ENTERING THE TERRIBLE TWOS

I would like to first state that today Gilbert turned two and it was the worst (half) day I have yet to experience with him. He was either whining, crying, pouting, and simply putting on his best display of being two. But after he woke up from his nap he was doing better and I felt that I could make it through the family festivities scheduled for the remainder of the day.


It was a good thing that we are not yet doing birthday parties for him, since one at a time all of us have come down with a little flu. Being that the media has everyone so freaked out about the flu right now, I'm sure no parent would have wanted their child to be around Gilbert. Perhaps next year we will start having kid birthday parties for him with the golden rule of inviting the number of kids in correlation to the age of the birthday boy.


So what did we do? I love traditions, so we came up with the first one of always carving pumpkins on his birthday with one of the pumpkins being a carving of his age. Simple, but perfect for now. When he gets older we can elaborate on it. So we ordered pizza, had the traditional pumpkin spice cupcakes from the local bakery, carved pumpkins, and opened presents. I know he still doesn't really get it, but I could tell that he had an idea that it was something special and about him....especially when the presents came around.


What are his major milestones? He jumps in puddles, will give you knuckles, requests chopsticks for eating, asks to drive the car, hikes mountains, feeds the pets, brings dishes into the kitchen, says thank you and please, weighs 29 lbs, loves to play with worms from the garden, asks to see the moon every night, rides his balance bike, loves the bike trailer and jogger. Oh and we estimate he has about 600 words, is starting to speak in sentences, and repeats EVERYTHING you say, so be careful as to what you say.


Yes, he also insists on wearing his boots every day. Very Portland, actually very cyclocross of him!

PUMPKIN PATCH & FIRST DOUBLE CROSS WEEKEND

Wow what a weekend! Michael took Friday off and had Monday off as a holiday. Friday we were greeted with a package from Baltimore; C3 Athletes Serving Athletes gear. We headed up to Olympia to visit with friends, Derik & Michelle, and to race the first "double" cross weekend. But before being on the road North it was off to Sauvies Island and the pumpkin patch. The weather was perfect and it wasn't very crowded being that it was a Friday. Gilbert was as cute as ever and loved riding in the wagon with Michael pulling it. We managed to get enough pumpkins and still leave room for Gilbert in the wagon for the ride back to the farm.

But Gilbert was still stepping out on his own part of the way.While at the farm we saw and heard roosters, Michael grunted back and forth with the biggest pig I ever seen, and we ate carmel covered apples with the thickest layer of carmel ever...gotta' love it
After being at the pumpkin patch for the morning we headed up to Olympia for two nights. On Saturday we raced in Washington at the Oregon vs. Washington cyclocross race. We both had pretty good results with two eighth place finishes a peace. Well there were only ten in my category, but this year I am racing as a Cat 1/2. At the WA. State event was really deep with talent; I was at the start line with a pro to my left and right and thinking in my head,"Um, how did I get here?" So not bad for an almost rookie! Sunday morning we heading back into Oregon for our second race at Rainier High School. The venue was beautiful but the start was directly up hill and the finish was a really big hill that you had to climb on every lap. Ouch! I had a pretty bad start, but managed to fight my way up to a seventh place finish which put me into sixth place for the series. Michael had to start at the back of his pack of almost 60 racers since this was his first race of the series. He was doing really well and almost in the top 20 when he lost a rear spoke! A "quick" wheel change and he was back on. He passed many riders in his last laps but just enough to get back to where he was before the mechanical. Hopefully we have our mechanicals out of the way. But considering this was our first in nine races, we can't complain.

Monday we were in Portland and had a great family day with a little breakfast at the J&M Cafe, shopping at Anthropology & Icebreaker, and then some chillin out at the house. Very relaxing....for now. We still have many races ahead of us and are signed up for Cyclocross Nationals in Bend this December for our end of the season. But between now and then there will be a lot of rain, mud, racing, parking lot diaper changes, warm-ups, cool downs, packing, unpacking, and simply good times!

Here is a link to our series if anyone wants to check it out. www.crosscrusade.com

Oh and Gilbert is now breaking into sentences. His first one is "I want to drive the car." He says it almost every time we get in the car. Here is a picture of him in our friend's truck. It is going to be a long fourteen years.

ANGEL'S REST BUT YOU WON'T

Above is the first line of the description of the hike I did with Gilbert on Tuesday. It is a 2.2 mile hike up 1400 feet to Angel's Rest. This is a great training hike that I did as a run in the past. I think back then I did it in about 50 minutes. This time around it was about three hours, but just as rewarding. Gilbert hiked up at least half of it, only needing to be carried when airplanes got too close. (If you want to know about the airplanes, just ask me or Michael about the Red Dawn incident.) People were amazed when they saw him at the top of the hike and assumed that I must have carried him. But he is a trooper and seemed to get a thrill out of the view as we got higher and higher which was a motivator for him. The rest of the day he talked about the river, blue sky, and birds. So cute! He is my little mountain boy!