Happy Birthday Corey!

Happy Birthday to Corey! We decided to do an epic ride to celebrate. We stayed the night in Park City's Summit Watch, left at 7:30 this morning for a ride, and we would have gone down Crest and biked home, but we had to stay up here to fetch the car. We took Armstrong up to Mid-Mountain and then stopped for a snack at the beginning of Pinecone. 

Pinecone did not feel as horribly long and brutal as last time, but that could be because I tried a strategy of keeping my head down and making sure my visor was blocking the view of the climb ahead so I didn't get discouraged by seeing each new hill. I just looked down at the trail in front of me and as I looked at that dirt I knew "I can do this, easy..." and it was easy, compared to lots of rocky places that we're used to on the Temple Quarry. This was just steep. Just take one hill at a time. We stopped twice for snow to replenish our water, and soon it was over. On the last stretch of Pinecone I was surprised that there were large patches of snow that covered the trail!

But we made it! The view from the top is so amazing - coming up and seeing Brighton and Big Cottonwood Canyon and all the mountain peaks, even Pfeifferhorn in the far distance (right of photo).

We took a breather, fed a ground squirrel some cashews, and then headed down Puke Hill (much better than going up!) Scotty's Bypass had me yelling a few times. Made our way towards Guardsman Pass. Today we decided it was time to revisit Dead Tree. We have only done Dead Tree once, when we were fairly new to biking in Park City in 2021. We're ready to face it again. 

Corey ready to take on Dead Tree with the Heber Valley behind him. Dead Tree was a little narrow and steep in a few places, but not the crazy insane "I can't believe people bike this" like I felt the first time. Once we got to Apex it was all good and fun the rest of the way. Silver Queen was one of the first trails I ever took, when I first did the bike haul in July 2020. I haven't done it since then and it was sooo fun!! I always thought that was all Jenni's that we took on that first rdie, but today I learned that the first part was Silver Queen. They've done work to it since and it was awesome. Really fun like Rush. I think the boys would love it, so we'll try to get them up there to it this summer. 

Corey and I were back at the hotel to get the car shortly after twelve. It was almost a 4 hour ride, which is about as epic as we 50 year olds like to do. The birthday boy wanted to stop for Handel's Ice cream on the way home. Plain Chocolate is his favorite, and yes, he's trying to be more healthy BUT he just did a 4 hour ride, so he can eat it cause it's his birthday! But he said he doesn't want a cake "cause I don't want to die." I told Abi his wishes for no cake, but then she said "what about a crepe cake?" and sent a few pics. I said that is probably appropriate for him. 

After we got home, I ate some leftover red lentil dal from dinner yesterday and it was very satisfying (with kimchi and 'itchen sauce). Fiber for the win. Corey had his veggies and protein, then soy yogurt and fruit, and as he made his food we noticed Abi doing something with crepes. Yes, she was. He went to work cause it's his birthday but it's still a regular day. Ethan, Bella, and Alvie came over on their way back from camping in Idaho - 

Shout out to Bella for sharing these pics on Strava! (hi Alvie!!!)

(Looks like they found snow too!) And then Corey got home and we enjoyed crepe cake and ice cream after Abi got back from work. "Happy Birthday Dear Dad!"

"Happy birthday to you, cha cha cha, ooh la la, stick your head in hot lava, etc etc" 

(I don't love all the birthday add-ons from elementary aged kids) 

Hyrum made a video for Corey. 

Wes was here this weekend and so he and Abi were the parents while Corey and I were gone last night. He cleaned up the yard for us today, was out edging the lawn when we pulled in, thank you Wes! He was in Logan this past week but has this week off. 

We could make him a slave here, but instead he just left with Ethan and Bella to stay at their place. Hopefully he can help them out a little with babysitting this week. He might have arranged that cause he doesn't have a space here anymore. All that work to make the basement nice and then we go and give the guest room to Abi, sheesh! That's gratitude for ya.... sorry Wes. She'll be gone in two months and then you can have it back. Wes has this week off of FSY and then headed to Santa Barbara on Saturday. He'll be back in Orem after that, then at BYU, then is a counselor up in Moscow Idaho for the last two weeks of July before coming back for the Wride Reunion. He said being a counselor at FSY is super fun. 

So, yeah! Corey, I hope you had a happy birthday! You're the best and I'm looking forward to the next 50 years of our life together!! (...and eternity after that!)