Birthday Parties

The kids both got invited to birthday parties on Saturday. Isaac went to Paul Frampton III's at Grand Prix. And, Lexy went to Emma's party at The Ridges clubhouse.

Emma's party was a Fancy Nancy party. There were a bunch of little girls in fancy dresses, with their hair done up, and little clicky dress shoes. Balloons, healthy birthday treats, nails painted and stories read. She had a wonderful time.

Here is a quick shot of Lexy and Emma. Happy 6th Birthday Emma.

Isaac went to Paul's birthday party at Grand Prix. Paul and his parents were sure glad that Isaac came to the party. With the 3" of snow on the ground there weren't many people showing up. In fact, Isaac was to only church/scouts kid there. They raced cars, played games for tickets, ate pizza, cake and ice cream. Then they went upstairs and played lazer tag.

Isaac LOVED the lazer tag.

The blue team kick the tar out of the red team.

Happy birthday Paul...!!

Funerals and Reading

I am sure that most of the folks that visit this blog know that Amy's Uncle Brad died last week. Amy and Isaac went to Utah for the funeral. In fact Amy spoke at the funeral. It was pretty tough for her. She took Isaac for emotional support.

Here are a few pictures from their trip on Saturday night. This is their plane getting ready to leave Atlanta, GA in route to Salt Lake City. That trip from east to west to is brutal.Isaac isn't much of a reader. We made him pack 2 books to read when he got sick of the video games, etc. In the airport he begged Amy to buy him the new "Wimpy Kid" book. Turns out he loved the book. He read 60 pages in the first 2 days.

This is him getting started on the book in the Atlanta airport.
Then he was still into the book driving around on Sunday in Payson.
Keep reading Isaac... I will buy you a hundred books if you just read them.

Earrings

Lexy finally got to wear her ice skate earrings. Her Momma and Isaac went to Utah for the week and we decided to go to church on Sunday. She wanted to dress up, she kept grabbing more things and I kept telling her, "Yes, you can wear that." She grabbed her new ice skate earrings that she got for Christmas. We soaked them, and use ointment when we put them on her.

Here she is...

She was sooo excited the get to wear them. After church she had lunch with them on and we changed back to her normal earrings to go to skating lessons. Yes, we soaked the normal earrings and used ointment when we put them back on.

Isaac's Shifting Lever

I took these pictures the other day, I didn't get them as good as I wanted but I was using a camera phone. I was inspired by JRuss to show these pictures because he has some similar photos from his un-motorbike. He broke a crank with those powerful commuter legs. If you have the time check out his technical discussion about aluminum failure.

So, this is the gear selector lever that Isaac broke when we were riding on the Hatfield and McCoy Trail last weekend.

I did see the small cracks when it fell off earlier in the ride. I knew it wasn't going to last. But, when your on the trail you have to make due. I have already ordered another one for him. I hope it gets here soon, we need to ride again.

Even though this picture is blurry you can see the light and dark area in the fracture that JRuss is talking about.

Ice Walls

These are some pictures of the cliffs formed by the big cut areas along Corridor G by our house. The water from melting snow and the seeps in the ground comes out along the cliffs where it freezes into these giant icicles. They are pretty cool to see.


Thanks Amy for grabbing these pictures for me.

Lexy's Zuca

Lexy's big Christmas present from Santa Clause is finally the way she wanted it. Santa didn't bring the right color, so we found someone on eBay to trade the gray frame for the PINK one that she wanted. The Zuca Bag is the figure skaters version of the dirtbike OGIO bag. All the cool kids have one. Really, the Zuca is set up perfect for the skating scene, tons of great compartments, wheels to drag it, and it's a portable seat too. Lexy has been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for the pink frame to come in. Today it did...

It's a seat.

Perfect compartment for ice skates. Lots of pouches in the door.

Wheels and an extendable handle. (The second set of wheels are to help the little girls pull the bag over a curb.)

And the WHEELS LIGHT UP...!!!

And this bag in airplane carry on compliant. She loves this bag, it should give her years of use.

Riding on the Hatfield and McCoy Trail

Isaac and I got an invitation to go riding on the Hatfield and McCoy Trail with some guys that we met a the Tyler Mountain Track. Steve and Jacob are a lot of fun to ride with. They ride on the trails a lot and know them quite well. It has been in the upper 40's and low 50's most all week, even though it's been wet, it was plenty warm enough to ride. The trails were pretty muddy and it took Isaac a bit to remember how to ride his 65, the clutch and shifting still are not quite natural for him. A few times he got frustrated about stalling the bike and not being able to get it started again. He was having trouble getting the bike into neutral. Turns out his shifting lever was loose and fell off. We got that fix the best that we could with Steve's trail tools.

Here is a picture of us on a creek crossing trail. It was tough riding. There were new fallen trees on the trail, 3' deep puddles, branches all over the trails. In the end, we had a blast and it cleaned most of the mud off the bikes.
Here is a picture of Isaac and Jacob by there bikes. We rested at this spot on the trail. It is right after two spots that Steve carried the boys bikes over trees that were too big for the 65's to get over. Isaac says that he loves creek riding now.
A few hundred yards up the trail Isaac was following behind Jacob and decided that it looked better to go to the right instead of the left where Jacob and Steve when. I was behind him and got a great view of his front wheel drop over a log and then the whole bike flip up in the air over Isaac. He endo'ed and face planted into the muddy water. I quickly laid my bike down and lifted his off of him. Then pick him up out of the water. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, that's cold!" The water was pretty cold. I got his bike off of the log and on we went.

The boys took some time to climb trees and splash in the water for a bit while we took a break.

Shortly after we got out of the creek crossing trail we headed up a hill and Isaac didn't follow. I looked back and he was having a tough time with his bike. I when back down and his shifting lever had broke off. He was stuck in 2nd gear. That make riding a bit tougher, but it taught him how to feather the clutch when the bike bogged down. I got him started down the trail behind Steve and Jacob and jumped back on my bike... 3 min later I figured out it wouldn't start because the gas was off, again. (When you lay your bike on the ground you need to turn off the gas, or it will drain out.) So, I was on the hunt, on trails that I didn't know, and it was getting dark. I followed tracks in the mud for a long time, and then started feeling like I could get out of there. I ended up beating the others to the truck by about 5 min. They took a short cut because it was easier with Isaac limping his bike. Steve was great with Isaac, very patient, safe and knew the right things to do and say. I didn't worry about them at all.

Isaac figured out where the best place to be after a hard day of riding... In a giant, hot bubble bath. Except he was making a funny face.
We are both very sore, but it was worth it. I can't wait to go riding with those guys again.