The big 30!

Lisa turned 30 yesterday!  To celebrate we got a babysitter and went to Ruth's Chris steak house in Park City for dinner Friday night.  The food was tasty, but definitely overpriced.  We probably won't be going back there anytime soon, but it was fun to say we've been there.  After dinner we went to the outlets and let her do some shopping.  I think she enjoyed some of the outfits she got at Banana Republic and enjoyed window shopping at some of the other shops.

The big present for Lisa's birthday this year was a road bike.  She has been wanting one for a couple of years because of the beautiful valley we live in, but we never got around to it. About two months ago my dad had an opportunity to get a road bike for an amazing deal, so my parents pitched in on it and we bought her an awesome road bike.  Happy birthday to her!  It's an Orbea.  It needed some fixing up to make it rideable, so I tapped into my skills from my college days as a bike mechanic and got it all spiffed up for her.  She bought herself some sweet clipless shoes and biking clothes (photos to come soon) with some of the money she has made from all of her Etsy sales.  Here she is posing with her new present.

The bike is insanely light.  Wait, I mean, she is super strong to be able to hold that bike like that!

On Saturday we went to Tucker and Aubrey's soccer game in the morning.  They annihilated the other team.  They beat the other team something like 12 to 1.  Tucker scored 9 goals and Aubrey 1.  Well, kind of 2, one was an own goal that she likes to count as her second goal.  Its fun to watch the two of them play on the same team.

After the soccer game, Lisa's mom came up and watched the kids for us for the afternoon.  I took her back up to Park City to do a little shopping at the outlets, we picked up her turtle pie birthday (ice cream) cake from Cold Stone, and then we went to ride the mid-mountain loop trail.  If any of you are turtle pie fans, don't bother with Cold Stone.  Stick with Baskin Robbins, we were very disappointed with it.  Anyway, we took it back to my office and stored it in the freezer while we went on our ride.

We have been planning on riding this trail for sometime, so we have been getting in shape for it throughout the summer. It is a 24 mile loop with some serious elevation gain, over 3000 feet.  So Lisa and I have been riding a couple of times a week up at Dutch Hollow trails here in Midway throughout the summer.  I don't think we could have picked a better day for our ride.  The weather was perfect and the fall colors were so bright and brilliant.

If you want to see a map of our ride, you can go here.  We started at my office parking lot and rode up to the trail head.  We cut a couple of miles off the trail by taking the Armstrong trail instead of Spiro.  We REALLY liked the Armstrong trail.  You don't realize that you have climbed 2000 vertical feet because of how steady and smooth the trail is.  Here is a shot of Lisa with Park City ski hill in the background.

Once we got to the top of Armstrong trail we continued on the mid-mountain trail.  We had some awesome views of Park City from up there.  Again, the weather couldn't have been more beautiful.  All the maples were bright red and orange, and the aspens were just starting to turn yellow.

In all it was a long, bumpy trail that was a ton of fun.  Lisa did great, especially because it was the first big trail she has ever done on a mountain bike.  I don't know about her, but I was hobbling around like a cripple for the rest of the night because of how sore I was.  It wasn't even the cardio aspect of the ride that got to me, it was the jarring, pounding ride on my hardtail that beat me up.  It's rides like that when I really, really wish I had a full suspension.  After our ride we drove back home and met up with Lisa's mom and the kids.  We went to Tarahumara for dinner.  After dinner we all loaded up the kids and went with Susan in the truck.  We drove the loop up Snake Creek, over to Cascade Springs and back home to really enjoy all the fall colors around us.  It was a beautiful drive around dusk, and I think we have convinced Susan that we live in the most beautiful place in the world.  If any of you are looking for a cool drive to take in the fall colors, I highly recommend taking the one we did.  It is so gorgeous up there right now and should be for another couple of weeks.
Hopefully it was a memorable 30th birthday for Lisa.  The kids and I are very grateful for her and appreciate all she does for us.  Happy birthday babe!