::he's through::

Max's little school is OUT for the summer! He's thrilled and I'm thrilled that he had a great second half of the year.



Here he is with his school group (there are several kids not pictured that didn't make it to the end of year ceremony). In a nutshell my Max ended up at this little school because our school in the neighborhood has been under construction for the last two years. It's created a lot of chaos and stretched teachers to the breaking point. I think that the teacher Max ended up with this year wouldn't have been a good match for us no matter what, but adding in the construction and chaos and she was a lost cause. She didn't like me and she didn't like Max and I had no communications with her except bad notes home and parent teacher conferences full of complaints. Finally when Max wasn't able to do his math homework as we moved through the curriculum and he started saying he was BAD at math I knew something had to give. When I took him home for a couple of days and had him go through a 2nd grade math computer program and he became an expert I knew something was wrong. Anyway, we went through lots of different schooling options for him and settled on this little school just barely opened by a teacher that actually used to work at his old school until she got fed up with the system. It's a one room school house with kids from 5 to 12. She doesn't usually have more than 10-12 kids there at any given time. People can mostly homeschool and just supplement with her school, or mostly do her school and do some supplemental homeschooling. It's flexible, she communicates and she loves the kids. And I love her. There was such a huge difference in Max's demeanor the moment we changed classrooms. It actually made me feel guilty that I hadn't done something to change things for him earlier. We're going to stick with this school for next year and then we're going to see where we go from there. I know for a fact he's doing so much better than he would've been doing at his old school.

The kids all did self portraits for the end of year party. I think they turned out awesome. They all had "positive affirmations" on them--the kids chose their own.

 

Here's Max's. It says "I have lots of energy!" SO TRUE! And so positive.

 

We're so proud of our big boy! And bring on summer. We'll see you at the pool.

::::

Barn Burner

This is a post for Ginna, who is in Utah for a half marathon tomorrow. As Ken from Leadville would say: You gotta dig deep. Have fun and good luck.

This past weekend I went to Flagstaff for a bike race. It was a 104 mile race which is part of the Leadville qualifying series. I was hoping to qualify for Leadville (which I did very ungracefully) and have some fun at the same time.

The long and short of it was that I finished within the time cut for additional lottery slots and won a Leadville spot in the lottery afterward. The ride was the worst I've ever felt on the bike: I cramped like never before and suffered tremendously just to finish. It was also the most dehydrated I think I've ever been. This came as a surprise to me as I've done more than one 100 mile ride this year and I never felt this poor or weak.

So, without further adieu, here are the pictures I took and some that I stole from commercial photographers website--they are proofs, but they convey the way I felt very accurately.

I stayed Thursday night at an RV park in Gallup. A first for me. 

The drive in was so dusty, a foreshadow for how dusty the race would be.

Love the ponderosa pines.

More dirt road.

A taste for how much dust accumulated on everything.

The Airstream fulfilling the measure of its creation.

My solo rider support tent, where I could restock on food and tune the bike.

That's the barn where each lap started and ended. You had to walk your bike through it.

I hung up this nice New Mexican coat rack for my helmet.

I stocked the magazine rack with appropriate cycling periodicals. 

Looks and is comfy. 

The support tent on race morning.

Pre-race carb loading, courtesy of the Airstream kitchen. Sure beat tent camping.

Pre-race meeting on Friday night.

Huge crowd. 1100 riders. 

Dr. Jensen putting his race number on. 

This is what happens when you use special gel sunscreen, so you don't get sunburned during an 11hr bike ride: dirt mask. Some people pay for such things.

The BMC resting post race. A little dusty and in need of a new wheelset. Something breaks each race.

Beautiful night. If only I had been able to sleep. I ran out of pain killer and hurt too bad. It was a long night.

Ken giving me my Leadville coin. I'm in. Better start training for real. 

Fully cramped, trying to run the bike through the barn.

This looks like the first lap because I have arm warmers on. 

ouch.

1st lap--not that hurt yet.

Obviously things weren't going so well.

More trying to walk through the cramps.

End of first lap, when the fist major cramp set in. I wasn't sure I could get through the barn.

This is how I would have looked the day after too, if I had quite and consequently missed my chance at Leadville.

Yep, that's the face you make when your body decides it doesn't like bike riding any more.

I was actually trying to make an Elvis face for the camera. Not too bad, huh?

Trying not to fall off the bike during a cramped dismount.

Is it over yet?

Proof I didn't walk the whole last lap. 

That's all for now. I haven't touched the bike since then, but we'll make friends again this week.
Good luck to Ginna at the Utah Valley Half.

::yard::

I've been doing a lot of work on the yard in the last couple of months. Most of the work has included finding the right guys to hire so the yard could have extra help recovering from the last two years plus of neglect. I also needed somebody to teach me how to take care of plants and yards out here. I ALSO needed somebody to put in a drip irrigation system so that there would be some sort of chance that plants would not only bloom in the summer, but also that they wouldn't just all be dead by June 1st. So we found the wrong guy and that wasted time and money and then we found a great guy who did some really good stuff for us. WE've made a lot of improvements so far and I have some pictures to post soon. We're working on the courtyard next--filling in empty spots in the bricks and separating the planter area from the bricked area with nice rocks. We're also going to try to make it more shady. The idea is to have an outdoor paradise for little boys to play. We'll see how it goes. I'll work on getting some pictures up!

::cranky strikes again::

"I want my SANDAL on!! I don't CARE that I already have sandals on, I want this one on as WELL!" "No really, I'm SERIOUSLY SO SERIOU--wait, is that a camera?" "I really want to TOUCH that lens, NOW! I want to hold and drop that camera NOW!" "Why won't you give me the DANG CAMERA--oh wait, my SHOE!!! I forgot that you were supposed to be putting it on me!!!"


 Yikes.

::prius::

The universe aligned and we recently had the chance to buy Kris's dad's Prius from Kathy. Not that we really NEEDED another car exactly, considering that this would be the fourth, but I was getting worried about gas prices. Besides, every one of our cars has a different duty. The Land Rover is the car that breaks and is broken all the time. The big Infiniti's job is to haul hospital surgery equipment and the airstream trailer (that will hopefully someday be an awesome mobile dental clinic). The van is the van. The Prius is cheap to drive. And I do like paying less at the pump. It's a nice feeling. I think I was the only one in the Hendricks family that shared Ken's paranoia about gas prices and expenses anyway, so I really deserved to take over the little Prius. Anyway, it's fun to have his car although out here in Santa Fe Pruis' are so ubiquitous as to be almost embarrassing. But we have the only one with special Ken Hendricks bumper stickers. And yes, the car is parked on a pile of cardboard that was supposed to go to the recycling center. We've since then cleaned it up, but that's kind of our lives right now, just park on it until you can deal with it. It was really fun to get the Pruis, it was all clean and nice. A month (or more?) ago I flew to UT with the boys and then drove it back here (my mom kept me company and we had a good time.) The sad thing was it immediately became just as dirty as the minivan. Kids do such a NUMBER on cars. And as my good friend says, we do live in them, but still. Oy. He may be messy but at least he's cute. The funniest thing about the Prius right now though is that it smells just like a dentist's office inside. And we haven't ever put or carried any dental stuff in it--except ourselves of course. Even others have noticed the distinct scent. Does that mean it's making itself at home, or what's the deal? Mysterious...

::::

It may be the funniest cutest thing ever when we are out and Sandy sees a person dressed in spandex riding a bike. He gets super excited and he yells "Dad!! Datt! DAD!" I mean, it makes sense, right? Dad's preferred outfit when not at work is spandex, and he wears it with flair. And besides that there has been more than one instance in Sandy's short life when we have driven past a bike guy and it WAS his Dad. Smart little guy.