For New Years, we headed down to the desert for a ride that would start my year off right. We had an invite from a bunch of Julian and Imperial Valley guys. Not really knowing what was cooking, we just knew they were a fun and strong crew to ride with.

We dropped Zander off at his grandma’s so we could hit the road at 6am. I was really looking forward to a long day in the saddle with Brendan, as we don’t get that too often and this was kind of a birthday ride for him.

After meeting everyone at Smitty’s place in Plaster City, we loaded up 15 people and their bikes like sardines into 3 trucks.

We headed down washes and out some fun doubletrack to see old stagecoach stops, beautiful arroyos and eventually skirt a somewhat-eerie, active bombing range.

The guys hammered and somehow I found myself at the front of the pack. Maybe it was because they didn’t want to throw elbows with a female, but it sure made me feel good. We hammered through open desert in the big ring for about 5 hours. It was nice to open up on flats. Here’s a sampling of the pics from the ride. Enjoy

Why I love my mom (pictured with my niece):

1. She’s a beautiful person.

2. She always works very hard – at everything she does.

3. She has a HUGE heart and taught me to love everyone.

4. She is very resourceful and has always found ways to accomplish what she wanted.

5. She taught me the joy of making things with my hands.

6. I don’t think she’s afraid of ANYTHING.

7. She has always put up with my crazy ideas and impulsiveness.

8. Even though I still challenge her and push her buttons, she’s still always there for me

9. She is a very strong woman.

10. She’s an adventurer.

Why I love being a mom:

1. Alexander

2. Book Time

3. Giggle Time

4. Hiking with him in a backpack, or riding with him in the trailer.

5. He has helped me to slow my roll and enjoy life.

6. He’s half Brendan.

7. I don’t ever have a dull moment anymore, thanks to that kiddo and his amazing sense of humor and personality.

8. He gives me hugs and is starting to give me kisses… at all the right times!

9. He has helped me to realize that it’s not about me, and it’s pretty darn good too.

10. He’s a great dancing partner.

Zander’s first outing (when he was 2 weeks old) was the International Date Festival in Indio. Beyond the great date shakes,  it’s also the Riverside County Fair with rides, dart games, the s.c.r.a.p. gallery, a petting zoo and lots of other silliness.

Now that he’s a year old, Zander got a bit more out of it.

We started with the s.c.r.a.p. gallery which is a display of recycled art and always has some fun bikes on exhibit.

From there, we went to the petting zoo, where Zander saw some donkeys, a huge hog, and lots of energetic kids running around with handfuls of a birdseed looking mix of treats for the animals.

Now, last year I don’t even remember seeing dart games, basketball throwing scams (picture very ovalized hoop that BARELY fits a basketball) and air gun shootout games. It could have been because I was 2 weeks post postpartum and pretty out of it. So, this year, we were set on winning the kiddo a HUGE stuffed animal. It didn’t exactly work out that way and about $30 later we had a 4″ tall monkey, which he LOVES, thanks to Brendan’s skills with darts.

Last year, we ate a good sampling of fair food to include terriyaki-on-a-stick, fresh squeezed lemonade, date shakes, a huge pretzel, corn-on-the cob, and who knows what else… also related to the post-partum condition where I wanted to eat everything in sight. This year, we limited it to the pretzel, lemonade and obligatory date shake. It probably helped that we found a superb Mexican food place in Indio and ate before we went to the festival.

By the end of the day, we were all a bit spent, but, it was great getting off of the cold mountain and we will definitely keep the tradition going – especially for  the collection of photo booth pics we’ll build.

Click to view slideshow.

Watch it full-screen in HD.

This is a repost from Mikael at Copenhagen Cycle Chic. I thought my readers would love it!

Our friend Kenny had some apples that were getting too ripe, a bit mealy, so we decided to have some fun with them. Since Alexander just hit 6 months, he’s starting to explore real food and this also made for a fun Sunday.

We started with the “Cooking for Baby” book by Lisa Barnes.

Her recipe for apple puree is supposed to use 6 apples, not that far off, right.

I washed, quartered and cored the apples in batches of 10…

and steamed them on the stovetop.

While they were steaming, I sterilized jars in the pressure cooker.

Then I spooned the apples out of their peels…

and pureed them in the food processor.

Alexander was the taste tester…

We put some of the sauce in the freezer in nice little portions.

And canned the rest with the pressure cooker (of course we ate a fair bit along the way.)

In the end, we gained some good stuff for the compost, too!

Happy Baby… Happy Garden… and we saved a case of apples!