Monumental!

I've plastered this all over the place, but I'm so proud and excited!! Our first egg!!

We're going to hollow it out and keep it forever.

I Went For A Bike Ride!

  It's time for another installment of "Becky's Awesome Vacation Stories."

  Let's review what we've already covered: I arrived and went to Walgreens. I visited the Krempels Center, ate a cupcake and went to bed early.

  Saturday morning, I awoke to the pitter-patter of rain. Uh oh. Riding in the rain is no fun. I looked out the window, and not only was it raining, but it was also really foggy. Double uh oh. I'm glad I brought rain gear. So, I had breakfast, kitted up, plugged the address into Dave (my trusty GPS), and headed off to the Krempels King of the Road Challenge! 

  Luckily, the rain stopped, and the fog just needed a little time to burn off. It was damp, and so that made me cold. I always have such a hard time deciding how much to wear. Jacket or just arm warmers? Leg warmers or bare legs? I was brave and went with arm warmers and bare legs. I had forgotten my padded gloves, and only had my wind-stopper gloves. That could be problematic, with my carpal tunnel. Then, I finally remembered to take some photos!

Rental car, rental bike

  We lined up (I always start at the back because I know most everyone else is faster than I am)

  Over the course of the morning, the fog lifted, the sun started peeking through the clouds, and I got hot. I stopped to take off my gloves and arm warmers, and a support vehicle stopped to make sure I was OK. "I'm fine." I said "Just stopping so I can strip." I think that comment surprised him. I thoroughly enjoyed my 30 mile ride. There was one place I wanted to stop and take a picture, but it was halfway up a hill, and I knew I'd have a hard time getting started again, so I had to skip it. A couple of hills had me breathing hard, but all in all, I felt good. Which is  pretty amazing considering I had only been on my bike one time since July!

Also amazing was the amount of chain grease I ended up with on my leg:

Yup, that tiny spot!

  Normally, when I finish a ride, I look like this:

Well, that ride was twice as long...

  

  But back to the story. After the ride, there was a lovely party. I ate a lot of really good pizza and met a lot of really nice people. I stayed around until they kicked us out of the parking lot. (When I ride with Mr. Grouchy Karl, we never get to stay and have any fun. Yet another reason I like traveling by myself.) But I think the highlight of the afternoon was when I introduced Flat Ted to 3-D Ted.

They got along swimmingly!

  Sadly, I had to return my super-fancy rental bike to the bike shop. I returned to my hotel for a shower only to find an invitation to lunch the next day. But that, my friends is a story for another day.

Winner, Winner, TV Dinner

  I seem to have good luck winning charity raffles. Over the last 10 years or so, we've won:

 A Radio Flyer wagon 

Ours says "State Farm Insurance" on the side

 A large framed mirror

Yes, that's our prom picture, aren't we cute?

A fancy tire pump

We still haven't figured out how to use it

A super fancy bike light

I have yet to use this one

And last night we got a very unexpected call from the nice lady with the Friends of the Library. We've won the Grand Prize. A 50 inch LCD HDTV television!

I hope we can find somewhere to put it!

So I guess we're hosting all Superbowl parties from now on.

Edited to add:
I forgot about the Hunter ceiling fan I won over the summer. It was a bit more trouble than we expected, a couple of parts were missing, we had to buy a light for it, and it didn't exactly fit on the hardware from our old fan...  Maybe I blocked it from my mind.