Something New for Me...

We had our last day of ski school on Saturday and I know my son, for one, is excited to have his Saturday's back. I think it has been worth it, even on a low snow year. Our kids have become better skiers and someday I think they'll thank us for hauling them up there. We aren't done skiing this season by any means. We'll still drag them up, but we'll now go up later in the day and ski together most weekends.

I've officially joined a cycling team this year. I think it will help me be a better cyclist and I definitely think it'll help with my goal of Lotoja but that's not my only goal. I'd like to try racing too. In fact, I'm going to try my hardest not to fixate on Lotoja too much and I think doing a bunch of races will help that. Saturday will be my first official race. It's the Utah Crit Series out at the Rocky Mountain Raceway. I'm intrigued by the criterium thing and I think it will be fun. For those who don't know, a criterium or "crit" is mostly an american thing where it's not a traditional road race but instead laps done on a closed road. They are easy to organize and tend to be more spectator friendly, being able to see the racers over and over. They also tend to be very fast so I hope I can keep up. I'm excited though and I know my kids are excited too. My goals are to finish and not crash. We'll see how it goes.

Aloha!

Last Saturday we hit the slops and the kids had ski school but I have to admit, Jen and I were a bit preoccupied because at the 4 am the next morning we were flying to Maui for a little vacation and we were bringing the kids, only the kids didn't know it yet.

It happened to be our girl's birthday the day we left so we decided to surprise her and make it all part of the fun. Needless to say they had fun. We've found Hawaii as a great place to bring the kids because the entire time they really just want to relax and play at the beach which is really the best part about Hawaii. It's a little stressful getting there but once you're there it's really a relaxing place to be, even for the kids.

My plan for our bike rides went off without a hitch as well. We got 2 days in and the weather and rides were beautiful. The first ride we went around the north portion of west Maui and our second ride was on the south end of the island through Kihei, Wailea, and Makena. Time didn't allow us very long rides, both were about 40 miles each, but it was really fun. I'm amazed at how much climbing can be done there. It really is a climbers paradise.

Our Valentine's ride in Maui.

Lots of Climbing

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Beautiful Ocean.

Little town on West Maui Loop.

Our second ride took us past this lava flow at the bottom of the volcano.