Oh my Oh-Nine!

As this year plows to an end, it is hard not to look back on the last few months and feel like it was a bad year. However, as I look back on all of the pictures and stories of 2009's trips, adventures, purchases, and laughs, it is clear that 2009 was 10.5/12ths absolutely wonderful!

The last few years I have set some goals for the year and then looked back at the end to see if I followed through. Always entertaining to look back on, so here it goes:

Looking forward to 2009? Well, I'm sure it'll hold many surprises just like this year. The word "surprises" is an understatement. I hope to continue to build my climbing skills, as I've really enjoyed climbing both inside and outside this winter. At this point, it's still a Just For Fun hobby with an added bonus of a bit of cross-training for bike season. With no major climbing goals in mind, I simply hope to continue to enjoy it -- safely. I would say we achieved this. We climbed a lot in the Flatirons and Eldo. We even set up a "first ascent" in La Veta (Mind Over Bat Poo). I'm sure Chris and I will continue to work toward our 14ers goals together, hopefully including some multi-mountain-multi-day trips in this summer. Almost every 14er trip this year involved overnight camping partway up the mountain. Time and lack of responsibilities allowed this and it was a blast. We never fit in the super multi-peak challenge we hoped for, but we did get Belford and Oxford done in one day. I will climb Longs Peak this year, perhaps by the traditional Keyhole route, perhaps by a different one. Yeah different one! Go me! Either way, I will do it... even though it scares me. Quite the experience and glad I met this goal! Chris and I have our sights set on a tour of the Colorado Trail this summer -- probably by bikes, but we'll have to see. This was the plan, but honestly, I wussed out. I'm not sure what our summer will look like, with Chris planning more big adventures, and me taking at least one masters class, but somehow we'll fit at least a few fun things in when we can. We did fit in many fun things and I ended up pounding out three masters classes this year. My biking goals for '09? Pretty similar to last year. I'd like to crush the 30 minute mark at Cherry Creek, in addition to trying to make the top 10 at one of the races. The 30 minute mark will be easy, top 10 probably not so easy. But I'll try. I beat the 30 minute mark. It was magical. Top ten, not so much. I want to survive Expert at Winter Park and if I can get top 3 on any race, I'll be super excited. I didn't do many of the Winter Park races this year. The desire and drive wasn't there. Sad. I've kicked around the idea of the Leadville 100. I need to decide soon, as applications need to be in ASAP. It's so expensive though, and hard to commit that much money to 8 months out when I'm trying to get pregnant, but maybe. I feel like I can do it with some good training, and I'd like to do it, so who knows. Well, our group didn't get in and now they are being greedy and jacking up the price even more, so we're priced out of this race for quite a while. Maybe one day. Or maybe one day we'll just ride the course on our own and enjoy the ride for free! That could be fun...

And so we have it. I met some of my big goals, wussed out on one, and surpassed my wildest expectations in a lot of ways. Not too bad.

Tomorrow I will post a wrap-up with pics. Tonight blogger does not want to upload any.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Pleskos!



If you haven't already answered my poll on facebook, answer it here so I can beat Chris in a bet!

When you sing "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer," how do you finish this part: "he'll go down in history (like ________)!" Apparently there are two answers, total news to me! I'm firmly in one camp and Chris is firmly in the other. Help me win.

New Look

I was getting tired of my blog's look, so it got a quick makeover. Hopefully the colors aren't too painful to read.

In other news, I am officially on Christmas break and couldn't be happier about it. I have a great group of kids, but I think we all needed a little break from each other. I know that two weeks without tattling or crying because "she won't be my friennnnnd" is going to be wonderful. I am going to try to make the most of this break and do my best to relax. This weekend is being used to catch up on much needed sleep and hopefully next week I will get caught up on some much needed ride time. I also plan to eat A LOT. That's what the holidays are for!

I am also happy to be done with grad school for the semester. Taking two classes was hard, but I made it through and I'm glad I am two classes closer to being finished. One of the bigger laughs of the semester came when I wrote my 11 page final paper on one computer, only to try to post it online a few days later. When I went to post it up, I realized that only half of the paper had saved. I had a huge breakdown only to rally myself a few minutes later. I made a goal to try to type the remaining six pages of the paper in one hour. I put my mind to it, finished it, and submitted it knowing that it was total crap. The first paper was good. This was crap. A few days ago I logged back on to see if it had been graded only to find a comment from the professor saying that it was the best paper submitted! Ha! I love my ability to crank out some quality BS! I am signed up for two more classes in the Spring, which will be no easy task, but I'll be happy to get done with this masters sometime in the next year or year and a half. I'm over homework and looking forward to being able to read for fun again!

I am really excited for Christmas this year. Whether it is having a tree, listening to Christmas tunes on XM on the way home from work, or just being excited for 2009 to end and bring on a better year, I'll take it. Chris already got his big Christmas present from Santa and he's off using it this weekend. I'm sure pictures will turn up on his blog as soon as he gets back!

Hopefully in a few days I will get some year-in-review blogs up, because I love having a good excuse to relive all of the fun adventures of the past year.

Giving it a good shot

I don't put a lot of stock into what my fortune cookies tell me...

unless they say what I want them to!

Then I keep them and put them on display.

The next day, hubby mixed up the goodies...

While Pup watched with great interest...

And I, and my butt, got nervous...

But all went well.

Today we got the job done at the dr's office and now we wait.

I predict my fingers will eventually freeze into the crossed position.