Riding and working my a$$ off!!

Saturday I packed the whole family up and we drove down to Capitol Forrest to take part in the monthly Saturday volunteer trail work party with the "Friends of Capitol Forest". I brought the whole family because I knew we would be working on improving the parking area at the "Y" and not out on some trail somewhere in the forest. I was glad I brought my little chainsaw as I ended up running it almost non-stop helping to build the fence around the parking area. Abigael dug in the dirt and played in the mud. Christie walked around carrying Mason and took pictures to help document the work. There was a good amount of people that showed up and we got almost all of the fence up and would have finished it if 50 of our posts had not been stolen the night before!!

Sunday I got a 'kitchen pass" from the wife to go ride. Courtland and I drove down to Olympia and met up with his friend Brian to go mountain biking even further south just outside of Longview, WA. We linked up with a bunch of local guys and they guided us on their amazing trail system in and around Growler's Gultch! We rode over 14 miles and did some impressive climbing and super fast, super fun descending. Four of the local guys were riding 29er full suspention moutain bikes and one guy, Bob aka Red-haze.com, was kicking ass on his fully rigid singlespeed!!

I got my ass handed to me a few times, bailed a few times on some steep technical terrain features (TTF's), nailed some more TTF's on the money, and ended up with a good sized bruise on my left quad, ouch!

Photo courtesy red-haze.com

Thanks to the local guys for showing us their kick arse trail system and inviting us back anytime we want! I have decided to make it mandatory that I ride at least one day a week on the mountain bike as it is good for my soul and my health!! I can't wait to be able to take Abigael along with me and eventually Mason as well!! By then I will have to be riding 5 or 6 days a week just to stay in shape enough to keep up with the kids!!

Photo courtesy red-haze.com

On the home front all is well. We had a great time trick-or-treating on Wednesday and last week I started working at REI. working swing shift has taken some getting used to, and not just by me, as Christie now has to put the girl to bed and deal with them both in the evening when they are cranky and tired. I am scheduled 3 days a week now and have the option for more or less depending how hard I work and how many hours I want to work. So far the job is pretty easy and "fun". I will work until I can go back to school and finish my nursing degree!! When Christie goes back to work I will adjust my schedule to go in at 5pm instead of 2:30 and we will meet and swap kids in the parking lot at work. I hope to be able to get the shop walls painted in the man cave this week so I can start hanging and organizing my tools and get the clutter cleaned up!

Christie turns 20 fifteen on Wednesday. Unfortunately I have to work but we will do something nice for her....