Fireman Cody

The one thing we seem to have more than anything in the house is fireman related paraphernalia..  So when Cody visited Tyler's school to go swimming he was excited to see the fireman outfit.

Calling the fire chief

Snow Cones and Bouncy Castles

Tyler's school had a BBQ event at his school and both he and Cody had fun on the bouncy castle and eating snowcones..

Bouncy Castle fun

When I am not touring with ACDC then I eat snowcones

Getting ready to tour with ACDC

Cody jumping into the pool!

Here are some comical ones of Cody jumping into the pool! 

I have to say it's quite hard for the parent to watch the teacher let your kid flail around in the water sometimes!

Cody's swimming

Though lacking in natural tendencies to bike, Cody is quite comfortable in the water. And since we're switching him to the "big" school and have swimming lessons, we thought we'd get him used to swimming instruction. He initially did a parent-tot class and progressed to a group class.

This is his group class and i think it took Tyler nearly a year to get to this stage!!

Cody and his strider

I've been working on getting Cody to ride the bike for some time but he doesn't seem to possess the same natural ability like his brother nor have the desire to ride one. Since i don't know how to teach him to pedal, i  thought i'd try the new approach of the pedal-less bike.

So, i got him a strider bike. Took him maybe a couple of weeks before he was willing to "ride" it to the park. Since then we've been trying to take them to the park every evening to work on their biking and now he's able to cruise along at a reasonable speed. It's quite cool!  Cracks me up to see him do it. Shall have to remember to video it.

Here are some initial pictures of him and his strider.

He's cruising!!

Going round the lake with big brother, though he only does half the loop

The question is, how do i add the pedal on??!!

Skull Tyler

Tyler has progressed from tattoos on the arm to face painting at last !!!

Check this one out !!

Another Chuck E Cheese birthday

After Siobhan's party and a quick nap, we were off to our 2nd birthday party of the day. It was one of Tyler's classmates and they had it at the kids' favorite place - Chuck E Cheese(ugh!!).

Anyways, Tyler seemed to really enjoy hanging out with the boys from his class and most of them being boys were having lots of fun running around and being all goofy! Cody also finally seem to finally learn to enjoy all the rides and games and had a blast!

The boys eating pizzas at Chuck E Cheese

Tyler finding the Chuck E Cheese songs and moves funn!

Only took Cody 3 trips to learn to have a good time!!

They hogged this ride for a LOOOONNGG time!! 

Siobhan's cake

Siobhan turns 2 this week and i promised that i'd make her birthday cake. Hish informed me that Siobhan likes lemon cake, so lemon cake with fruits was what she got.

As i was travelling the whole week, i did not have time to prepare ahead of time, so i recruited Hish to help me out. She is an excellent source of inspiration and an awesome sculptor with fondant. I suspect she is also there to make sure that Siobhan got the best cake, because nothing but the best is good enough for Hish's niece!! :)

But you can't rush perfection, so we were up till 4:30 am! So, again, i promise to work on the timing!!!

Siobhan's Curious George cake

Watching Siobhan so into her cake sure made our hard work worth while! :)

p.s. Everything on the cake is edible except for the candle and the stuffed toy! And that is NOT a real banana!!

Tyler crashes at Bradburn Triathlon

After the last few successful triathlons, we've been training Tyler to ride without training wheels with the hope of improving his biking time even more  he's been making great progress on the bike. Alan even bought him a new bike. The only problem we saw with his biking was his constant over correcting.

Anyways, the Bradburn Triathlon is finally here and Tyler was feeling quite confident. He had a really awesome start by speeding off on his bike. But unfortunately half way thru his cycling course, he crashed and lost all his lead. But with Alan's urging, he climbed back on his bike and continued with his race bleeding knee and all.

He even managed to pass a few people during running and did a good swim across the width and still beat Mateo by about a minute!

Anyways, we were really proud of him for finishing the race even after the crash! :)

All of us came to support Tyler

Tyler and Mateo getting ready at the starting line

Our little brave triathlete!!

After the race was done, Tyler and Mateo spent quite a bit of time swimming around the swimming pool. It was really nice to see Tyler so confident in deep water! :) Next year, hopefully Cody will be able to compete also!!

Rogers River Run 5K - Fastest time this year

This is a run that I try and do every year and last time I completed it in 23:10.  I ran it much faster this year, and also managed to have much better splits (6:42, 6:56, 7:06) to finish in 21:21, but strangely enough still finished in roughly the same place 56 (3rd in my age category).

This year I did see the balloons take off, thought that three bathrooms for 550 people probably wasn't enough and was surprised they 'ran out of T-Shirts' so I had to take an XL, which truly is XL.

Broke the seven minute barrier

PR on Expresso Speedway

Expresso Speedway is a 1 mile bike ride that is a killer.  It should be easy, you just ride for 1 mile, but all sorts of factors come into play, such as what gear, stand up/sit down.  How much power can you deliver before you have to slow down, bike inertia and so on..

It is possible to complete this ride in 2 minutes using the Expresso bikes. I on the other hand seem to have a brick wall of 2 minutes and 28 seconds.  I come close to this on many occasions but it has taken almost a year and 20 times riding this course to get my time down to 2 minutes and 27 seconds !!

Think that I need to video the ride, and see what is optimal for me in terms of gears and positioning to try and get that number down. For sure I can do the first half mile in around 1 minute, it is the second half where I slow down..

New PR by 1 second

Tyler does 2 laps of the lake

Tyler has been practicing nearly every day on his bike in preparation for his next Triathlon and although not 100% stable he did manage two laps of the lake today averaging 5 mph and hitting a maximum of 10.3 mph !!  Technically he did three as he took a break on the swings then did another lap.

Checking out the bike !!

Two laps and more !!

Camping RMNP

It has been a super hot summer this year and the heat and fires in Colorado has put a damper on our camping activities. But not to be easily discouraged, we planned a trip anyway and what do you know?? It rained!!!

And it was an interesting eye opener for me to go on this trip because, as adults, we spend lots of time focusing on the negative things like, oh it's too hot, we can't do this, or it's raining, we should cancel. But just watching Tyler and Cody enjoy the trip, their ability to just ignore the fact that it's raining and concentrated on just enjoying the camping experience, was something i learned on this trip. They even think carrying the "berella"(umbrella) is a treat!! And watching them stumble around in the dark with it is so funny! :)

Anyways, i digress.

So, we got out to RMNP for a weekend camping trip with the kids. It was a nice break from the horrible heat we've had for quite a few weeks and the scattered thunderstorms scattered at the right time, so we were able to get a few hikes in as well as some REALLY long naps in the afternoon. Who would have thought that a sleeping in the tent with rain beating on the roof would be so therapeutic? :)

The kids seemed to have enjoyed it immensely and i have to say, it was the most relaxing camping trip i've been on! That kids philosophy must be working!!! :)

Here are some pictures:

 

Due to the fire ban, we bought a small stove which made cooking super fast!

 

Breakfast is ready!

 

Our tent survived the rain!! Yay!!!

 

On the bus to Bear Lake

 

Bear Lake

 

Beautiful reflection

 

Cody sweeping the water

 

Both boys enjoying the walk around the lake

 

What fire?? Everything is so green and lush!!

 

Oooh.. cool water

 

Family shot

 

Listening to a ranger talk

 

Not forgetting our kumon homework!

 

The kids checking out the rock pile while we were packing up

 

How am i going to drink this???

 

The scenic loop near the Moraine Park visitor center which we finally got to visit!!!

 

Our big boy!

 

Daddy's nature lesson of the day - elk poop!!

Mt Massive - another 14er in the bag

Steffen and I conquered another 14er today. After watching fireworks until late for July 4th. I got up early and drove down to Leadville with Steffen and beyond to hike Mt Massive which at 14,421 feet is the second highest behind Mt Elbert that we had already done

There are two main routes for this, a 13.75 mile round trip gaining 4500 feet in elevation, or an 8.00 mile round trip gaining 3950 feet.

Easy Start, Brutal finish

We chose the shorter trickier route and it was a tough one, we hiked up in 3 hours 20, and down 2 hours 20.  We actually covered 9.42 miles as we couldn't park at the trailhead.

Start of the trailhead

Made it to the top

July 4th 2012

We had our annual July 4th party this year. As it was a weekday and there was a chance of no fireworks(not  like i expected anybody to stay to watch it), I made a decision to have the party early in the day. Diana the super hostess came by to help me set up and brought super yummy home made ice cream. With her help, i managed to get most things ready at party start time, except guests arrival!! Oh well, it's July 4th!

All the food ready, where are the guests?

Anyways, we had quite a few people stop by for the party and even had a few fun games set up by my favorite game master Hish. It is amazing how much more fun the games were once we "improvised" it to make it more competitive. I'm just glad the kids weren't watching!

It was also fun to catch with friends that we saw often and the ones we didn't and caught up with the latest happenings over some grilled stuff and ice cream bar. Unfortunately, the group seem to lack creativity when it comes to ice cream toppings and most people pooh-pooh'ed at my cream corn and peanut topping!! hehe..

Only the Boulder-rites were brave enough to go out and enjoy the sun!

I figured i'd join them.. on the grass!!!

The city folks enjoy the sun on the deck and under the canopy!

The food..

Balloon tossing is more fun when you can steal someone else's!!!

What is Sapna doing???

Sponge kidnap attempt

Look at all these adults laughing like little kids!!!

Damith trying to whistle with mouth food of crackers

Alan's face!! 

Uyen decorating her ice cream

Alan and I

Catching up with friends

Anyways, after the kids had a good nap, we headed out to the green area behind our house to join a July 4th celebration put up my our local church. Turned out to be quite a cute little fair with bouncy castles, pony rides, petting zoo, tractor ride and all other kinds of fun stuff. We even got to ride in an old fashion fire truck!! What a treat!! 

Surprisingly, Cody wanted to ride the pony

Shashank got to ride the fire truck with me and Cody

Quite few people stayed till dinner and helped me finish up anything that was leftover! *phew*.. after a fun long day, they bid farewell. Mateo and Adam stayed back to watch the fireworks with us. We did our usual trek across to the Broomfield Commons and had quite a good firework display. The kids were finally at the age to know how to appreciate the fireworks and got quite excited! 

The kids enjoying the fireworks

As a big fan of fireworks, it was the perfect ending for a good July 4th!