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Dave says: Sunny and 50 degrees made for a great birthday weekend. Alisha made me french toast this morning, my favorite curry dish for dinner, and even a chocolate cake. Plus, the final stage of the Tour of California was on and I got to watch some of the world's finest tackle one of California's toughest climbs. Yesterday's intervals on the trainer plus a group ride with Alisha's team and the FFKR guys made for a 100 mile day. We stopped at a Subway about 5 hours in and had a $5 footlong. No lie, it was the best sandwich ever.

The Cold Room

Alisha says: Saturday we woke up to snow so we were doomed to spend four hours on the trainers in our "cold room". We call it the cold room because we don't heat that room and so you have to dress in several layers when getting ready for a workout. I usually start with three layers of tops, gloves, and a headband. It doesn't take that long until I am at just the right temperature for a nice ride. We recently invested in a TV for the cold room, so that has made trainer rides more tolerable. I can't wait until we can leave the cold room behind for long summer days.

Dave says: Today was Presidents Day and Alisha didn't have to work so we headed outside for some skate skiing at Mountain Dell. We made it home just in time to watch the end of the second stage of the Tour of California and see Levi break away to take the yellow jersey. Tonight we headed over to Richard and Britney's to celebrate his birthday and have some tasty enchiladas. Well, I'm off to go catch up on some reading. School has also been especially busy as I am now simultaneously working on three papers and a presentation.

Our New Arrivals

Not quite the little bundles of joy you were expecting? Or for those of you who read our weekly cyling rants maybe it was!

Alisha says: My sweet new ride showed up this week.

Date of Arrival: Thursday, February 5th 2009. 2:20 p.m.

Official Name: 2009 Specialized Ruby Pro w/Dura Ace

Nickname: ?? (I'm still thinking about it)

Weight: 16.2 pounds (even less with race wheels)

I am super excited for my new bike. The weather was nice on Saturday so I took the new bike out for its first ride. I think that we are going to get along rather well. It is light and fast.

Dave says: My 09 Scott Spark showed up a couple weeks ago but here's the pic fully built at 22 lbs. Less than a month until race season and we renewed our licenses today. Now all we need is some warm weather.

Super Bowl Sunday

Dave says: We headed over to Price this weekend to attend Devin and Amber’s epic Super Bowl party and we weren’t disappointed. Wayne and Debbie came to visit on Friday night and on Saturday we packed five people and a bird in Richard and Britney’s Prius and somehow still made the two hour trek at 50 miles per gallon.

It would be hard to pick a winner between the game and the food since both were excellent. I hadn’t watched a pro football game all season but was into it as a cheering Cardinals fan and it was sad to see them lose in the final seconds. All my years growing up in Arizona the Cardinals never amounted to anything so it was nice to see them finally play like a top team.

The halftime show was more monumental than a Justin Timberlake special as Devin and Amber revealed the gender of their baby-to-be using blue and pink frosted cupcakes. I guessed wrong and discovered my pink cupcake tasted like salt.

I wanted to get this post up earlier but it has been a crazy week preparing for a presentation on organizational justice. I took over 1,000 pages of research and somehow turned it into a five page handout and fourteen PowerPoint slides. However, the topic is quite interesting to me (especially procedural justice – determining whether a process, as opposed to an outcome, is fair) and the presentation went well despite being to a group of much smarter individuals.

Training Camp

Alisha says: This past weekend we cruised to St. George for some outdoor cycling. The weather could have been better but it could also have been worse so I guess it turned out okay. The PCIM gals met up for some major time in the saddle. Saturday we had a rough start with several flats, rain, and mechanicals but the sun finally came out and dried us off as we rode to Gunlock for 6+ hours. It was super fun weekend of riding with the team.

Getting home was an adventure itself as the vehicle we were riding in ran out of gas on the freeway, luckily we were not that far from where my parents live and so my dad came and rescued us. If we would have been anywhere else we would have sent Dave off on his bike to get some gas. Kelsey's car broke down and had to be towed, and everyone had to drive through the crazy snowstorm. I can't wait for winter to be over!! I am glad that everyone made it home safely.

Dave says: We headed down south with Taylor and Mary who are a lot of fun and didn't mind braving some wet mtb trails. We stayed at my parents house on Friday night and were a bit dissapointed to drive down through a rainstorm to St. George on Saturday morning. However, we started with the most rocky and sandy trails that I could think of and found some rideable terrain.

I broke in the new Scott Spark on Church Rocks/Prospector, Jem, and Green Valley and am liking my new ride. It was great to get outdoors with some friends after a couple weeks on the trainer. On the way home, I-15 turned out to be one massive snowstorm and our poor bikes were covered. When we left, there was hardly any snow on the ground in SLC, but now it is back to January weather.

Skate Skiing

Dave says: We got in our first real skate skiing adventure of the year this weekend up at Mountain Dell. We were both a bit rusty and had a few nice crashes. It's been in the high 30s recently which is just warm enough for us to pull out the mountain bikes and ride them on the road. We went up City Creek on Thursday and got sprayed with road slush flying off our tires the whole way down. Still, it was more fun than long days on the trainer in our cold back room.

I start a new semester of law school today and am excited about my classes. It has also been nice to have had some time off to unwind a bit. During the last week, we turned last year's photos and blog into a Shutterfly book for the year. It was fun to reminisce and I can hardly wait two months until cycling season begins.

Rocky Point

Dave says: We spent the last week living the high life with my family in Rocky Point, Mexico. It was sunny every day with temperatures in the 60s-70s and we stayed in a plush eleventh floor condo overlooking the beach. We went running in the morning, went out exploring at midday, relaxed in the pool during the late afternoon, enjoyed local cuisine in the evening, and went on long walks on the beach at sundown.

Some of the trip highlights included tidepooling/collecting shells on the beach, exploring the touristy downtown city area, taking an epic walk with Christine and Parker, ordering the Mexican feast for two at La Curva (while being serenaded by a mariachi band), getting beat at Trivial Pursuit on New Year's Eve by the Toussaints, watching some bowl games on the condo's HDTV, and playing hours of games with Daniel and Katie in the heated pool.

We drove the entire way with my parents in their huge van and probably spent close to 40 hours in the car during the course of the trip. Fortunately, Alisha had a book to read and I had a good audio book to listen to. On the way home, we stopped in Phoenix at my uncle's house and visited with his family for the first time in a couple of years. We had a great time with the foosball table and I was amazed at how grown up my cousins are.