Home At Last

Erin's c-section kept us in the hospital for the mandatory 4 night stay, so our family has been split up since Saturday. Grandpa and Grandma Miltenberger watched Madeleine Saturday and Sunday nights while Butch and D tried to keep up Monday and Tuesday. But it sounds like everyone had a great time and rumor has it Butch actually made it home from work the last 2 nights by 5:30!

Meanwhile, Gracie has been sleeping in beds, getting bathed, eating who-knows-what, and being spoiled rotten by kids at Bart and Tanya's. I'll be picking her up this weekend. Or maybe not.

Everyone was supposed to arrive home earlier today, but Hadley's temp dropped a little this morning so our departure was delayed. An hour under a warmer and she was back to normal, if not a little overheated. We hung out at the hospital until 5:00 for a few more temp checks just to be safe, then found a wired Madeleine waiting for us at my folks on our way home.

Unsure on what to think at first, Madeleine seems to be warming up to her little sister and can already say 'Hadley' pretty well. Of course, "Hadley's" gift of a baby stroller (strikingly similar to the one Bart and Tanya gave her for her birthday and hidden until now) didn't seem to hurt.

A few pics from today:

Hadley Rose

Erin's actual due date was 3/4 and her c-section scheduled for 2/25, but our baby had different plans.

Hadley Rose was born Saturday night a little after 8:00 PM. Big sister Madeleine was born on July 4th and we think the newest Krewet wanted in on the holiday fun as well... so now we have 4th of July and Valentine's Day girls! And I have no excuse if I ever forget a birthday.

Hadley weighed in at 5 lbs 14.8 oz and measured 18 inches long. Mom and daughter are doing great and we all head home Wednesday.

A few pics from the weekend:

Madeleine's New Bike

I've never been a huge Surly fan, but I bought a Karate Monkey off Craigslist a few weeks ago. It was built as a singlespeed with a lot of nice parts and the price was right. I needed (read: wanted) a bike to tow Madeleine around and figured this was a good start.

The KM, as I bought it, was built as a singlespeed and had a bunch of high-end items including Mr. Whirly cranks, Surly hubs, an ENO "Trials" freewheel, and more. I kept the frame, fork, headset, handlebars, seatpost, and stem and ebay'd the rest. At that point, I was in it for a whopping $50. Not bad considering the frame/fork alone retail around $500 and were in "like-new" condition.

If I hadn't had to deal with the previous owner's use of red loctite, this would have been one of my better CL buys. Seriously, who uses RED loctite on bike parts!?! Still, the end result is a pretty nice ride:

older 950 series XTR shifters/levers and derailleurs (the front being key for a KM)
BB7 disc brakes
new XT cranks
new XT hubs laced to Mavic 719 29er disc rims rolling Maxxis Overdrive street tires
Thomson post/Bontrager seat (with Travis' special touch)
Ritchey Pro bars/stem
Cane Creek S-8 headset
9 speed Ultegra 12-25 cassette to make it fast
my favorite WTB dual compound grips

OK, so it's not Madeleine's bike... but she does get to ride behind it!

I finished this little project a couple weeks ago but weather and time prevented a test ride. When today's high hit the mid-60 mark, I hooked up Madeleine's trailer and we were off. We zig-zagged through a bunch of side streets and eventually found our way over to Grant's Trail and the playground at the trailhead. One of Madeleine's baby's kept her company and both really seemed to enjoy the ride, pointing out dogs and other bikes along the way. The big slide at the playground was an even bigger hit.

I can't wait for the weather to get warmer! I imagine Madeleine and I will be making many trips to the Custard Station while Mom deals with #2.

A few pics from todays ride:

Dad's new ride:



Madeleine's stylin' Duck (or "Crazy Chicken"?) helmet:



Pre-ride prep:



Q: "Dad, are you sure about this?"
A: "Yes Madeleine, we're cool.":



And we're off!:



And we're back!:

Motivation

I need some.
1 severely broken wrist + 6 months rehab + 1 new job + 1 60 foot oak tree dropping on 1 house + Krewet #2 due soon = very little 2008 ride time
Seriously, I think I rode a mountain bike (races included) less than 12 times in 2008. And that means I'm ready to ride.
So, I've signed up for this: Syllamo's Revenge
I've been to Mountain View, AR to ride the Syllamo trails a few times now. Erin and I first ventured down in 2004 and I've been back twice since with the DRJ. I've ridden many, many miles of trails in many different states and can't speak highly enough of this trail system. Built by and for mountain bikers, Syllamo has 50+ miles of prime singletrack. The only thing it needs is riders. When Erin and I first checked it out in '04, only Phase 1 was completed. Still, it was a beautiful September weekend and after riding over 30 miles of trail we saw only 2 other riders. And this was weeks after it was covered in Outside magazine. Maybe it's because it's Arkansas? Maybe it's because it's in a dry county? Whatever the case, we didn't see many more riders than that on the DRJ trips.
It should be a different experience to line up with 350 riders in May. This race sold out in less than 48 hours and I've already noted plenty of STL's finest on the list of registrants, which means I have some work to do. Not that I'm in a rush. 29 days into '09 and I still have 0 days on the bike.

A few pics from our 2004 trip:

Erin at warp speed:



One of the first production singlespeeds and the bike that got me hooked on the whole SS thing- my 1998 Bianchi BOSS (Bitchin' Orange Single Speed). When you look at this pic, do you notice the bike or the bonus view of the White River?



Riding singlespeed:



A few pics from the '06 DRJ trip:

You have to love the brown and yellow National Forest sign featuring the words "Mtn. Bike Trail":



Yes, Arkansas has snakes:



Arkansas also has smallmouth bass. We stayed near a tiny creek and I bought a cheapo ultralight and some of my favorite Beetle Spins at Wally World. The end result was at least a dozen smallies, a bunch of panfish, and one rainbow trout, which was totally unexpected. Nothing huge, but still good fun considering it was a feeder creek:



At Wally World in a dry county in Arkansas:

Tour of MO and Snow

I keep waiting for Jim, whose idea it was to start this blog, to post something but instead it is me again. Today the 2009 route for the Tour of Missouri was announced. The good news is that it will start on Labor Day in St. Louis so we will get to see one stage. But it is heading east to west this year so that is all we will get to see. This year promises to be good too with the classification for the race going up a level. We were really spoiled the first year and went to 4 stages including the time trial in Branson. That was definitely a highlight as George Hincapie and Levi Leipheimer rode by about 4ft in front of me doing some pre-race scouting. Some riders last year, including Christian Vandevelde who won the race, said that the Branson time trial was the hardest they have done. I'm disappointed it is not on the race route this year and hope the race is good enough to come back in 2010.

Enough about cycling, I am really excited because we are finally getting some snow! I went out to run errands last night and actually really enjoyed driving in it. The roads (and stores) were empty and it was so pretty coming down. It is falling again tonight. It really makes me want to go skiing! It has been a few years but I think we are definitely going to try and plan a trip for next winter. I would like winter so much better if we had more snow and less cold rain.

The countdown has really begun at our house with the newest Krewet expected to arrive 4wks from tomorrow. Now we just have to start getting ready!

George Hincapie or DaDa

One of Madeleine's favorite things to do right now is look through our picture albums and see the "baby". She does not quite get that she is the baby. One of the albums starts with pictures from the 2007 Tour of Missouri. A couple of weeks ago I pointed to the guy in yellow (George Hincapie) and asked her who it was...

Madeleine promptly replied DaDa. Now everytime we look at the album she points to George and says DaDa. It cracks me up everytime.

As for pro cycling, next week is the Tour Down Under and Lance's first race back from retirement. Today I saw a headline on cyclingnews.com saying "Insecure Armstrong to face heat Down Under". Now from everything I know about this guy I'm pretty sure the word insecure has not been used to describe him before. But sure enough in an interview he said that he has a little bit of insecurity about being back in the peleton... not about his fitness. It will be interesting to see how he does this year. I personally wish he would have stayed retired and ended on the 7th Tour de France victory. I just read Johan Bruyneel's book which was written after he retired and before he joined Astana (which seemed like a matter of hours). He summed it up saying he wanted to go out like Lance with a big victory. But they are both back. I'm looking forward to watching the Tour de France this summer and cheering for all the Americans... although it will be sad to see George and Lance on different teams. Too bad it won't occur during my maternity leave this time! It is hard to fit in 3 hrs of coverage a day for 3 weeks!

Happy New Year!

It's 3 days into 2009 and we are long overdue for a new post. Hope everyone had a great holiday and 2009 is off to a good start. It is going to be an exciting year for us with less than 8 weeks until Krewet #2's scheduled arrival.

We had a great Christmas with all the family in town. Madeleine definitely enjoyed getting to spend time with her aunt and uncles. She didn't really get into opening presents, but really liked the Christmas tree and playing with Baby Jesus from the nativity scene. She also really enjoys playing with all her new baby dolls. She loves to pretend to feed them and put them down for "night night," which is on the floor. She got a baby bed from Jim's Aunt Sally but will take the dolls out of the bed to put them to night night!

After Christmas we spent a few days at the Lake with Uncle Dave. We had a few warmer days and we all enjoyed getting outside, especially Madeleine, who would stand at the window and say, "Outside, Outside, Please, Please". She never says any word just once.

Here a few pictures from Christmas and the Lake. As you can see, we had to get creative to take a family photo with Madeleine smiling.


Christmas photo 2008:



New table and chair set from Grandma and Grandpa Miltenberger:



2008's Christmas dress:



Enjoying green Cool Whip with Aunt Sally:



Walking the shoreline at the Lake with Dad:



Liftoff!:



Bouncy time with Uncle Dave: