Our family is charging into 2011!
Both the boys will be racing mountain bikes for Team Pablove this season and their first race of 2011 is Sunday, February 27th in San Diego. We couldn't be more thrilled that both boys are going for it this season. Here's the race schedule, in case you want to come cheer them on!
Nathan will be working hard at raising money for the Pablove Foundation again this season. With all of your help, Nathan raised close to $2,000 last season and had a thrilling time keeping up with the Pablove Across America peloton, for the last 20 miles of their 1,452 mile journey from Seattle to Silverlake. It has been a tradition for Nathan and Sean to ride the last 20 miles of Pablove Across America for the last two seasons. However, 2011 takes Pablove Across America from Milwaukee to New Orleans. Nathan's goal this year will be to raise $5,000 with his campaign Mountain Biking for Pablove, with the "HIGH" hopes that we can all make it to New Orleans next October, so that he and Sean can ride the last 20 miles with the peloton.
MOUNTAIN BIKING FOR PABLOVE
Soccer is Tristan's first love and he had a rough 2010 season playing for an older club team. It was hard on all of us watching him struggle through the season. Thankfully, that is past us now and we are totally stoked that Tristan has made the Clifton Middle School Soccer Team. One of only 3 6th graders chosen! He really, really needed that boost of confidence and I'm looking totally forward to taking lots of pics and sharing them here! Sports aside, Tristan really shines academically! He as been a consistent 4.0, Honor Roll student all year! We are very, very proud of him!
Sean has been busy helping to form a high school mountain bike team and acting as one of the team's coaches. Our hope is that we can establish a mountain bike team at Monrovia High School by the time Tristan enters high school and then obviously grow it and have it going strong by the time Nathan gets there. That's the plan, anyway! Right now the team is the San Gabriel Valley Composite Team, with kids from all over the San Gabriel Valley. Mountain biking has been a passion of Sean's for close to 30 years now, so I'm thrilled that he is able to give back and help kids establish a love of the sport that he has loved for so many years.
As for me, I'm the person that tries to hold it all together on the homefront. How well? I'm not really sure, at times! I love my boys and I would do anything in the world for them at any time. However, this year I will be doing a bit more concentrating on ME! We've been through some doozies since 2011 began, trust me! And all those "little" happenings, plus finding a lump on your neck kinda puts things in major prospective! I'm not panicking yet...well I did at first, but now I've had the biopsy and I'm feeling pretty sure it's a cyst on my thyroid (get biopsy results in mid March). Anyway, all that said, it's way past time for me to spend a bit more time making me HAPPY. There's a big part of me that wants to be "on the farm!" So, this Spring I'm plotting out a spot for my organic veggie garden and Nate Dog and I are building a chicken coop big enough for 5 or 6 laying hens. I'm so excited! I have all my hens named already: Florence, Betty, Marge, Ida, Penny & Ruby. How many animals will we have then????? 2 dogs, 4 cats, 19 fish in our pond, 6 hens?
Exercise used to be a big priority for me before kids. Believe it or not, I used to be Sean's favorite mountain biking partner! That's what he says! So now, I'm making it a priority again! Yoga is a must 3 times a week; and I'm enforcing my old rule of no "house work gets done today, until I've gotten outside for some exercise." This rule worked really well when the boys were little....so I'm enforcing it again.
I'm learning alot from my boys right now and one of the biggest lessons is: I need to have my own thang! So, one of my things this April is joining Team Pablove to help Children's Hospital of Los Angeles TURN ON THE LIGHTS of the new hospital building! This project was in full swing while I was working at CHLA and it is so gratifying to see the day finally approaching when the lights of that building will be turned on! My friends and past co-workers have worked tirelessly for this day to arrive! It will be a very emotional and exciting day! Nathan is an ongoing patient at the Genetics Dept. at CHLA, so I know how important this building is for children and families throughout California. If you can, PLEASE HELP ME TURN ON THE LIGHTS of this amazing facility!
Love, Lisa
