Ha Ha Doctor King

"So what does he know? He just said I can't run or wear shoes. Not prohibited from riding the orange 4wheeler or the black one in the snow. The Honda CRF 450R comes out of the box and I won't be bike-less anymore. One crash and my parents shipped my Yamaha YZ250 down the road packing. Check out http://www.motoutah.com/ to see that even though I raced only 6 races this year and DNF-ed 2 of them (broken chain left me sitting in the desert for six hours and the other time, stupid rock), I am 6th place overall 250 Novice for Utah 2009. Signing off." JAMES

Who Needs Toes, Anyway?

This is what happens, friends, when you race the Wendover 100 National Desert Dirt Bike race and hit a rock: Three days later the orthopedic doctor pulls on one of your four fractured toes until he (the doctor) can't stand it anymore, so he grabs the pliers with the pointy tips and poked those through your toe and lifts with all his might for 20 minutes while your parents and brother ooh and aah at the x-ray image. Then you get to wear a big black boot for six weeks and can't race, play the final games of your freshman year of MC football, or even ride your bike.

You can, however, ride rides at Lagoon! "Frightmares was scary", says Maren, "because we saw a tall guy with long arms and long red hair who went around scaring people." We rode just about everything in big-people land, like Colossus, Jet Star II, THE TRAIN (that was Dad's favorite), and the Samuri. The best was bumper cars and the Tilt-a-HURL! The worst was the $50 Subway lunch deal.

Is It August Already?

Why is it that summer used to last three months and now it seems to zoom by in minutes? We went school shopping yesterday and I wonder where our summer went! In a few weeks we will celebrate two birthdays and the kids (and I) will be back to school. Not stealing the thunder of my annual Christmas newsletter, I hereby post a few summer highlights so my sister-in-laws will stop nagging me to keep this blog current . . . for another 4 months. On our summer vacation we went camping, dual sport-ing, working, swimming, ATV-ing, Nibley royalty-ing, scout/girls camping, jeeping, and yard working.

Proof That This Lunatic Snowboards Too!

I thought I'd post what we do the other half of the year: well, at least from my point of view. First you spend zillions of dollars to re-outfit everyone who grew since last winter: Dragon goggles for James (plus new helmet, pants, coat, gloves, socks...), pink boots with twisty-knob laces to match pink bindings for Maren, and the list goes on. Then you crowd into the Suburban with six snowboards, six (if friends don't come too)bundled bodies, enough food to have kept the Donner Party alive for years (beef jerky, cupcakes, cuponoodles, hot chocolate, oranges, trail mix), and sing "All the Single Ladies" by Beyonce at the top of your lungs through Logan Canyon. At the Beaver Mountain parking lot you frantically scramble to catch up with the kids as they SPRINT for the lift. Then you pray that you don't crash and die getting on or off the lift, only to crash and die (or at least crash and get really, really stuck in the powder in the trees if listen to "OK, Mom, follow me!") on the slope. Either way your cheeks and nose have frostbite, your knees and thighs are BURNING like you've just done a marathon, and then some idiot skier comes flying by you covering you head-to-toe in snow-spray. . .

Seriously, I am having fun learning to snowboard. The kids laugh when it takes me an hour just to make one run (they timed me once), but I promise I will keep at it until I can keep up with them and look like I know what I'm doing at the same time.