Memories and Resolutions

Happy New Year to all in bloggerland! We are in St. Louis enjoying a relaxing week with the family and dogs. This morning Chris was attacked in bed by a fluffy herd of flying golden pig-dogs. Pictures will come soon but the camera is currently with Chris as he rides his bike over in Illinois with his dad -- I chose to opt out of the fun ride because of the extreme chill in the air... now I feel lazy but at least I'm warm :)

As the calendar has now turned over 2008, I can look back on another year. This year has been full of so many adventures that it'd be impossible to list them all here. The best part about blogs is that you get to publicly make statements and then look back on them later and laugh at your naivety or marvel at your wisdom. Here's what I wrote at this time last year, looking forward to '07 (with my current comments in blue):

Looking forward to 2007? You bet! If all goes as planned, '07 will be a huge year for me. That it was. I've realized my abilities and talents and this year I am going to do my best to challenge myself to accomplish things that I've always wanted to do. I am semi-committed to give time trials on the road bike a whirl. Yay! We'll see how training and trying out aero-bars feels. I like the idea of a 20something minute race although getting over the fear of going fast is going to be my biggest challenge. Surprisingly, going fast in aero-bars wasn't as scary as I thought. While I'm still not super speedy, I can now consistently cruise over 20 mph on a road bike without thinking twice. I gained some serious confidence on both types of bikes this year. I am also semi-committed to thinking about registering for the winter park mountain bike series. I need to get out and push myself on the mountain bike... once I am convinced that I'll get something other than last place in my age group, I will think about committing. I'm glad I did this series. Even if I paid more for not committing to the entire series right away, I am impressed that I went back for all seven races. I also didn't get last -- I'm still quite proud of my 2nd place finish in the series. I'm excited about conquering a few more of those mountains that I look at out the window everyday. We climbed 8 more. Wow. Chris and I are hoping to expand the family this year and find out whether or not a guy who rides on an SLR for 6000+ miles can really have babies successfully ;) Well, I guess we still haven't proved that this can happen, but at least it's been fun trying! I've gotten better at being patient and being genuinely happy for the countless number of friends that have popped up pregnant while we've been disappointed every month. This entire experience has been a challenge to my personality but with good results. Should be a big year. Even if things don't work out as planned, I'm sure there will be memories galore in the coming 12 months. Good or bad, we'll get through them with grace and plenty of pictures! That's right. We have over 1,000 new pictures from 2007 and many many many new memories.

So there we have it. I met and exceeded many of my goals and expectations for 2007. I even managed to deal with some unexpected challenges as well. As I head into 2008, I hope for much of the same. My goal is to challenge myself in the mountains on my bike and on my feet. Perhaps I will talk myself into more mountain bike racing outside of the Winter Park series (for sure a tour of the White Rim. Kokopelli tour too? Colorado trail on bikes or feet?)... Maybe by 2009, our 14er count will be up to 20 -- is there a true winter climb coming in 2008? I already know of a few changes coming to the Plesko house in 2008 and with these changes everything will be challenged; however, I'm sure that no matter what happens, we'll make it through (once again) with "grace and plenty of pictures!"

I greet the new year with my favorite "non-people/animals" pictures of 2007:

Some fancy named stove made out of cans but also a really cool picture!
This year we managed to have a Friday morning Starbucks date almost every week (except for over the summer).
Our car looked like this more often than not. Only now we can add a busted taillight to the picture! On this particular weekend we climbed one day, rode the next and camped the weekend away.
Fall on Culebra Peak. Scary road but beautiful scenery!
Frozen stream on Mt. Bierstadt. Maybe one of our less successful/less fun climbs of the year but it was quite pretty.
Ah, our failed White Rim trip. By far the most adventurous adventure of the year. I'm all for more adventures but let's hope this one doesn't repeat itself in 2008.
Thank you for reading another year's worth of rambling!