today i babysat theo bragstad (son of mr. vecchios sean bragstad). since it snowed a foot today i didn't want to drive with the roads being icy so we did a lot of sledding and walking around town.

i asked theo what kind of haircut look he was going for and he said, "the surfer". i think it is more of a kid mullet.

tomorrow i babysit again and we are doing a mass transit bus tour around town. i'll take some picutes. stay tuned.

say it ain't so, and just say no. i guess when they say "lifetime ban" they mean 1 year. (click)

funny how i choose to start my base training for 2007 on the brink of the arctic storm of the year. (note spec of snow at bottom of pic) i went out to ride and about 30 minutes into it snow started falling and the front rolled in. another fun fact is that my powertap resets itself whenever i hit a bump. quite annoying.

we are home from another great thanksgiving vacation with my family.

a view from the bc golf ball driving range.

puff daddy

jon and i babysat our nephew ryan today while the rest of the family went skiing. if all babies were this good the world would be even more overpopulated than it already is.

we took him up to the slopes to people watch.

we fed him a messy lunch of green peas.

then we dressed him up in my red jane fonda sweatband, and by the looks of it he was so over it.

for turkey day we scooched on down to denver got in a quick ride and then ate some food at the tarkington's home. pic: sara and jon smiling big.

the guests for the evening were sharon "the hammer" and jim "the nail". they had a grand time at the tarkington place. in this pic jon is giving a lengthy tour of his old bedroom.

madre tarkington made some great rolls.

padre tarkington was a master baster making a mean turkey.

sara and padre made pies. sara's chocolate peanut butter pie won over pumpkin pecan.

i brought the cranberry mold in a can.

the weather was perfect today. here's gracen thrashing some lines.

griffin is all about the gear you get to wear, but not too into skiing.

my parents got into town last night and i put my mom right to work on hemming some pants. she's real good with a needle and thread.

popi enjoying the wifi.

we drove up to beaver creek in a loaded to the max wagon to meet up with the rest of the gang. when we got here there was an hour long hide and seek session. some great spots to hide were, behind the giant wooden beaver.

behind the pillows of the couch

and behind the pillows of the couch again, and again, and again. it went on for a while, and never seemed to get old to them.

i bought the kids some sweet glasses and hats at target so they would be ready for xmas at slim thug's.

does this ao dai make me look fat?

my dad doesn't shoot his deer too often, he thinks of them as his pets. in fact he names them. this old guys name is grandpa and he was so old that he needed to move onto his next life in deer heaven. here's the pic of mimi, the guide in her urban plaid camo, and popi in his south texas camo with big grandpa after the "harvesting".

another reason tom cruise is evil...

jon and i went straight from our bike race in louisville to longmont for the boulder county sheriff's department awards banquet. jon had this look on his face until he got some food. unfortunately we were in the way back, and the last to be dismissed to the feed bin.

getting his award from sheriff pelle with the other life saver dude, (he did chest compressions) gilbert.

gilbert, dan and jon with their outstanding citizen awards. (later jon called it his get out of jail free pass and was encouraging me to speed on the way home so he could get to sleep)

earlier that day, vin and a heavy hammer. (only photo i took at the race)

i haven't seen such a mad rush for a toy since the cabbage patch doll.

i just went to pekoe tea sip house and had a yerba mate (pronounced yerb-a ma-tay) latte. mate is the new coffee without the jitteriness, i never thought tea could be so good, and i seem much more productive in my house cleaning for the parents (who are coming on monday), i'm on fire. (click) the even crazier thing is i think this stuff is good for you.

i just went to cost cutters (the hair place) and did an experiment. my experiment was do i really need to pay $45 for a hair cut? final conclusion is no, i spent $3.95 at cost cutters (i had a coupon) and my hair looks the same, just a little shorter.

oh man, george clooney again!!!!

i went to costco yesterday and i thought i would share some of my favorite costco items.
1. uncooked flour tortillas, that cook up real nice in a pan, or microwave if you are in a hurry. (there are a lot of them, like 50, so freeze half and put the other half in the fridge)
2. chicken prepackaged in twos. thawing them is super easy, and no unwanted salmonella floating around the fridge.
3. grand parisian salad mix. a must for the salad lover like me.

i always debate whether or not to get the bananas, there are 14 of them and there is no way we can finish them all before they over-ripen, but at .99 cents how can you pass them up?

looks like there will be snow for the family thanksgiving skiing. my family can all now stop wondering if there will be enough snow.

it was padre tarkington's birthday yesterday, and he is 55 again. here he is enjoying some bday hot cocoa with whipped topping at burnt toast on the hill.

the fam hanging out on the hill. when i looked at the camera display after taking this it really looked like jon had wet his pants, but those are just his gloves.


then of course we had more racing. sometimes i wonder why we race every weekend. then i realize that it is either racing or sitting around the house on crappy days like yesterday, and i think racing is much more fun.

on the way home we saw some life-like lawn ornaments getting delivered. my question is, who is going to put that big grizzly bear in their front yard? or that big white bronco horse?

yet another cyclocross race here in boulder. this time the madre and padre tarkington made it out to watch. (thanks to padre, not pictured, for the water feed for anne and i) here is a pic with madre and anne after the race. i just happened to pull off a big win. my first cross win ever. don't ask me how i did it, but it might have something to do with no pro girls showing up for the race.

for dinner we went to joe, sue, and leah taddeucci's house for some homemade pasta and lettuce with all the fixins. leah had really greasy hair after putting the lays potato chip bag on her head.

"the break up" is a stupid movie. dumb. waste of my friday night.

mr. ups man just delivered the new camera. i bought it at j&r and their price was $100.00 below what it is here with free shipping. let the blogging begin. (not that it ever stopped)

so here are the pics from the 4 hour 40 min ride yesterday at buffalo creek.

jon and i sporting some crazy colors with such a dull background.

gary, our tour guide and jon with his new bike.

like Leah said in my comments section of the last post... "that pic looks like dubbya got to it" excellent point leah, however there was a fire here in 1996. a lot of the ride area was burnt, but once we rode out of that it was real lush and green. (but we didn't take pics of that)

we hit some snow in the shaded areas. it was 80 degrees out yesterday and somehow there was still a good bit of snow on the ground.