surprise... sara tark and i organized a super duper 30th birthday surprise party for jon. he was so happy, i think he has tears in his eyes. it was hard getting him away from his lawn mower though, he started changing the oil on it 10 minutes before we were supposed to be at the party.

a blurry pic of the tarkingtons who were nice enough to bring a huge chocolate cake with lots of icing.

vin gets the first piece. little sister hayden looks on in disgust.

freshly engaged bridget and brando. they just hopped off a plane from africa and were so happy to be back in the states. no more sleeping in your own sweat with rats and bats! (bridget was over there volunteering at a health clinic, she'll get into heaven for sure)

today was the deer trail road race aka deer poop. anyway, syrae and i were straight up representin' for vc. this is a pic of us devouring some free powdered doughnuts after the finish. (we had to hit that glycogen window and all)

pic of (l to r) super duper triathlete woman diana hassel, me, and sharon on the big pimpin' wood podium boxes.

today during the race "sharon the hammer" and i got off the front for the last 20 miles. racing against "hammer time" and not with her was difficult since up until this year we have raced on the same team for 5 years. at the end she gave me the win by letting me sprint myself. it was fun sprinting myself.

jon and christian mccarthy pulled a vc double by getting 1st and 2nd in the men's race.

jon took advantage of the extra height on the podium and took a look over there to watch this...

a sweet ass skeet shooting competition.

lisa my vitamin cottage teammate and pro faux painter came over yesterday and today and made our house so "all grown up" and stuff. (her website)

this is a venetian plaster she did in our dinning area.

living room before

and after painted with poo brown.

now jon and i are watching some stupid movie with real bad audio that he got for his birthday. 3.5 hours of best of the quest and it's about a bunch of rednecks hunting coyotes. riveting.

this young looking lad just turned 3 to the zero today. to celebrate his birthday we rode bikes to marie's and had some kind of russian flavored breakfast, then he went on a long bike ride, came home and meticulously mowed the green lawn, went to work for 2 hours (insert played with bikes here), and then the whole tarkington family went out to a wonderful italian dinner at laudisios.

it was a good day.

the malaria dance, kinda like the macarena, but not really. (click here)

http://www.sanjayahair.net/

Singer Sheryl Crow has said a ban on using too much toilet paper should be introduced to help the environment.

Crow suggested, “I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting.”

my thoughts:

and who is going to monitor this usage, is it an honor system type thing?

a star wars fan with too much cash thought floating around town in a darth vador balloon would be cool. i'm hoping the next venture is a jabba the hut zeppelin. now that would be cool.

my friend leah put this sweet video together. (click here) he ain't clownin' he krumpin'.

to commemorate earth day the denver post thought it was a good idea to send me very large wasteful complimentary paper. (kinda backwards thinking on april 22nd) yes, i recycled it.

the vc girls got together today for a stupid crit that costs too much money to enter and then gives crappy payouts when you win.

we worked really well as a team today, and c-ray took the big win by about an inch. to celebrate she smeared chocolate muffin on her tooth.

i was feeling really really slow yesterday in the time trial and today in the crit. i didn't know why and then i figured out AFTER both of my races that my brake was rubbing pretty badly. that's not even an excuse either, it's the truth. i kept thinking, man i am tired, i need a day off... until i discovered the faulty break. good news is that it is fixed and i got some good power training done.

in other news jon, seen here with a buzz lightyear rubber head phone and mic, got 2nd in his race in nebraska. he's coming home tonight, good thing because i miss him.

this morning i rode out to the haystack gs boulder time trial. i put some jammers on my bike and prayed that they would make me aero. they did not, i know i didn't get last place, but pretty darn close.

megan hotmann went right before me and she was all "aero'ed" out. equip with fast tt bike, super sleek skin suit, carbon disc wheel, over sized alien helmet, and check out her number...

she pinned it 12 times! i bet she won, results aren't up yet, but those 5 extra pins surely sealed the deal.

jon baker rode to the race with everything but the kitchen sink strapped to his back.

it's that time of year again. jon loves mowing the lawn, and he is really good at it.

example 1: look at him scream out of that corner with some serious mowing precision.

example 2: with this mowing move he takes it to the next level, the very advanced switch-it-up old school 180 flip push.

i don't have anything to blog about... we got home from houston and it was crappy weather, then it was crappy yesterday, thankfully this morning i now see the sun.

this virginia tech tragedy is wearing on my mood. it is hard to be cheery when this kind of crap goes on in our schools. i read in the paper today that boulder high school had a threat written on the bathroom wall saying "everyone dies april 19th" and it was written way before this vt incident. if i had a kid going to boulder high they would be taking a sick day tomorrow.

back to watching the rue mcclanahan interview on good morning america.

today was a race in coldspring, texas, about an hour north east of houston. jon's race started at 8 a.m. so we had to get going by 5. he ended up getting 8th, this is him sprinting to the super hard uphill finish.

i rode my bike around the course trying to kill time while he raced. it was a beautiful day, very few cars, and the course was surprisingly hard. (since my race started at noon, and we wanted to get home i didn't race)

i found this sign off of a dock next to lake livingston. i stayed there a while looking for the alligators, but never saw any. of course if i had seen one i would blog it.

then we came home to celebrate jon's bday and play with the kids some more. they wore us out! here are my parents wearing flowers in their hair with their two grandbabies. griffin is wearing a dora the explorer band aid on his face (even though he has no cuts), he's like nelly...bringing it back.

my brother and gracen just hanging out.

by the way griffin was hitting at tee ball practice i think he has been in touch with BALCO.

griffin running with marion jones-esq form.

ryan sharing his teething crackers.

gracen and i hanging out and cheering on mr. griffin.

for griffin's 4th birthday we all wore red shirts and went for an adventure to pick out a present at toys r us.

he sat in this and then waited for us to pull him, we never did.

then he took this fine ride for a spin around the helmets.

he ended up with some cars from the movie cars (obviously) and a motocross real life looking doll. could you imagine toy doll bike racers, that would be a hit with the kids.

yes, this is the size of a "slice" of pizza where we had lunch.

in houston you pay good money to sit in this. (it's the tollroad)

we left right when it started snowing, and now we are basking in 70 degrees and sunny.

(click on pic to read)

more like... don anus.

i worked my way up a muddy canyon to gold hill and when i crested the top this is what i saw: a wall of snow that i had to go through to get back home.

this is supposed to be what it looks like up there.

i am real happy to be getting out of here on thursday and to some 80 degree weather. i don't care if it is 100% gulf of mexico humidity. it beats the snow.

despite the crappiest easter weather of all time the tarkington clan got together for some home cooked breakfast and good times.

i drank a lot of coffee...

then i added a cocoa peep in the coffee and it was oh so good.

save the plague-spreading, patchy-haired, mangy, varmints. (i think this will help your property value go up, but i'm no expert)