Xmas booty and barn raising

Beth and I celebrated Christmas over at her parent's house with her parents (Tad and Rosemary), brother(Greg) and sister (Lacey). We managed to get Lacey, who's 12, to let us wait until 8:30am to come over and start the day. She was good this year and didn't open anything until we showed up, and also opened slower so we could actually watch her open some of our gifts. Rosemary made some great sausage balls and coffee and then it was off to the races.

Everyone received some great presents and it was a lot of fun to watch and just sit around as a family. Lacey received some of her first makeup, Rosemary got a nice gold necklace and some artwork, Greg got an Ipod Nano and some nice headphones, Tad got a cool antique match striker and some war artifacts. Beth got a nice digital SLR camera that she can use her old 35mm lenses with. She'll use it mainly to take better pictures of her jewelry to apply to shows and for her website, but I'm sure when she gets good with it, she'll want to use it for other things. It's a 10 mega pixel camera! That is just crazy to me. My old point-and-shoot Sony camera is only 3.2; of course it's probably 5 years old and I've had to fix the LCD screen on it twice.

I gave Beth a beautiful rose gold ring from Anatra Jewelry. Months ago she had gone and picked out a couple rings she liked. Between then and now she had it in her head that I didn't get either of them. She even went by the store with her Mom the week before Xmas to show her the two rings she liked and the guy working couldn't find her wish list. The two rings were not in the cases anymore and she got a little aggravated when he mentioned that maybe I had already come and bought one of the rings. She told him, "I don't think he could buy one since you can't even find my wish list." :o) oh it was all perfect! I had asked her repeatedly for some present ideas, knowing I'd already gotten the big gift. In the end she didn't have any idea what she was getting and it was awesome. She was so happy to see the Anatra bag with the ring.

Some of the highlights of my gifts are a brown and yellow Chrome Citizen messenger bag. If you don't know them, it's an over the shoulder style bag with a waterproof interior. You can cinch is down to wear while you are riding around town. I think it is also going to replace my currently computer/work bag for studio work. I also got two Walz caps from Beth's brother Greg. One is a dark grey thin wool and the other is a blueish/grey corduroy. Both of them are super comfortable. I've been wearing them almost none stop since Christmas. Beth gave me a hand printed cycling shirt that she bought of ETSY.com. It's a great print and I love the saturated blue color. Beth also bought me a bike, as my big gift, which I've talked about a lot lately. It hasn't come in yet so we weren't able to have it by the tree. I'll be calling and checking on it tomorrow, hopefully it's in or will be in very soon!

The rest of Christmas was spent eating, playing with new toys, and watching movies. We watched The Borne Ultimatum, Harry Potter 4 and about half of Talladega Nights. We just hung out and relaxed, it was great!

Thad texted me late in the day about a ride at Chickasaw the next day, the 26th. I couldn't wait to get out again and ride after all the eating I'd done the past two days. Rosemary made two wonderful meals for us, Christmas Eve and Christmas brunch. And of course I couldn't turn down seconds or dessert.

Dan Hensley and I met up with Thad at the farm around 9. Dan and I noticed a horse was out when we were driving in so Thad had to reign it in and do some quick fence fixes. After a short detour at Harpeth Bikes to chat with Fred and show off Thad's new meats, we headed down to Columbia. The weather was looking great but no one was in the parking lot when we showed up, strange sign. We started a 'normal direction' loop and I eased in for a relaxed, easy pace ride. My SS wheel is still down at MOAB so I was on the Ventana and just spinning. I was trying to feel out my legs and see if they felt better than they had on the Franklin State Forest ride. It was a combination of trying not to think too much about them and ride 'normally', think about them and see if they were hurting in the same way, and think about why I thought they may be hurting and what I could do to fix the problem. I have a way of making things hurt just by thinking about them while I'm riding so I tried not to dwell on it and just pedal. My left thigh was feeling a lot better so it's looking like the stretching and rest is really helping.

We stopped a lot to regroup and rest and kept playing leap frog with a group of walkers. When we made it back to the parking lot, there were two more cars which was a good sign. I guess everyone had to head back to work today or they were just too lazy to ride. We decided to go back out and ride a backwards loop. I'm still not very confident in a lot of sections going reverse but overall the trail feels a lot better that direction. There is so much flow with some sections that allow you to really pump the bike and gain speed without pedaling. I'll have to try to do a bass-ackwards race in 08.

We stopped by the sandwich place for lunch after the ride and Thad got a text from him boss asking if we could go help him with a tree house. Sounds like an adventure! I know it was a bit more work than we anticipated, but man it was a lot of fun. It was totally out of the ordinary for me which made it more cool. Helping out and building something that you know some kids are just going to totally love.... good stuff! The project was quite the combination of planning and going by the seat of your pants. No one was hurt which was a miracle!

I've decided that my main problem with my left leg is cleat related, and possibly saddle position related. Fred over at Harpeth has completed some training from Serotta in bike fitting so I'm going to head down there tomorrow and see if he can straighten me out. I was noticing while riding today that my left leg feels like my toes are pointed too far out. I think this is leading to my pain in that leg. I hope it is something as simple as getting my cleats in the correct place. After moving my right cleat forward just slightly, all my pain in my right leg is gone.

My parents are coming tomorrow to visit for a couple days. They won't be getting in until late afternoon so I'll be missing the tap room most likely. We'll exchange presents tomorrow night and then chill during the day friday. We've talked about going out to dinner with Beth's family friday night which will be a lot of fun, just need to pick a restaurant.

You can view all my Xmas pictures HERE and you can view the rest of the tree house building HERE.