warm in the winter. anyway, it was 55 degrees and i was loving it.

wahoo, six days until christmas!

jon and i left beaver creek this morning and hit the vail nordic center for a little skate ski. i have decided that i love skate skiing more than downhill skiing these days. partially because you get a great workout and feel like you have done a run (which i still can't do very well because of my running up the stairs with the string cheese incident back in september).

when we got back to boulder there was a light dusting on the ground from last night's snow. the rest of the week is supposed to be beautiful though, so i am ready to head into it with a big block of riding before we go on our next excursion for the holidays.

after a long day of skiing there is nothing like jumping in the pool for a dip.

took a walk up to the beaver creek village, and all took family photos by the tree.

hip hop jane and sergeant sam

the crossing guards, sara and chris

happy campers, bfisk and teton

chris, sara, and jane hit the sauna and steam room at the condo. we are having our tarkington christmas one week early because we will all be out of town for the holidays.

sara testing out the coals.

jon and i skate skied at vail nordic center today, it was great. this is jon doing an elvis impression. (sometimes i wonder about his camera poses)

jon getting his poles in order and about to whack me with his left one.

had "girls" night at my house. from left to right, meeeeegan, bridget, erin, beth. (honorary member anne was missing due to a business trip)

the topics included:
prairie dogs and the plague, soft cheeses, meegan falling on the sidewalk and a law suit involving black ice (not the rapper), and bridget's baby talking teletubby luvin' office mate.

the quote of the night is when we were discussing the new movie king kong.

erin said, "i don't want to see king kong, it's too sad, it's like lassie."

geese all hanging out by the hole in the pond. don't they know they are supposed to fly SOUTH!

yes, it was pretty out today, but this picture doesn't show my frozen fingers and toes and the 25 mph winds along with freezing temps.

jon cutting the tofurky fake turkey that we had for dinner tonight. (i had a coupon)

today coming home from the gym i saw a panhandler with a starbucks in his hand. isn't it ironic?

new line for the song!

my computer blew up today. not fun.

thankfully i backed up everything and am getting everything back in order, but in the mean time, it is still not fun.

after a week of hiking and not doing much of anything outside because it was too cold. i finally got out saturday, sunday and today to do some riding. the roads are looking clear, the hardest thing about getting on my bike is that the cul-de-sac jon and i live on is an ice rink because it has so many shadows and the sun never hits it. that's always a fun way to start a ride: skinny tires and ice just don't mix.

i saw these cows on my ride on cherryvale. look at the one cow thinking it is all king of the mountain, little does he know he is standing on a mountain of poo.

jon and i went for a hike up at ncar today (representing different nordic ski teams) since the roads are still awful, and you can't ride your bike without some serious spray. (i'm just trying to avoid the dreaded bike trainer)

on the hike we saw big foot.

in this shot you can see he has just turned his back to us because he knows he has been spotted. next week i should have a shot of the lock ness monster out at the boulder reservoir.

a nice shot of ncar (where we get our temps) and east boulder/kansas.

jon jumpin' at last weekend's state cyclocross race. he got 7th!

went out on a beautiful hike up at Chautauqua today. here is a shot of anne dropping me on the uphill while i took photos.

this is the look we had the entire hike, infact our faces froze this way because it was 6 degrees during our big hour hike.

it looked like this outside my window this morning, and riding in the basement was inevitable.

jon checking for glass in his tires before he goes on his long basement ride.

riding the rollers is by far one of my least favorite things to do when it comes to exercise.

with exception to running a track workout in the heat and humidity of summer in houston.

current conditions in lovely boulder, co. -10F, with wind chill, 20 degrees to go...ben and dea we are catching up to you!

check out the boulder winds 80-90 mph! our house keeps shaking, i am losing my confidence in it, pretty soon it may blow off from on top of us.

i now see why people went crazy during the dust bowl.

Anne and I started out on our bike ride today and it was 30. burrrrrr.

I started the ride with a tiny hole in my sock and when I took off my shoes at the much needed cappuccino break the hole had escalated to this.

note to self (and others), never buy Cannondale wool socks.

jon and i went out to eat at a crappy thai restaurant called gemini's twin or something like that off of 30th in boulder. then we were supposed to go out to the RIO for Meeeegan's bday party, but the thought of our feet sticking to the floor from all the spilled margs, not being able to sit anywhere once we got in (if we got in), and screaming at the top of our lungs to have a conversation just doesn't appeal to us married folk anymore. imagine that, we're getting old.

So...

we went over to starbucks and shared their chantico which is pretty much like drinking chocolate. (if you order one, share it because it is very rich and sweet, and sip, don't gulp) it is my new favorite drink.

bad news is there was a nutritional menu sitting at our table and i read the calorie/fat content and it is only a once a week drink.

by the way... the most caloric drink you can buy there is the venti (which means large to those of you that live in boulder) white chocolate mocha with whipped cream (breve) at 900 calories a pop. a venti drip coffee on the other hand is 15 calories. just some starbucks nutritional facts. enjoy.

a friend of mine is selling her 150 cc Bajaj Chetak scooter. let me know if you are interested. low miles and really low cost.