Year 24 of the MS 150

Holy cow, another year went by .... fast!!

This year the MS150 was the Ned, Wendy and Kim show. Kim works at MORA and is a biker but had never done the MS150, we were about to change that!!

Friday was the bus ride up, a few beers, a nap, and dinner at Lil Angies. Lets just say...its noticeably colder in Duluth along the water front. It was gorgeous but we were ready for bed!

It started to rain about 4am and we "waited" it out until 6am.  We got ready, ate a pancake breakfast and by the time we were ready to load our gear onto the bus, the rain stop (for now). yeah!! It was a great day of upper 50's, tailwind and off and on rain. The rain wasnt bad as long as you had your rain coat and your arm and leg warmers on, which we did!  Once we got to Hinckley (6 1/2 hrs, not bad!) the rain stopped totally and made for a pleasant, cloudy, lower 70's afternoon. We got our massages, acupuncture, showers and share a few beers with friends on the ride.  Ned was the #24th highest fundraiser (~$5k) and Tracy was the 79th highest (~$3k).  We were in bed, lights out at 8:15pm. Gotta love when the ride wears you out!

Sunday was a gorgeous day, tailwinds again (for the most part), mid 60's with cloud cover. We made it to White Bear Lake in record time (6 hours) and enjoy meal # 452 of the ride. There wasnt as much socializing on Day 2, we were all concentrating on finishing, but it did feel good.

Next year will be my 25th year riding AND I'll be 50. Auntie Lynn and I have decided it needs to be epic - we are thinking $5,500.  Its a good combination of the important #"s.  Uncle Alan was 55 when he passed away, I'll be 50 and it'll be my 25th ride. I'm hoping everyone goes out all to help me achieve my goal.

Now, its time for a massage, a glass of wine and bed.

Until next year!! Thank you Wendy, Ned and Kim for being such great partners on this journey!!
Tracy

Bus ride up

Sunset in Duluth

End of Day 1, Ned and I are twinsies

Ned!!

#24

#79

Kim's 1st medal for finishing the ride

Wendy and I - all smiles at the end

Lunch on Day 2, we do ride through a lot of corn fields

Memorial Day weekend and cabin/Bangalore life

We have the glorious opporuntity through Tracy's work to rent cabins occasionally on their property in McGregor. They are fully furnished, sleep 5 and come with the (free) use of a fishing boat, pontoon boat, row boat, paddle boat, ping pong, pool, horseshoes, volleyball, corn hole ... you name it, they have it! Not to mention ... every 89's VHS tape you can image (with an extra bonus ... working VHS players!!)  Its basically heaven.

This year we were lucky enough to get a cabin for Memorial Day.

Tracy headed up 1st with Billy, Angela, Caden and Wyatt.  (Tom, Jimmy and Kay were coming up later due to sports practice) They had a gas (after sitting in an extra 40 min's of traffic due to long weekend cabin commuters).  Dinner was at the Fireside supper club - salad bar and everything.  Then, card games (solitaire) for the Mom's and Blockus for the boys.  The next day they were WAY adventurous and went on a 90 minute hike at the nature sanctuary where they encountered lakes, bogs and about 50+ ticks. Seriously.  Angela googled it and we were basically at ground zero for ticks. Needless to say there was a TON of freaky out after the hike including hysterical boys making us pull over on the highway so that they could pick them off. We continued to find/pick them off for 2 straight days. Yikes!

Tom and the other kids joined just in time for FISHING!!  Caden had brought all his gear and Kay was eager to get out too. Again, Kay out fished EVERYONE !  She got a northern, small mouth, crappie and a ton of sunfish. In fact, at one point a loon was sitting about 4 feet away from her on the lake. Every time she caught a "too small" sunny, she'd throw it to the loon and the loon would catch in. Smart loon. Kay's a loon whispered.  That night was super yummy Genovese (new pasta dish we adore) and TV - Clueless to be exact.

Sunday Bob, Chandra, Grayce and Owen came down from their new house in Duluth to spend the day.  They brought Coltrane (their 10 yr old ridgeback) and their new puppy Bowie (same breed). Holy Cow were they cute and Billy loved up the dogs.  We visited, drank some champagne cocktail, reminisced about India, laid in the sun, paddled in the boat, went swimming, went fishing and basically had a picture perfect day. Bob took the boys out in the row boat to go swimming in the middle of the lake. Tom took the kids fishing (again).  We made a HUGE shrimp boil to round out the day before everyone headed home.  We were staying for 1 final family night and indulged in the Breakfast Club. Classic.

Angela made homemade big breakfast every morning and it was wonderful.

There was no cell coverage or internet and the kids survived (just barely)

We reconnect with really good friends and slowed down to appreciate life a bit.

Billy acted as photographer and got some killer shots (see below)

Overall, the perfect perfect holiday weekend.

So blessed with generous workplaces, good friends, wonderful food and the ability to enjoy life....

Sunset on Rock Lake - the fishing lake

Nature

The road less traveled

Sunset on the woods

The beaver dam

Sunset from the cabin

The stars

dandelions

Caden

The CREW!!!  with an extra bonus that EVERYONE was actually smiling!

Swingin'

Blocks and cards

row row row your boat

The loon is in love with kay

more rowing

going fishing

sunset fishing

the loon is back

dock fishing

into the sunset

now waytts rowing

Rock Lake

Tom is a brave man

Said tick farm, I mean nature sanctuary

Whats that in the upper right corner?

Happy Mothers Day

I'm a bit late posting this and do apologize however in my defense it has been a bit hectic around here lately, see previous post!

Tracy continues to amaze with her devotion to preparing for the MS 150, taking time to make sure we are all taken care of and doing well. She is our rock and our biggest champion so on Mother's Day we all take notice and say thank you MOM!

I must add to all mom's out there and particularly Grandma Hickey and Grandma Murphy, we are blessed by your involvement in our lives and your love and laughter.

We love Tracy's quirkiness, her sense of humor and she always has great insight for debating with Jimmy! We are blessed everyday having Tracy as our mom, partner,,friend, guidance counselor, souf chef, scheduler, the list goes on.




So on this Mother's Day taker notice of all the mom's in your life , your kids lives and give thanks for them, and perhaps you will see that there is still a lot of joy, hope and happiness out there!









Happy Mother's Day Tracy you are the best friend, partner, traveller, lover, and the only person to take this journey with! I love you.

Quick Kid Updates

A crazy fun week - in a nutshell...

Jimmy had his final band concert and they sounded awesome!  The tradition is to play the wrong last note in the last song, however... their band instructor sort of lost his sh-t last week when the 11th grade band did that so...at Jimmys concert, only the bass horn section did it.  You can still hear it and Jimmy thinks it hysterical.

Listen here

Billy and Tracy road tripped to Kansas City last weekend for a TKD tournament (Lees Summit to be exact), ate some good BBQ and Billy kicked ass!  He has gotten so good - its so fun to see and his coach is seriously impressed. Note the sizes of the kids that he's sparring against and how well he does! He took 2nd in sparring, 1st in weapons and 3rd in pomsea.

Pomsea
Weapons
Sparring clip  Billy is in Blue and there are 18 small clips of him sparring on youtube (loudamericans)


Kay had her 1st dance, Semi.  She went with a bunch of girls and looked fantastic. Of course we werent allowed to come over to take photos and we are "on call" to be picked up at the ready.  Hope she has fun!!

Team USA- Football Camp

The football camp season has begun and Jimmy has been invited to try out for Team USA.

This is a pretty cool organization, very organized, well run and full of information for young kids thinking about trying to play college football. Unlike some other camps we have been at this one does not focus on the NFL but focuses on division 2 and division 3 schools.
It was a two day camp and Jimmy had a blast.

Day 1: We arrived signed in and sat through a 45 minute presentation about the camp, the coaches and what to expect. Jimmy is currently playing line backer so after the meeting all the athlete's took the field to warm up and then break out into position groups. There would be a series of 4 3 hour practice sessions through out the c amp. The first one was basically getting the players warmed up and into the right groups. They ran a few drills then we broke for an hour lunch.

Jimmy was pretty pumped over lunch talking about how it was going and what he was learning, having never really been in the linebacker roll he was excited to get the training. The afternoon was more of the same with some one on one drills with he linebackers going against the running backs. The session ended at 7:00 and Jimmy was pretty beat. He was of course excited and had several new theories about football camps, college coaches and the whole process. He said that there are three things you need to do to impress the coaches:
1. Look the part, you need a cut off shirt some facial hair and look like a football player.
2. You have to know what you are doing if you stumble over a drill, look lost and are not fluid in your play the coaches will know your not serious.
3. Have a good attitude and be aggressive .
Kind of sounds like Jimmy doe want it!














Day 2: We started the day at 9:00 with and hour session of the Ins and outs of being a college recruit. It was a very informative meeting and Tom came away with a long too do list,, first thing is to get Jimmy registered with the NCAA, you can't play college football or get recruited with the right forms, and the NCAA is the first one you need.
Jimmy headed back onto the field for the next 3 hour session. The groups again broke off into position groups, ,ran a bunch of drills and then did the 40 yard dash test. The after lunch it was all 7 on 7 type drills no tackling but there was differently contact, and Jimmy let his presence  be known!!When it was all done  and said


, Jimmy was invited by two colleges, Hamline University and Presentation College to come and attend their summer camps. The Hamline's Coach gave Jimmy a hand written assessment and ask that he keep in touch. Jimmy's take away from the camp was,that he is physically ready and is very much where he needs to be. On the recruiting side he said that he spent all of his time with two coaches, and he impressed both of them to the point of being invited to their camps and being asked to keep in touch, overall a pretty good start to the season.
Next up The University of Minnesota and the PJ Fleck camp....

Music in the park-Orchestra Trip to Chicago

Billy and the rest of the 7-9th grade Orchestra headed down to Chicago for three days of sightseeing and an Orchestra Festival.

There were three bus loads of kids 14 chaperones and a lot of junk food. This was the 24th Orchestra trip and I believe the 8th trip to Chicago. The bus ride down was pretty easy compared to last years 19 hour trip to Branson! We arrived late Wednesday night unloaded the buses and got  the kids into rooms and lights out at 10:30.

Thursday morning there was a three hour rehearsal for one hour per grade at the hotel. Then we headed off to Wood-field Mall for some shopping and lunch.  Next up was the Blue Man Group. It was a fun-filled crazy fast moving entertaining and crowd involved show, super fun. We then headed off to Chinatown for a walking tour and then dinner at one of the local restaurants. The food was awesome and the quantity was crazy. I think many of the kids are not very adventurous eaters and there was unfortunately a lot of food left. We then headed off to Sears Tower no called The Willis tower, which if you have been there once you know what it is all about. The kids did seem to enjoy the tower even if we were only there for about an hour.Back to the hotel for swimming, hide and seek and generally running off energy. 10;30 was lights out again and everyone was very cooperative.

Friday we headed off to Navy Pier to enjoy the nice weather and relax bit before the festival. Speaking of which hit was sort of a weird event. It is a competitive festival where each orchestra is competing against  the others however there are no people in the audience, just two judges, odd.
Billy plays the violin and does a pretty good job. We  were eat the festival for about two hours and then it was off the Gino's pizza. Awesome pizza and great fun. The kids were a bit wound up on Friday night to the point where we had to close the pool early, stop hide and seek in the hallway but for the most part it was pretty easy.

Saturday was Six Flags and all that comes with it! The weather was great the place was packed however the kids were tired. We arrived at 10:30 and by 12:00 kids we're hanging out with the chaperones asking when are we going home...

We actually made it back to school early the kids cleaned up the bus and the tour was over. I have to say it was an interesting chaperone group, the Orchestra director after 26 years is retiring so this was the last hurrah so to speak.....

Willis Tower

6 Flags!

Hot Jazz

The end of the school year is winding down and that means ... end of the year concerts.

Tonight kicked off the end of jazz band, its a voluntary before school band and Jimmy loves it. He plays drums and sax but would prefer if he only played drums.  They meet before school every Tues and Thurs and he has NO problem getting up for it.  He just wishes that they could choose their own music and (therefore) have more challenging music to play. Its a common compliant with this crew since they are all really talented and want to get better, fast.

Tonight they played 4 songs and Jimmy played drums on 2 and sax on 2 (with gum in his mouth, I have no idea how he does that but he's been doing it since 6th grade).  They sounded amazing and we can't wait for next year!!

Hot Jazz 1
Hot Jazz 2
Hott Jazz 3
Hot Jazz 4

Getting ready to go!

Happy place

Working it

On sax

The Band

The Band + Mr Bell