Prospera Valley Gran Fondo - Check!

Today I finished the Prospera Valley Gran Fondo and I was pretty stoked to get it done. I started road riding back in February/March as I was not losing, or maintaining, my weight by mountain biking; probably had something to do with driving or taking chair lifts to the top of the mountain and riding down!

Anyways, my time was 5 hours, 31 minutes and 49 seconds which placed me 151/333 males who started and 41/76 in my age group with an average pace of 29km/h throughout the whole course; I was more than happy with that outcome considering my longest ride prior to this one was just shy of 100km.

Chelsey and the kids did not get to the finish line in time to snap any pictures but I have copied a map and hill profile below for those who care.

Also, one of the things on my 2012 Bucket List was to do a downhill mountain bike race but since I have spent so much time on my road bike I have not mountain biked much so I am going to count this as the "race" instead; I feel no guilt as the Gran Fondo was a lot harder than ripping down the trail, in my opinion.

Oliver Trip 2012

As most of you know we spent last week at Lake Side Resort on Tuc El Nuit Lake in Oliver for our 2nd annual Woods Family "camping" trip. Just to recap this is the same place Chelsey went as a kid and her Mum also went there as a kid and I am more than willing to continue on the tradition. I was unable to do the daily blog update this year as the wireless was too slow and I was having to much fun!

It is hard to believe but this trip was even better then last year.We had so much fun and the place we stay at is the perfect place for families, I cannot explain how awesome of a time we had. The weather was a tad warm but it made the lake that much hotter. The kids spent a bunch of time swimming and riding their bikes and due to the extra pedal time Kyah is now off her training wheels and Cohen is very close behind! This year friends from Chilliwack came so Cohen and Kyah and other friends to play with the whole time, their names were Lilly and Logan. The kids also met some more pretty awesome friends at the lake that they spent the week with and reconnected with a friend they met last year. One of the little boys got an Angry Birds board game for his birthday and Cohen was more than happy to spend a number of hours in the shade playing with him; he had a little sister that Kyah played with and it is so much fun watching the kids make friends and spend the time playing with them. Last year we spent a few days doing trips to Penticton, etc. but this year we spent a lot more time at the lake and it was a very wise choice; we did make sure we took two trips to Tickleberry's though!

One trip we did take was to the Desert Model Railroad in Osoyoos. There are a bunch of pictures in the slideshow below but these pictures do not do it justice, the place is absolutely amazing. We spent about an hour in the place checking things out but I could honestly have spent another 2 hours. The place is 4000 square feet choc-o-block full of trains, it took them over 11 years to build and is a must see for anybody driving through the area.

Canada Day 2012 Campbell River Trip

With us leaving for our trip to Tuc El Nuit lake tomorrow (I hope our house sitter remembers to water my vegetables in this heat!) I thought I should post the pics from our trip to Campbell River last weekend, so here it is.

Auntie Kim had her "lady stag" and with Chelsey helping organize it we had to venture over for the long weekend. We caught the very a tad late on Friday and rolled into Campbell River far too long after midnight; the positive was the kids were great. The girl stag was on the Saturday so after a relaxing morning I took the kids mini golfing in the afternoon as I had promised Cohen I would take him. After a bunch of fun mini golfing  we scooted off to Miracle Beach Provincial Park for some Geocaching. While I could "legally" cross Miracle Beach off our BC Parks list in the spirit of doing things right I would rather spend some more time there before we do. When we were Geocaching I found a robins egg on the ground and after checking it out Cohen asked to look at it, not knowing any better he squeezed it and it broke and splattered all over his face; while Cohen was not too impressed I thought it was very funny. After having dinner with Uncle Nick, Grandpa Darcy, Hunter and Easton I took the kids back home for a nice sleep.