bowl of cherries

Happy mother's day!  Our celebration was enriched by having Jill's parents in town for the weekend.  Rick and I cooked a chicken/bratwurst/potato spear lunch, and we ate outside on this gorgeous day.  

Jill and I also took advantage of the grandparents' visit by taking a date tonight.  We were the only guests eating outside at Milo's, so we felt quite special.

 Clara and Janny are growing so fast.  Janny uses grunts and pointing with fingers to communicate her commands.  Just before bedtime, she gets really giggly and we all crack up.  Last night she would toddle to grandma and then try to run away except that grandma grabbed her shirt.  She laughed, fell down, and repeated.  And repeated.

Clara is getting more demanding (I would say unreasonable except that she is 2).  Sometimes we can convince her to do what we wish (go to bed (eventually), stop pushing Janny, put toys away) and sometimes not (e.g., eating food that she doesn't like (that she's never tried), using the potty).  She is unrelenting at asking bigger kids to play with her at the playground.  Almost always, she talks them into it.

 Jill spotted this sand box at the Lutheran church's rummage sale this week.  The box was $5, and the sand was $12 at Meier.  Money well spent already.  There was a nicer sandbox available on Montclair St today.  I'm thinking of you, Olsons.

 I was super excited about our cherry tree last year.  One day it was full of cherries and the next, it was nearly barren.  I maybe ate 3.  It's looking good again this year, so I grabbed some while I could.  They aren't fully ripe, so hopefully the birds and bugs will leave a few for us after a couple of days.

Our temporarily homeless friend is no longer homeless as of tomorrow.  She is subletting an apartment for the summer.  During the last few weeks, she and her son have been staying with a family in town that is part of a temporary shelter group.

Tour de C-U

For the first time in 2 years, I pinned on a number and turned the pedals in anger.  Wild Card Cycling (my club) and Scarlet Fire (the fast local club) put on the Tour de Champaign-Urbana; crits on both Sat and Sun.  

The early spring training camp gave me a decent start on fitness for the year, but since then I have been doing very short intervals less often than I should.  But I'm in decent shape, and I survived both races.

Officially, I got a dnf on Sat because I failed to make sure that my number was seen in the sketchy camera.  Unofficially, I got 8th, 2 places behind Thomas (below).  I possibly could have gotten all the way up to 7th, but a car entered the course with 2 1/2 laps to go.  We neutralized that lap, and I got squeezed towards the back of the pack at the restart.  I gave all I had to move up in the remaining laps.  I passed no one with my feeble sprint.

 It was hot for the first time all year.  But that didn't slow the race any or dampen our local crowds, led by the courageous Janny.

 There was a strong (for bike racing) TCBC contingency on both days.  Here is the Sat group.  I saw 2 other families on Sunday, not including Jill and the kids.

 Mark brought his family back to town for the races.  He used to race with us cat 4's 2 years ago before he decided to take racing seriously.  He's now doing well in the cat 2 realm.

I learned about my dnf on Sunday morning, so I made sure to check my result at the end of that race.  During the race, I rode to my limit, having nothing left for the sprint.  I had learned a valuable lesson on Sat:  no one outside of the top 1 -2 has anything left either.  So I got myself as far up the pack as I could during the last 2 laps and held on for 7th (officially!), about 6 inches ahead of the guy chasing me down.

Racing is quite funny in a way.  I don't think that I have much fun during a race, and I generally feel exhausted to terrible afterwards.  But one day later, I am scheming about signing up for another one.  We'll see.  In any rate, hopefully I'll train better.

Club member Paul has a ton of additional photos here and here.

a tale of 2 rooms

Look at the sitting area Jill has assembled in our bedroom!  The extra space was provided by moving Janny out of our room this week and into the girls' room.  We delayed this change not because we were glad to have Janny with us but because we didn't want her to wake Clara.  Sadly, she has yelled several times this week.  Clara wakes up and hangs out with mommy and Janny until Janny finishes drinking some water.

What does a lack of junk do for us?  We have lots of room for other peoples' stuff.  Our friends' stuff is in our garage until she finds a new place.  3 different families stuff in one house!  Our car has joined Fareshteh's on the driveway.

 The Halls came down from Michigan for a visit last weekend.  Brent and I took a short ride on Saturday, both of us on our shiny new bikes.  We're happy to see their whole family getting excited about riding together.

Spring has cooled quite a bit lately, but our garden is coming along.  Some spinach and lettuce is poking up, and we have some jalapeno plants in the ground.  One black rasberry bush has some flowers, so I really hope to eat some berries this year.

The girls love to play outside.  Clara loves to dig the dirt, and Janny wanders around pulling flowers and looking for sticks and rocks to put in her mouth.

 Our church softball team has started the season with 3 blowout wins in the B league.  Our team is basically the same as last year except that we upgraded our shortstop defensively.  Should we feel bad that he doesn't go to our church?  I sure don't.  You can check our stats out here (search for TCBC).

a typical Saturday, sort of

Today is ending like most other days of late.  The girls are sleeping.  Jill is reading a book, and I'm typing up this post.  It's very quiet and peaceful.  

The day started similarly.  I woke up before everyone, checked the radar, and decided to get a bike ride started before the rain set in.  I rode to St. Joseph (does anyone know if the Mediterranean restaurant there is good?) and got wet on the way back.  I came home just in time to eat Jill's french toast with the family.

We took the kids to the library for some play time, then ate lunch at Crane Alley.  I get a flat on the way home, but the leak is slow enough to get home.

Then we helped a friend move her stuff into our garage.  More on this below.

Jill cooked a quiche for dinner.  Jill was holding Janny and enjoying her first bite of quiche when Janny threw up all over both of them.  Bath time!  Then back to dinner.

Play time with our tent and tube.  Jill can squeeze through the tube; I get stuck.

Janny goes to bed.

Paint.  Is someone getting sleepy?

Talk to grandma and grandpa on the phone.
Clara to bed.
Chad patches inner tubes.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Our friend's story starts with a broken closet door and today has reached this stage.  The story should have ended with someone (either her or the owner) spending the $40 to replace it.  That's not how it went and the ending is still way up in the air because the Section 8 housing authority, lawyers/judges, and egos were all involved.  Some possible outcomes are very scary.

Last night, we called a friend from church to get some advice about how to help our friend.  Once we decided to move her stuff to our garage, Nancy made a few calls, and 7 people, including one with a large pickup, agreed to help.  Say what you will about evangelicals having puzzling political views, but when help is needed, we help.  Only one of the 7 had ever met our friend, who has been to our church twice.

Homer Lake day

Weather again was fabulous this past weekend, so we rounded up the troops for a trip to Homer Lake.  Because of time and energy constraints, we drove rather than biked the 25 mile round trip.

We played on the playground.  Clara especially enjoyed the sand pit.  We put our toes in the chilly water and threw sticks and rocks into the lake.  We watched a dad and his son haul in 3 fish from the lake.

 Clara made friends with several groups of kids during our 3 hour stay.  The last group of kids was having a great time on the bench swing until a young boy put his head in its path.  That had to hurt, and it drew some blood and tears.  I'm hoping that Clara learned vicariously to stay out of path of all swings, especially 200+ lb swings.

 Janny snuck as many rocks from the lake as she could into her mouth.  I don't think Homer Lake has the worst water quality around, but there is a reasonable amount of algae already.  On a bike ride last month, I noticed some algal blooms in the streams (drainage ditches for non-environmentalists) collecting run-off (excess fertilizer for environmentalists) from fields.  Yes, it has been a warm spring.  Poor Gulf of Mexico fishes.

 On Sunday, the kids wore matching Easter dresses.  We had a very pleasant lunch with Nina, Neal, and Christine.

easier

A sea change has taken place in our household this week.  Janny is going to bed before 9p and Clara follows shortly after.  That means Jill and I now get a solid hour of down time at the end of the day.  On top of that, Janny is pretty regularly sleeping through the night, though not without loud moans now and again.  This all means that we get enough sleep and we get some time alone.  And there was much rejoicing.

What's more, this has been the most pleasant spring in the history of the midwest.  We have planted flowers and sown some seeds for our garden.  We've needed to water our garden.  We can stand in buckets of chilly water after daddy comes home from work.

 Janny eats solid food with her 4 teeth.  She enjoys just about everything, a welcome change from Clara's finicky eating.  She's walking well and loves to play outside, especially on our concrete step.

 Clara is getting proficient at tricycling.  She even managed to ride through some grass tonight -- perhaps some cyclocross is in her future?

And now for my prudish old man report.  During the last several years, it has become more common for coeds to sunbathe in bikinis in non-swimming-pool public places.  Since there are many coeds in this college town, this is quite a common sight-- grass fields near my office, next to basketball courts, in the quad.  Okay, fine, I can deal.  At least they aren't walking around town in them.

But last week just before communion, the view out the north facing window at church shows a number of bikini-clad ladies on the roof of their sorority.  What should the church do?  (1) Advertise this fact to bring more college/single men to the service?  (2) Ask the ladies to wait until after the service?  (3) Put up some curtains?  (4)  Pray for rain or cold weather on Sunday mornings?  (5) Ignore and hope that only Jill and I noticed?

new bike

Last summer, my supervisor told me that I could keep my job for another year.  Since this was my first successful attempt to work somewhere longer than 2 years, celebration ensued.  Why not celebrate by buying a new bike?  New is this case means new frame and fork.  And I mean new-new, like no one else has owned, touched, ridden, or blessed.  The last new bike I bought was when Jill was working at the bike shop in Los Alamos (read: employee pricing).

So I started emailing with Mike Kone of Boulder Bicycles and worked out a deal.  He had a frameset in stock that would fit me.  If I liked it, I would get a great price.  Otherwise, I could return it and get just what I wanted.  I didn't like the first enough to buy, so we hammered out the details on version 2.  It recently arrived.

What does one get for 5 times the price of a used frameset?  Desired tubing diameter and wall thickness (standard diameter with top tube wall thickness 8-5-8 and downtube 9-6-9 mm).  The right clearances around the tires and correct brazeons for fenders.  Enough water bottle cage brazeons (3!).  Vertical dropouts with correct spacing.  Pump peg.  Nice wiring capabilities (not using this yet).  Shiny new paint.  

Is it worth it?  Yes, as long as I still have a job...

It's a lighter shade of baby blue than Jill's.  No plans to change the blog name to account for the plurality.

I also got a new seatpost and binder bolt for the race bike.  It's surprising how such small parts can render a bike useless when broken.