We had a great Thanksgiving in No Cal at Shannon’s sister’s house in the country. Shannon’s parents and brother Dave and his family were there, too. Thursday morning Don’s dad took all the boy cousins trap shooting. The 1/4 mile motocross track on their property got lots of use from motorcycles, quads and the Jeep. Dylan drove their old Montero dozens of miles round and round on the track. We played and watched lots of football. The ladies got in a marathon day of shopping on Black Friday. It was me versus the other 15 cheering for Utah on Saturday. They did better than I expected with their freshman quarterback.

Thursday afternoon I took Gavin to see Cirque du Soleil: Kooza at the Santa Monica pier. It was an AMAZING show and we had a great time. The weather at the beach was perfect: 70s with a light breeze. Gavin is 100% healthy and back to his cheecky self. This was the 3rd of 3 “dates with dad”. I took Dylan to the Canucks-Kings hockey game. Grace and I saw Lion King in Vegas. I’ve got great kids and had a blast with each of them!

Look who my moms and pops ran into at Little America a few weeks ago. President Monson was taking the Mrs to brunch for her birthday. My parents were there with one of their favorite Mongolians: Siara.

Last Saturday I rode a metric century (64 miles) in my first Tour de Foothills. I enjoy organized rides as a way of seeing new scenery, getting excercise and getting motivated to exercise. In Portland I did Reach The Beach (100 miles) in May, Tour de Blast (87 miles, climbing thousands of ft) in June and I mixed in the STP (Seattle to Portland: 200 miles in a day!!) a few times. Down here in So Cal I’ve ridden the Stagecoach Century the last 2 years in January and will be adding Saturday’s ride to the calendar. It was the first organized ride I’ve done with a start line close enough to easily ride to and the first with a route that passed near my house. That came in handy Saturday. It was 42 degrees at the start and pushing into the 70s by the end. I stopped at the house for a quick wardrobe change. I did better than expected on the flats, but cramped up a bit on the hills. With 300o ft of elevation gain over the ride, there were some pretty steep climbs.

Grace and I went to UT for Chase’s baptism last weekend. It was a very moving ceremony. Chase chose Grandpa Wride to perform the baptism.

Grace loves ice skating and trips to UT usually mean a visit to the South Davis Rec Center (as seen in an episode of “Nitro Circus”). She’s pretty good at it and we want to get her in some lessons to see if she wants to pursue it. Mom takes full credit for those genes since she was the star performer at figure skating productions at the local rink in BC back in the day. We also went swimming at the rec center and I got to ride Mike’s new Harleyesque Yamaha cruiser.

I picked Grace up right after school on Thursday and we made a b-line for Vegas where we saw Lion King The Musical. It was an entertaining show. I got a cheap room at the Planet Hollywood Hotel on Hotwire. Since we were only staying one night they upgraded us to the $500+/ night penthouse suite for free! It felt as big as our house, had awesome views of the strip, giant flat screen TVs, etc.

Dylan’s middle school flag football team beat Upland in a make up game today putting them in 1st place in their league! Dylan played on defense and the kicking team today.

Gavin is feeling and looking much better. He is even planning on playing hockey this weekend!