This garden thing is great, lunch time

I am really enjoying this garden thing. The sprinklers have been doing great keeping all my plants alive. I give of few areas some extra water every few days, but really sprinklers are great. I have been coming home everyday and pulling any pesky weeds I find. Those vine weeds are the worst.
It was my brother's 30th bday on Monday (Happy Birthday Matt!) so at family dinner I got a few plant tips from my mom and sister.

• Cut off the flowers on my cilantro...check. 
• Dish soap and water in a spray bottle will get rid of my bugs...check. 
• And I can plant carrots every 2 weeks and keep harvesting all summer...check.

Today, was particularly fun. I came home for lunch and made a salad. But not just any salad, a delicious salad with delicious lettuce. Delicious lettuce that I grew in my little garden. Yes, that is right I am already harvesting some food. When my lettuce gets to a reasonable size I cut off the leaves for my dinner. It then grows back for me to cut again and again. I like this lettuce thing.

So lunch today was a steak salad with garden fresh lettuce, slivered almonds, crumbled feta cheese (my favorite), tomatoes (from the store, but soon to be replaced by garden fresh) and a little cube steak all topped with my favorite spicy chipotle dressing. I do say it was a great lunch. Don't you think?

The MS Ride and Number Seven

Half way to completing list item number seven. Saturday was my annual MS ride. This marks year six. I am sure I have talked about it a lot so I will only say this, my riding experiences haven’t always been positive (check out what I'm talking about here and here).

Joni and I at the start of the race

This year was a good one though. I rode with my friend Joni. She is so fun. We rode 40 miles through the beautiful Cache Valley and chatted about travel, boys, bikes, work, boys, bike pains and even tried to come up with names for our team. We have decided next year to create a team in her honor. Joni has MS and has been doing this ride for the last four years.  Next year you might see us sporting our team jerseys for team "Smedium" (sometimes you are not small or medium and you need a in-betweener) or "Hunt for the Cure" (sadly it might be taken) or something else awesome, but definitely not something lame like "Team Joni."

Four years and she still smiles

Six years and counting

Participation medals are the best

Tri This

Two years ago my friend Marne convinced me to compete in my first ever triathlon the Salem Spring Triathlon. And somehow she was able to convince me again this year. The only photographic evidence we have of the race was the finish line photo from Race Day photography. Marne, Billy and Brian ran with me across the finish line so that we would have a group photo for the event.

It was a really good race. I was disappointed in my swim (again). This time not because I was scared about putting my head in the water, but because I had only gone swimming once before the race and I was just really tired. I was able to make up time with shorter transitions as well as improving my bike and run times to come in overall 2 minutes faster than my previous year's time.
I couldn't have expected better since I only went swimming once, biking a handful of times (mostly mountain biking) and ran a dozen times.  That isn't very good training. I have signed up for an olympic length tri which is double the length of a sprint tri (1 mile swim, 25 mile bike and 6.2 mile run). The olympic tri held at Yuba Lake later this summer will be more difficult and I will have to train.  Therefore, training started Monday and I'm going to be really dedicated to it.

Bike People

I love my bikes. I haven't loved the rainy spring we have been having in Utah. But the sun has peeked through the clouds long enough for me to go on a few rides. I would consider myself a bike person. And I am not the only one. I follow a blog for an organization called People for Bikes.  It tries to make the world a little more bike friendly (even if it is to get old fat men in their trucks to stop trying to run us off the road). I really wanted to share this sweet video they created for last month's National Bike Month. (I know I am a little late.) And if you feel so inspired, you can sign the pledge and join "People for Bikes."