"Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride." ~John F. Kennedy

                I thought I would share some pictures of flowers and bikes, two of my favorite things.


Rick and I took our bikes to Morristown and got on the newly paved Sakatah bike trail. It was so much nicer now that they finally repaved it. It was so bad that we have not been on it for years. They only did 15 miles of it, I hope that they have plans to do the rest soon. We only biked to Faribault and back so we did 17 miles total. Of course when we got to Faribault the DQ is right there at the  end of the trail so we had to stop and have a ice cream cone. It was fun to be out on the road bike again. Last year I was on it a total of 3 times. I wanted to run last summer so that is what I did. This summer I am going to try and do both. More biking then running I think.

It has been so nice to have the windows open and let in the fresh air. The dogs have been going crazy running around outside. Of course now that the windows are open they have to bark at every little noise. Hopefully they settle down soon.

Tomorrow I am babysitting Amy's kids overnight! I have not had them overnight since Eli was about 3 weeks old. It should be fun.

I start my 4 day weekend tomorrow so today is a good day since it is my Friday.

Go for a bike ride....
Sharon

"A day without sunshine is like, you know, night." - Steve Martin

I like everyone else in Minnesota am so sick of the cold and snow. I cannot believe we got 10 inches of snow on May 1st. What kind of crap is that! It is hard to be a good mood when you have had 6 months of winter. It is depressing. I am sooooo happy that the weather outlook is much better. It even looks like we might get to see the sun again today or at the latest tomorrow. I will be very happy to see it.

Since I was on my day's off when the snow came I made the best of it and got lots done in the house. I  got the house nice and clean. I also was able to get a dress cut out and about half sewn. Hopefully I will be able to finish it after work this week. I will post pictures when I get it done, well if I like it I will :)

 Rick and I have been busy getting stuff for the camper. It is so exciting to be able to get things that we can keep in it. There is so much storage room in it. It is almost like having a second house. I can't wait to go camping.   We also got a new bike rack for the truck. The one we had was for the car and did not work on the truck, When ever we took the truck we ended up using budgie cords to keep the bikes in the truck bed. This should be way better. When we go to Lanesboro camping we are going to take the bikes so we will be able to give it a try.

Yesterday Rick helped Adam out and said he would watch Eli for him while he took Josie to gymnastics. He said it went very good until Eli decided to put his whole granola bar in his mouth, chew it up and then decide he did not like it and spit the whole thing on the floor. I thought it was pretty funny but Rick did not. Good thing the dogs were there and cleaned it right up!

Think Spring!
Sharon

"I had been to visitations before and have been to many since and I've come to understand that there's a good deal of value in the ritual accompanying death. It's hard to say goodbye and almost impossible to accomplish this alone and ritual is the railing we hold to, all of us together, that keeps us upright and connected until the worst is past." -from Ordinary Grace

This is probably one of the best books I have read in a very long time. I cannot recommend it enough. If there is one book that you read this year I would say read Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger  It is a touching story of a family in 1961 and how they deal with the tragedy and death of people they love. It is written through the eyes of a 13 year old boy. The book is so well written it pulls you into the story from the beginning. It made me smile and it made me cry.  I can just not say enough about this beautiful, touching book......

Happy Reading
Sharon   

Camping In Style......

 This is the outdoor kitchen, it also has a gas grill. I could not get a very good picture of it because we parked the camper to close to a tree next to our house so I could not open it up all the way. It will be nice to have everything close when we are grilling!

 This is a view of the sitting area, this is the slide out part on the camper.

 Our entertainment center. The TV can be turned around so we can watch it in the bedroom also. It will be nice for those rainy days. 

 The inside kitchen area. We even have a oven now.

The bedroom, with a queen size bed. 

 The bathroom, kind of hard to take a picture of it but its just a bathroom so you get the idea.

The outside of the camper. It is a 22 foot Puma

I am so excited we finally have moved up from our popup camper! We picked up our new camper last night from Noble RV in Jordon. We have been talking about up grading for awhile, well mostly I have been talking about it. I liked the popup camper most of the time but I wanted something that had a bathroom. No more having to get dressed and go across the campgrounds in the middle of the night to use the bathroom! I am also excited to have two refrigerators to keep everything cold. It was a pain to have such a small fridge in the popup that hardly anything fit in it and having to keep ice in the cooler all the time to keep everything else cold.

So now we are going to go camping in style! I cannot not wait to go on our first camping trip. We have two trips planed already for the summer and are looking at least two more. It will be a fun summer!

Later Sharon 

Weekend getaway....

                  Rick trying to get his sight marks at 40, 50 and 60 yards in the snow and cold

                  Rick shooting at the NFAA Dakota Classic in Yankton South Dakota

Rick decided that he want to shoot the NFAA Dakota Classic 600 round in Yankton after finding out about it while we were in Vegas. The shoot has been around for years but it has always been shot outside. Well this year they decided to hold it in the NFAA's building at there headquarters since the weather in April can be pretty cold out. It was a good decision since it was only in the 30's and snowing!
Rick signed up for the 4:30 line on Saturday so we did not leave Waseca until 9:00. It is just over 4 hours away. Since the weather has not been very good he has not been able to practice shooting at 40, 50 and 60 yards. He did very good getting a 584 22X the first day and 583 26X the second day. He ended up in 8th place for Freestyle flights. He was pretty happy with that considering how little practice he had.
It was a fun but quick getaway. Rick shot the 7:30 line on Sunday so we were on the road back home by 11:00.
So we were just an hour or so into our trip home when we stopped for a treat break. Rick heard a squeal coming from the car. After driving for a couple blocks we decided that we better pull over and figure out what it was. It was coming from the back tire and Rick figured it was the break. Since we were still 3 hours from home and it was a Sunday we decided to just keep driving and hope the break did not seize up on us. We made it home and stopped at our local gas station/repair shop. The kid working came out and took a look at the break and said it was not that bad. So we figured it would be fine for me to drive to work. Also the squeal had stopped. After work yesterday I took it to Toyota in Mankato and dropped it off for them to take a look at it. So he calls me this morning to say that the repair guy had looked at it and said he could not believe I had made it to there without the break seizing up on me. He said I was very luck. I had to laugh as I told him that we had driven it from South Dakota like that. He said that the brake caliper had seized up and had wore through the brake pad and ruined the rotor. The good news is it is still under warranty so we only have to pay for the brake pads. I was very happy to hear that! So now I am without a car until tomorrow. Good thing I did not have anywhere to go today.

Tomorrow is going to be exciting day! We are picking up our new toy.......

Later Sharon

Living in the bubble

I was a news junky. I read the newspaper from cover to cover everyday, I read CNN on the computer and watched the local news and national news at least once a day. I had several news stations booked marked on my computer and went to them at least once a day. I read Time Magazine and any other news magazine I got my hands on.  Then a few years ago I stopped watching the news on TV. It was just so sad. Nine out of ten stories were about war, some tragic death or how bad the economy is. It seemed like they rarely had a happy story. Then I stopped reading the news papers other then our local news paper. I still get Time magazine but find that I hardly look at it. I will look at CNN about once a week but again I am always struck by how sad most of the stories are.

So I have been living in a news bubble. It was a pleasant place, I could pretty much just pretend the world was a happy place and there was not war and killings going on everyday.

Well on Monday the news hit me in the face. I was just so sad to hear about the bombing at the Boston Marathon. It just hit so close to home. The girls and I have done several races and some of them very big races with lots and lots of people at them. I know how you much time you put into training and how crossing that finish line is such huge deal. It is suppose to be a happy thing. Now this horrible person has ruined it for all of those people and there families.  I just cannot understand how anyone could do something so bad. What makes someone so bitter and full of hate that they would set a bomb off with no concern of who they are going to kill and hurt. I hope they catch the person that is responsible and I hope he pays for all the pain he has caused. But even that will never be enough for what he has taken away from all the families that were there running the race or just there to support the runners. It just makes me sad.....

So I am going to go back to living in my bubble. I am going to pretend that it safe to go where I want and do what I want without worrying that some crazy person is going to do to me or the people I love harm. It is okay to enjoy life and not dwell on all the heartache in the world. I will not live in fear.  It is what I need to do. We all need to show these crazy, full of hate, bitter people that they cannot stop us. We will go on and we will live to run another race......

Living in the bubble
Sharon

Bad Puppy Mommy....

I am a bad puppy Mommy. Dexter has been licking his foot like crazy. Now he always licks his feet because he has allergies so I did not pay much attention to it when he started to lick one more the he normally does. Just over a weeks ago we came home and Dexter had blood all over his foot. He would not let me get near it but I could not really see any cut or anything on it. I figured he must have had a small cut on it and because he was licking at it that it had started to bleed. Well he would not leave it alone and some days it look just fine and others it looked a little swelled up. It was hard to see since he had so much fur on it and he was not letting me really get a good look at it.
Well yesterday he had his regular grooming appointment at the vet, so I asked them to have a look at it. When I came to pick him up they told me he had an abscessed toe. Poor Dexter did not have a good day. They said that the vet shaved off most of the fur on his toes and cleaned and drained it. They also gave him a shot for pain and a shot of antibiotics. He has to be on antibiotics for 10 days. I guess it was not good when they were working on his foot. I am glad I was not there when they doing it, I would have been in tears. I felt so bad that I did not take him in right away.  He was so sad when he got home. Hopefully this takes care of it and it gets all better.

Later Sharon