2011 has been shaping up to be a busy year - racing (a little, not a lot), planning the wedding, running up and down the island for work, keeping up with all the sweet 2012 stuff being announced/about to be announced, gardening, house maintaining, and trying to get some downtime at the SAME time as Drew.  So yeah, those are all my excuses for being lost on the blogging vortex.  For a quick recap -

Campbell River Island Cup - Over a month ago, this race marked my first race back from my knee injury.  The knee held out, the race was super-fun, but the race fitness was largely lacking...came in 2nd to Karen Trueman (who has kicked it up a notch and is riding/racing so well!).  Super fun course (on a cold day) but ended up with a group of people hanging out around a campfire after some beautiful single track - definitely not a bad day to spend the day!  (Thanks to Dan at Outdoor Addictions for putting on an awesome race!)

Portland Trip - 3 days with 3 amazing women in my family!  My sister, aunt, grandmother, and I (with appearances by my brother-in-law) had an amazing few days eating, exploring, and sharing stories throughout Portland.  My grandmother grew up there and learning more about the history of the city and her story of the city was a fantastic history lesson!

Snow to Surf - Going into the weekend I didn't have a team, but Drew had been asked to represent some friends of ours on the road bike....I figured I'd go along for the Forbidden Plateau ride the day before, but (while packing) I got a call that a team from Vancouver needed a mountain biker.  "Sign me up" was my response and the weekend got way more exciting!  We had an awesome 3.5 hour ride at Forbidden Plateau on Saturday and then I had a good (not great) race on Sunday. ....still working out the kinks in the race legs!  My team finished up 34th overall (a huge improvement over 65th last year!) But the fun really started in the beer garden...which moved to the Griffon Pub, and then home to the Milley household where comfy couches awaited us by 9:30pm - yeah, we party hard around here.

Port Alberni Island Cup - Hard course, best weather and trail conditions in years, tired legs, and an awesome crew of bearded guys to help me push through the suffering equaled an awesome (but epic) day on the bike.  Rode some sections that generally scare me and inspire me to hike a bike, and finished the race with trembling arms and tired (still not race-day ready) legs but with a big smile on my face.  For extra punishment and fun I followed it up Monday with a 5 hour epic around Forbidden Plateau....my body is still trying to figure out what happened!

That pretty much catches things up to this weekend....we spent Saturday cleaning house (I know...so glamorous) and Sunday it rained cats and dogs.  We did, however, get new kit for our Condo Group team...