It wasn’t pretty, but I finished the 14th annual Tour de Blast up Mt St Helens last Saturday. It was my 6th or 7th. With all the travel and move distractions, I’m running at about 30% of my usual number of cycling miles for this time of year. The weather was comfortable, the top of the volcano was socked in with clouds. Ride profile: 6,240 ft of climbing over 82 miles. Friday, the day before the ride, I woke up and went to work at 1 AM in Loma Linda, flew to Portland at 10 AM and closed the Portland pharmacy 12:30 to 4:30. Then I went home and got the house and yard ready for an open house. I was TIRED!!

Dylan, Gavin and I ran the Rose Festival Starlight Run last Saturday night. It’s a 5K (3.1 mile) run along the Starlight Parade route before the parade. It was fun. The boys were working the crowd…hi-fiving the kids along the way. Dylan was the biggest surprise. He is usually a whiner about physical excertion, but didn’t complain and ran like he could have easily gone another 5K. There were 2,500 runners and they had a costume contest. Pirates and Paris Hilton were the most popular themes.

Friday was field day at school. The tug o’ war was Gracies favorite activity.

The boys had a lacrosse tournament in the freezing, windy, pouring rain. They won all their games and played GREAT. Dylan scored the winning goal in the first game, scored in the second and scored 3 in the third. In the last game they were behind 2-5 at the end of the 1st half. They battled back and won by 5. The other team was more skilled, but our guys had more heart.

Our house is officially on the market. I spent Tues to Fri in working in So. Cal. The house looked great when I came back after lots of work by Shannon and help from others: windows cleaned, furniture back on the carpet, loads of clutter moved, kitchen cabinets cleaned, etc. The home inspection of the Claremont house went well…no major issues to resolve. We made a list of things we’d like fixed, should hear back from the sellers tomorrow.