Buying footballs, toy cars, action figures, and even boxing gloves is something I've done as a Daddy. But today I bought a Barbie for the first time.

When Kid #1 was brewing in his Mom's belly, I was often asked if I wanted a boy or a girl. Considering I didn't have any kids at the time, I really and truly did not care. Ultimately I wanted some of each, but at the time, it seemed like a downer to folks when I said that it didn't matter.

Add to this that through Kid's #1-3, we never knew what flavor they were going to be until they were born. To me, it is one of the last veistiges of "Santa" that we get. Anyway, that we've held out on knowing whether it was XX or XY until game day has been part of the fun. Sure, it meant the baby room would have to wait to be decorated, but when Kid #1 was born, there wasn't going to be a "Baby's Room" anyway, and once Kid #2 was born, it didn't matter because they were going to share a room anyway...but I digress.

I've never worried about sissying up my boys or making sure they had manly boy's things. It pretty much works out that way, but it has never really been a focus. If my boys turn out like Daveed, I'll be blessed. Today, however, I thoroughly enjoyed having a girl.

Normally the toy department is a source of stress for me, much like going to Chuck E Cheese, Super Walmart, or having a kid's birthday party, but today, I had the Barbie aisle to myself, and I took the time to sort out which Barbie is best. We had twelve dancing princess Barbies, which would all fit the bill. There was a horse riding Barbie. A ballerina Barbie. A beach Barbie...ALL of the Barbies seemed to be the "right" one. On one hand, it seemed like a slam dunk that I couldn't get this wrong, but on the other, I wanted to put some thought into it too. Among the offerings of Barbies was a Sleeping Beauty Barbie, a Snow White Barbie (if I could have found the corresponding DVD, I would have picked this), and Belle Barbie (of Beauty and the Beast). That everything was pink and princess didn't even hurt my teeth.

Back and forth three times from the toys to the DVD's, which were at opposite ends of the store. Couldn't find Sleeping Beauty or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I settled on making my own gift pack with Belle and Beauty and the Beast.

Christmas morning is special with kids at all, but I'm looking forward to seeing my daughter's reaction on Christmas morning.

The Wall

Ths is the wall in my office facing the driveway. Chloe has put jerseys we've won in frames, and optimistially set up another ten frames on the wall facing the pasture. The ones shown here are:

1. TRP jersey signed by Alison Dunlap the year she won World's. It says, "Christian, good luck racing. I'm yours forever, Alison" I made up part of that.
2. 2001 TX State Champ Track. Me.
3. 2002 Texas Cup Champ. Mama, cyclocross
4. 2003 24r hours of Adrenaline Champ. Team: Me, Troy, Byrd, Jaime, and Erick T.
5. 2006 TX State Champ Time Trial. Noah
6. 2006 TX State Champ Criterium. Noah
7. 2006 TX State Champ Track. Noah
8. 2006 TX State Champ Road Race. Noah
9. 2006 Texas Cup Champion Road. Noah
10. Blank, but it is for 2006 Texas Cup Champion Cyclocross. Noah
11. 1997 Hotter-n-Hell Champ. Me.

I'm sure this happens to you all the time...

...but it is the first it has happened to me.

20 days in a row. That's my current streak of being on the bike. But today it has been in the 20's and snow/wet/ice. I opted out and rode the rollers to keep that streak alive. Now, I realize that this quick story requires a visual, and I'm sorry that all of you haven't been out here yet, so bear (bare?) with me.

I'm in my dining room, which has a wall of windows that looks out across our front yard and to the county road. Across the road is a pasture that holds some very fine horses, but it is way dark here at nght and I can't see them. Besides, I have the light on in the dining room so I can see my slimming reflection in the window while I ride the rollers. I ride until I look like a bike racer or until I can't stand the site anymore. Took about an hour before I got sick of it, but that's another story.

So, I'm rolling along on the track bike on the rollers (it was closest when I was grabbig for a bike), and after long enough to be nice and sweaty, but not so long that I wanted off the bike, I saw something very big walk across in front of the window. Now, there are critters out here aplenty, so a racoon, skunk, rabbit, and so forth is a daily thing, but this was big. Big like a horse big.

Stopped pedaling quickly because I thought maybe it was a reflection of one of my kids standing behind me or something, but everyone was upstairs. I rode another minute or two and got a better look when the creature walked across a patch of snow, which gave just the right amount of light and contrast for me to make out that it was a horse. Both of the horses actually.

Off the bike and ran outside into the dark night with a sweaty un-d-shirt, bike shorts, and cycling shoes to protect me agains the 26 degrees, dark, snow and ice. I had to hurry because the front gate was open (as was the back gate, obviously at this point). Turns out the horses really like being next the comparably warm house, and it takes a lot of apples to get them back to the pasture. Or maybe they were just messing with me because of how I was dressed.

Locked the gate down tight, quick waddled back inside, remounted the aluminum steed quite refreshed, and busted out the last 30 minutes. Nobody here even woke up or stirred. Either I'm good, or they were watching out the bedroom window.

First Snow

It began snowing a few minutes ago. The first two pictures are of the pasture taken from my office windows. It looks funny to me how the snow is gathering on the trail me and Noah use when riding mtn bikes here. The last picture was taken from under the arbor out our front door.

The Grandkids

This is either funny in a knowingly way, funny in that "I'm glad that isn't MY kid" way, or this is an advertisement for birth control.

Tomato Paste with 57 ingredients

So far this month we've spent the following weekends as such:

Nov 2-6- Terlingua

Nov 10-12- GSTz Trainning Camp #1 (based out of here)

Nov 16-17- 100 mile team ride, then date weekend with Mama (Thank you Lauren-on-Thursdays)

Nov 22-25- Went to Longview for Thanksgiving

Also during November we've launched the Lone Star Works (womens) Racing Team.

On top of this, Oct and Nov have been the biggest months of signing on new athletes for me. And we've started Monday evening plyometric workouts and Tuesday nights out at the track.

WHEW!

So, I'm gonna do some photo blogging here to get back up to speed. Wish I had some pics of the GSTz camp. I may have some pics of date night, but they aren't suitable for family viewing.

Let's start with Terlingua (I'll post up the rest later)...

We drove out to the Big Bend area to see Nono and some friends. It was good to get away for a few days, and down there is about as "away" as one can possibly get.

Noah and I coming down after climbing Mt Leon. I don't have any pictures of the actual climb. Our friend, Scott, took most of these. He met us out at the mtn, though he took a much more reasonable path.

This is a shot of the house taken from up somewhere on Leon Mtn. We came down to this spot to meet Scott. Best I can figure after looking at a map and an aerial view is that this is about a kilometer away from the house.

This is after we came all the way down the mtn. I post this one to remind me to write about the actual climb.

It is beautiful out there.

This is Scott and Petra. They are friends of ours who live down in San Patricio.

La Leona (my Father-in-law's ranch) is the perfect place to do nothing or to get as "out there" as you want. Here's the group of us hanging out at one of the limestone pools.

Noah and Scott in the pools.

In some parts of the creek there isn't much water for swimming.

But the hike to the next spot is always worth it.

Scott and the supervisors at the grill.

Scott is the grill MASTER.

FIX ME TURKEY POT PIE!

Speaking of food, we arrived at the Chili Cook Off World Championships just as it was announced that it was time to turn in chili for judging.

This is the group of us looking like tourons on "The Porch" in the ghost town in Terlingua.

We rounded ourselves up for a family pic in the star pit at the house. That's not a fake background.

I set a world record

BS. This is BS because I know for a fact that there are at least 2000 Williams at any high school football game in East Texas.

Quotes of the weekend

Pretty tired still, so I'm just gonna post up some quotes from #1, #2, and #3 from the weekend.

#1-- "No it wasn't me."

#2-- #2 and #3 have a thing they do at school that we call "what letter?" Basically, someone says a letter, and then the kids come up with words that start with that letter.

After playing it for a few minutes, we were on the letter "K." "Kuh kuh KICK. Kuh kuh KITE. Kuh kuh Kangaroo. Daddy, a kangaroo hops!" Then I said, what about "L." #2 then said, "No 'L's' don't hop."

#3-- Every now and again we have to ask #3 if he did big job in his diaper. Sometimes the evidence is stacked against him, so we know the answer in advance, but we either like the asking of the obvious or we think it is a stage of potty training to be aware that one's pants are full of crap. So, smelling the evidence while driving home, I asked #3, "Did you do big job?" #3 responded, "No. It was Noah."

Tom

Boonen does't live in the States.

I'm such a disappointment to Kid #2

because I don't know everything. We were pretty certain that I did, but today I had no answer for her. That is, unless someone here can help me. So, what color is turtle throw up, anyway?

No Shame

At all

Another Buddy pic

This is a picture of Buddy back when he played football with ROF May.

Buon Compleanno

3 years old!

Sleeping Beauty

I dig going to the ballet. I love going to the ballet with Reanie. We went to see Sleeping Beauty on Saturday. one thing...Sleeping Beauty is a 3-hour ballet with four intermissions. Reanie hung tough, though, and we're looking forward to the Nutcracker coming up soon.

What we need here...

...are some chickens, our own goats, a couple pigs. Why? Because nobody I know misses training rides because of Brucellosis.

Sounds a little something like this.

Another State Champ in the Family

Troy's father passed away just one week ago. He and Roxanne are pregnant with their first child. And today he won the State Road race. We love you, brother!

more Noah

This is a video done up by Steve, who is the father of Austin and Hunter (the boy in white getting a medal), who are new teammates for next year. You can tell that Hunter is thinking "Good grief, I can't wait to get out of this age group" when Noah can't seem to dress himself. First Bonnie tries to help, then the boy, Connor, who came in second, finally helps Noah with something he should have sorted out in preschool. Good fun! (1 min, 9 sec)

4 for 4 in 2006

2006 State Criterium Champion
2006 State Time Trial Champion
2006 State Track Champion
and now...

2006
State Road Race Champion !

In my belly

My wife is an excellent cook. She has a degree in food science, worked as a chef in some fine restaurants, trained as a chef in Italy, and even specialized in pastries for a spell. All that said, I still like fried Spam sandwiches, complete with mayonnaise on white bread. It isn't my first choice for sustenance, mind you, but I doubt I'd turn one down if offered.

This morning I took the POSS2 for donuts. Hadn't been there in some time. But seeing as Kid #1 and I are leaving for a bike race today, I wanted to give them a treat of sorts. Here's the thing, though...I didn't get a donut for myself. That ain't no baby step!

Of Moms and Leprechauns

This is a picture of the Church in Limerick where my step-Mother, Pat, was baptized. She and my Dad are in Ireland looking for information about her birth family. But I've also noticed that the price of Guinness has gone up here at home since they've been there.

Eller won't be a State RR this weekend

Lynna, Katie, and Randy are all doing well.
Eller is a Daddy. She is in very good hands.

7 1/4 lbs, which, I believe, is the same as a six pack.

I miss you

I miss the guy standing between the two dorkball players.

Texas State Fair

Buddy and I had never been. Now we have. Neither of us ate a deep-fried snickers, and we don't like cotton candy. Both of us like to have an afternoon nap, and we can get cranky if it doesn't happen. We both prefer to be pulled around the Fair in a wagon. We both love getting behind the wheel of the General Lee. This was also the first time either of us had been on a ferris wheel.

Right next to the police blotter

Downtown Denton Criterium

Done. Well, it will be as soon as the Texas Cup results are sent in to TXBRA.
Now we're already working on next year.

Woomph

It looked like this a year ago today. Well, I'm not in the ditch wondering which way is up, but other than that it looked a lot like this.

That was a fun game

As many of you know, Apple Granny (Mama's Grandmother) has been living with us this summer. Well, Summer is about up, so Granny is heading back to Tennessee.

Buddy on vocals

sing it, Buddy!

Gimme a beat

Guess how long Noah has been taking drum lessons...

Date Night

every once in awhile Miss Becky wants her and Lawson to be reminded what it would be like to have more little people in the house, so she'll watch our kids while Mama and I grab some dinner and talk about the kids without them being there.

Last night we used a 2x4 to get evevryone in the Jeep and took the kids over. From there Mama and I went to the Angelika to catch a flick. Before the movie we grabbed some sushi at a spot around the corner (can't remember the name. the place was "fine.').

Then we watched Little Miss Sunshine. Not sure where it will end up as a favorite of mine. Solid top ten, for sure. Don't wait for the DVD; catch this one in the theater. Since it is a indie show, it'll make you feel all artsy and smart. Or maybe that was the sushi. Whatever.

Champ Champ 2nd

My buddy and teammate, Robbie, won the RR and Crit at Hotter-n-Hell. Robbie is one of the most deserving guys to have a weekend like this.













Noah took 2nd in the Junior 10-14. I made him put his clothes on for the awards presentation.
(Thank for the pix, Kyle and Daveed.)

Bootleg Sittin' In

Everyone is different but me. During the opening miles of any group ride you can hear riders talking about how their kids are doing this and that so they can’t train, how work is getting in the way of the miles, and anything else that sounds like an excuse.

It is just part of it. We’re all unique in just how much our significant others, kids, and jobs will let us pursue our racing and riding passion, but regardless, we all have to make do with what we can, and most of us wish we could do more. But reaching my potential on the bike ranks somewhere behind doing the dishes, making sure the kids are bathed, and dropping off a copy of my proof of insurance to the county court to make a traffic ticket go away. Racing and training has to fit in among helping with a science fair project and watching the last half of the movie you started with your wife last week. Training has to wait until the important stuff is done, like looking for Barbie’s missing leg.

That was yesterday, anyway. To justify shaving our legs, we make do. Afterall, that’s the real reason we race bikes.

4:17am. I wake up with the diaper end of one of my kids in my face. There is much love in my heart for Kid #3, but that still isn’t how I want to wake up. The coffee machine is in my office, right next to our bedroom. It is set to start making coffee ready at 4:30am, when I get up. That is the smell that I want to help me out of bed. But just as I get #3 aimed in another direction and settle in for that last bit of sleep, I realize that I’m not getting that 13 minutes of sleep that was pampered away from me.

I turn off the alarm, brush my teeth, wash my face, and grab my cycling clothes.

4:30am. Just as the first cup of coffee is crucial to a successful morning, this is an important time of the process, as I need to make sure that I don’t wake up anyone. The deal is that if I wake them up before 5:30am, then it is my problem. Meaning, no ride.

I made way to the stairs with my cycling clothes. Getting ready happens downstairs now to minimize the noise. Granny, who lives with us, happened to be up, “Good morning,” she says. I wanted to “shush” her, but you don’t “shush” Grannies.

“Good morning,” I whisper.
“Are you going to ride?” she asked as I stood there naked holding my cycling clothes.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be back in a bit to make breakfast.”
“I hope you make muffins this morning.”
“Just for you, I will,” I sincerely replied.

Once in the garage, I grabbed the water bottles, which I forgot to fill the night before. I took them out of the “cup holders,’ as Kid #1 calls them, and went to the kitchen. I reached into the refrigerator for some lemon-lime flavored stuff and heard a thump behind the door.

4:35am. I had knocked down Kid #3 with the refrigerator door.

He stood up without fussing and asked for milk. Then he said, “I wango biride,” Not that I’m opposed to taking him in the trailer, but I...Well, yeah, I was opposed to that right then. I took him back upstairs and back to bed. He seemed content.

While getting his cup, I noticed that the dirty dishes were still in the sink from dinner. This is the result of the game where nobody does them to see if the other person will do them. I’m pretty good at that game, except that today it’s a thing that falls under “If Mama Ain’t Happy, Ain’t Nobody Happy.” Bike riding comes after dish washing in the household list of priorities. Plus there’s the whole “If Mama ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy” thing.

4:49am. With a relatively clear conscience, I go grab some miles. Today was a good day what with the bug count being pretty low and it not being a trash day.

5:54am. The last half mile of my ride was filled with “S” turns. The road isn’t all that twisty, but I could tell that the computer was going to end up at 19.8 miles, and 20.0 is much better than 19.8.

I put the bike in the garage. To keep things quiet, I used the shower outside. We don’t have neighbors so only cows were offended. Once inside, I turned on the oven to get things started for breakfast.

From there I went upstairs to get dressed and found Kid #2 having a tea party with her stuffed animals. She was then enlisted to help me with making muffins.

6:15am. Kid #2, Barbie and I made muffins for breakfast. You can’t tell anyone, because my friends and family don’t know I cook or bake, but these muffins are made from scratch and are pretty much the best muffins ever. It is way more fun to make a mess with a three year old when it doesn’t just come from a single box of mix.

6:43:am. With the muffins in the oven, it was time to turn attention to getting the kids ready for school. Kid #1’s school wasn’t to start for a week, so he pretended there wasn’t commotion going on around as Kids #2 and #3 were readied for their school. 7:05am. We get the herd moved from the upstairs pasture to the downstairs pasture. I cut up some fruit for the kids, which sounds healthy and all, but it really just buys me a few minutes while we wait for the muffins to cool, otherwise we have to spend 30 minutes of blowing on them because they will be “hot” no matter how cool they are.

7:25am. Kid #1 was filling 5 gallon buckets with water for the younger trees around here. While he was doing that, I was loading Kid #2, Barbie, Kid #3, Thomas the Tank Engine, Gordon, and this Hershey stuffed animal we brought back from a trip to Nationals this summer. We cram all of this in the Jeep each day. It is part of the routine. Sort of like airing up the tires before a ride.

8:05am. As I pulled back into the driveway (my office is at home), Kid #1 was still hauling buckets out to the trees, so I carried a few to help get him along.

8:23am. Worked.

11:35am. The pile of cycling clothes had been ranked as a climb by the Tour de France organizers, which meant it was time to throw those in the washing machine.

11:44am. Granny gets a nice smoked turkey sandwich on a bagel. I used pickle relish instead of pickles to give it some sweetness. Then we have a piece of chocolate, just to make sure.

12:08pm. To close the deal on the Downtown Denton Criterium, I have one more meeting to convince a few folks that having us there won’t be bad for business.

2:11pm. Worked. Well, I got caught up in a barrage of email where my friends make fun of each other. But I did get some work done too.

3:37pm Checked the TXBRA forum, wrote a response to some jackhole’s post, but deleted it before I could hit submit.

3:47pm Wrote a response again, because I wasn’t quite ready to let it go.

3:51pm. Deleted it again and promised myself to never look at the TXBRA forum ever again.

5:00pm. We were running late because I had to check TXBRA one last time, but I took Kid #1 to practice and picked up Kids #2 and #3, and then went back and picked up Kid #1 from practice. And we made it home just in time to see Mama pulling in the driveway from work.

6:30pm. Kissed Mama when she got out of the car.

7:15pm. Dinner. Mama trained as a chef in Italy. We like dinner. A lot.

8:00pm. Everyone under 6ft tall had to take a bath. I took a shower.

8:19pm. Everyone put on their pj’s and went downstairs to read books with Granny.

8:42pm. Kids #1 through #3 are put in bed.

8:47pm, 8:56pm, 9:02pm, 9:11pm, and 9:29pm. Kids #2 and #3 are put back in bed.

9:30pm Spend some quality time with Mama.

9:31pm Checked TXBRA again.

9:49pm Swore out loud and swore again to never check TXBRA.

9:52pm. Read something that didn’t have anything at all to do with cycling.

10:10pm. Remembered to go fill up water bottles and charge battery for the headlight.

10:18pm. Lights turned out.

10:19pm. Kiss Mama again. Fall asleep sometime after that.

1:17am. Remembered that the cycling clothes were still in the washing machine. I took them out and put them on the clothesline outside.

4:17am. I wake up with the diaper end…

Buon Compleanno

Happy 11th to Noah!

He gave himself a birthday present by winning the Junior race at the Wednesday Night Crits in Fort Worth too.

In his bithday suit playing with the playstation guitar thing he got for his birthday from Reanie and Buddy.

What's that on my leg!?

I'm wearing pants. There's a bike race gonna happen in Denton in a month, and I'm playing the man behind the curtain. Part of this gig is (yet another) meeting this morning with the Mayor, the Chamber of Commerce, the Police Chief, and so forth. And because of that, I had to get dressed.

As I've been sitting here punching on the computer, I've felt a little weird. Some sort of cold/flu is going 'round our house, and I figured that was it, but it just occured to me...

I'm wearing pants for the first time in several months.

Weird.

Not Hampsters Too!

Just how far does doping go?

School is Closed Today

So I have the POSS2. I loaded up the bouncy house and maragrita machine to get it back to Randy's (he'll bring it out and pick it up, but I wanted to make it easy on him). The kid's school is closed for a couple days while they get ready for the Fall term, so it was all three offspring stuffed in there among the blower, mixing jugs, cart, bouncy house, and frozen drink machine.

Back at the house, I tried to get some work done while the kids watched some Pooh movie, but it wasn't happening. After that, I tried to get them to nap, but it wasn't happening.

Once I gave up on that, I went into their room to surrender, and Reanie had all kinds of makeup and perfume out, spilled, and on everything, including Buddy. So, thank you to all y'all who brought that stuff for birthday presents. It cleans up pretty easy, except for the glitter stuff and perfume.

Buddy, on the other hand, looks pretty. And (I'm not kidding) he took a healthy big job that was pink. He crapped...THIS COLOR. OK, so it is a little purplish too. Not really mauve. Certainly not an earth tone.

Buon Compleanno mi Bella

Buddy Sings

About diminutive arachnids.

You Had to be There, But...

...I'm telling it anyway--

We get to school and I'm pulling the kids from the Jeep. We go out the side since the top and sides are never on the thing and it is easier than moving the seat up. The kids can take off their own seatbelts, so when we park, they queue up for de-jeeping. They are standing on the back seat with a hand on the roll bar.

Reanie was first, but as I reached for her, she said, "Wait, Daddy. My panties are in my BT." While that is enough for something of a chuckle, what was really funny is that Buddy then bent down behind her to see her BT and what it looked like. Head turned sideways, hands on his knees. At least that's what I guess he was doing.

Where are Nationals Going to be in 2012?

Any bike racer knows how important it is to find a good dumper before a race.
















Game time.

Excellent Coaching

I TOLD you to eat your peas!

Actually, this one gets filed under, "That's What You Get For Jumping on the Bed."



























I posted the first pic for dramatic effect. She's a tough girl. This first pic was the tail end of a shot where she was sticking her tongue out at me. This shot was of her asking to see it.
















Mama likes this picture, so I put it up here too. The cut probably could have used a stitch or two due to how deep it is/was, but it was bed time for the kids and I wanted to watch a movie.

Might Need a USB or Something for That

Lately I've been making muffins for breakfast. Sweet corn, or oat bran, with berries, with nuts, zucchini, banana, tahini, yogurt...I've been getting my muffin on. Makes for easy breakfasts. Takes some time to put it together since I'm not using a mix, but I get to wear the apron. It works out well, because we don't really have time to family-style the breakfasts on weekdays, and because I can stick a muffin in a kid's hand, stuff them in the Jeep and take them to school.

The mornings are "my" time with the little ones. We generally ease into the day. Since I get to the office when I say I get to the office, we may take our time with kicking the soccer ball or whatnot. This morning was one of those mornings, except that we had to make sure to get to school in time for Reanie's ballet class.

Mama called while I was herding the herd to the car. She talked to Granny a bit, and then Reanie got the phone. I didn't think the muffins were all that great this morning, but evidently Reanie did. She told Mama all about them and even held the phone up to them so Mama could see. Then she tried to send a muffin through the phone.

At that point I really thought it best to take her to school because there was work still to be done, evidently. Then again, maybe I should consider what school is actually teaching our children.

Couple more videos hiding on the camera from Nationals

Here's a quick video of Noah warming up on the trainer for the 2K finals at Nationals. Probably only interesting for Grandparents and the full-on cycling dorks.

Spin


And this one makes me so proud and breaks my heart at the same time. You don't get to see the 3/4 of a lap where it started, but you can see how it ended up for Noah.

Swarmed





Road rash on both arms (and knees).

Home.

3887.2 miles driven
42 meals eaten out
14.5 days
7 races
6 pounds I lost

2 homesick bikies

2 crashes
1 top ten finish
Countless laughs

10th

More later. He went for it big time. Came up short, but he absolutely went for it.

Speed bump personified

This is the boy Noah found on the ground in front of him yesterday. It was cool to hear them talk about the fall and what they thought happened. Both advanced to the finals of the 2K tonight.

Today Noah Sampled the Other Side of the Track

He was in the front group, and it looked to be a lock to make it to the finals, but the rider ahead of him went down, and Noah couldn't avoid it. So he crashed. It was a good one--over the bars and everything. Broked his helmet and spread the rash around to multiple body parts. He's acting really goofy right now, but that's mostly because he's ten and because Grandaddy arrived today.

Wish this pics showed his war wounds better. He's kinda proud of them.



He's racing tomorrow. Last one for these Nats.