Favors Fortune Boldly

Happy Easter!!

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Atheistic holiday co-option is ok with me if there are happy girls and reese’s cups

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let’s build something together, slowly, need shower and coffay

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the Chollaballs decided that crayons and our fingers and dipping sauces are more exciting than stickers and premade decorations.  We even tried lemon juice from our prolific tree.  The pulp left the shell nasty, but it made photoshop-quality textures along with a natural yellow-straw tint.

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glitter glue. we called him Liberace

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dino egg

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Alana thought this looked like me

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Beckie and I were bored of egg hunts in the back yard, these kids are too spoiled and too hard. So we gave her 5 mins head start, then the kids rode their bikes to the high school lot. Chasing the rabbit. Sounds easy, but a 100 x 100 yard search grid says otherwise.

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see it, me neither, ‘lana does

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this went well

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a short candy break, then after the rabbit again!

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teenyTinyShredder earning it

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freerange egghunt

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the chocolate melted, the jelly beans did not, Beckie sped home. G pushed her bike out of the wash around a fence, towards Westworld. Said she’d meet us back at the water fountain. tinyShredder is not so tiny any more.

Alana kept speed downgrade to ride over the kibble, back up the MUP, spotting her sister about when I was ready to panic.

Fun Dip is a good lunch, right? Still had energy for this and a trip to the pool

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WINNAH!

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My Growing Secrets:

  1. 8 bikes, the tire lasts over a year, but is ridden enough to be tubeless
  2. scuff up the sidewalls in the McDs to allow constant permeation of dry air
  3. cheap homebrew, mixed by the quart, in place of $65 tires
  4. feed creature beyond the point of exponential growth, see #3 above

I finally changed the tire when I felt two distinct metastatic lumps. She was extracted having freshly consumed the better part of 2oz of new sealant.

and here she is, mounted on my wall!

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Left Unsorted

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – Someday I Suppose

Prez-kit!

Saturday I did the Prescott Monstercross.

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It was real, and it was spectacular. So much singletrack, temps never got past 60, up and down and only once did i ever get gassed from the length of a climb. Every time i challenge myself to a big day i want to challenge myself to more, the hit so addictive. I try to do at least 4 big days a year. Its not enough, but its enough to maintain. I’ve been searching for a vein for the last 6 days. Me, the bike, the forest being together, wringing out everything but the present. 8.5 hours 52 miles 8k vf later I was glad to be done, but i was not wrecked, just enough to throb a little.  Still stoked enuff to take G to the pool, swap stories with her, drink a beer, and inhale chinese buffet.

I would want to give up everything and play in the woods, but I wouldn’t want to change a thing about everything for my kids. Except maybe go north more. And make them read more, and do chores, and sleep in their own damn room. And yell at them less.

“The more I sort it out the more it gets distorted.”

Weekends like this clarify. cleanse. coagulate. congratulate.

La familia rode Willow Lake Trail 30 min after I passed early in my route. EPIC planning failure. They went to Heritage Zoo, while i followed the pink line on the gps.

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pour some sugar on me
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haaaaaaaaaappppyy!

a friend from swimteam told me about wetsuits for east coast swimming. $45 for 2 of em used…all those hours i could have let kids entertain theirowndamnselves in March and November in Rocky Point. *facepalm*. shopping for my own now, BodyGlove sez i should find a S for $40 on ebay.*double double facepalm*

G wanted to try it! ASAP!  
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A swim immediately after a breakfast buffet is safe, right? The kids surviving was proof that it is!! Then off to the Granite Creek Park pumptrack.

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imagine…a park with grass and shade trees. Prescott has its manzanitas, i rubbed too many of them the day before, but it has real trees too, and its only 1.5 hrs away. We should buy a place in Flag…

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i thought the dirt would be actual dirt, but like Phx was mostly sand. Its still the desert, though pebbles and ping-pong balls did not bubble up to the surface, which metaphors the differences from the Nix. Our beginner is their intermediate, their chunky finish skidding Old Ranch trail is a descent from the Tequila Tree, 15 degrees cooler. And with shade. and the Dells. I *heart* Prezkit.

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After Alana’s inevitable meltdown, we abandoned her at the Constellation Dells trailhead.  She caught up soon enough, and 3.7 minutes later was high on stoke.  a 10 minute rockline excursion drove out the kids’ fears. Then they couldn’t be stopped, seeing lines and grip and gravity on their own.

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matching pant-holes
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Hands and feet hands and feet, lean into the rock. The soccer coaches told me even the pros practice 2v2, 3v3…keep the game simple.

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i was proud of myself, as a father, for the gloves. Kneepads would have been dad-of-the-year material.

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OHSO

I got this idear after our last trip to the zoo and dinner at Barrio Queen. 10 mile rt from Chaparral Park to OHSO and back!

art festival at Scottsdale Waterfront
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AZ Falls

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OHSO   offers $5 pints, or $9 40s. Like this is even an question.
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soccer, swim party, sleepover caught up with tinyShredder.
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We rolled the first 2 miles back, G nodding off and me with my hand in her armpit. At least she kept the bike vertical, it actually wasn’t that hard, kid still pedaled in her sleepy. She woke up about 68th St., and bet me a dollar she would stay awake for the ride home. I lost, I paid.