Shrove Tuesday

We normally forget to do pancakes in the US as it is not such a big tradition here, but this year we remembered and cooked up a big batch. Not sure Tyler and Cody got it exactly as they chose to go with meat and salad pancake for Cody and then Tyler went with Meat and whipped cream.

Not sure why Cody has a handle sticking out of his head

Tyler channeling the Fonz

Tyler competes in the Colorado State Swim Meet

Tyler narrowly missed out on individual state selection for his swimming this year, but he did qualify for two relays.  This meant we had to attend 2 sessions for around 3 hours, for around 30 seconds of swimming!  He did get a State swim cap and T-Shirt so it wasn't all bad.

His team improved there overall performance in both relays, and Tyler did improve his 50 Free time.

Fast time

Not so fast time

Ready for the start

Sucking in air

Wanted for having no hair!

Alan Climbs Republic Plaza multiple times

For many years I have seen this event, which is to climb the tallest building in Denver, the Republic Plaza but for whatever reason there has always been a missed deadline or something on that weekend. This year I made an effort to sign up and complete it.  There are two categories, most climbs in an hour and fastest time for 1 climb (this is done after the multiple climb).

The climb is 56 floors, 1098 steps and around 600 feet of elevation gain.  Sounds easy?  Well you also have to handle the cold fan making it somewhat frigid for multiple floors, as well as other people in the stairwell.

I managed 4 climbs in the hour, could possibly have done 5, but they cut you off if you don't make it, so I didn't want to attempt the 5th knowing I had to do an individual run afterwards.

For the individual run, I managed my fastest time of 9 minutes, 53 seconds, so officially a sub-10 guy.

Tired Legs

Nice Medal

Individual Climb

Multiple Climb

Tyler passes Kumon H1 Reading

Slightly ahead of schedule and with a 100% score, Tyler passes H1 reading.  Now on to HII.

Good Score, good time

Texas Road Trip

The boys had a few days off school, and Siew Gin was in California so I took the boys to explore Texas over the long weekend.

Wednesday was a driving day (10 hours plus), as we had to get close to Texas.

We stayed the night at Wichita Falls, and in the morning after breakfast we headed out to see the falls.

After running up and down them a few times it was back into the car and off to Dallas, for the first of two stops.  First we went to the George Bush Memorial Library where the boys got to hang out in the oval office as well as take part in a presidential briefing.

From there after lunch we headed into downtown Dallas to Dealey plaza to check out the JFK museum.

Then back into the car and a drive to San Antonio, stopping off briefly in Austin to eat fried chicken

San Antonio was a more relaxing day.  Our first stop was the Alamo, followed by a river walk to the Cathedral, then off to the tower of americas revolving restaurant to eat as it was cheaper than just going to the observation deck! Our last stop of the day was to Mission San Jose

The next morning we had another early start as we went to the Houston space center to check out the tours, space shuttle and all things space.  In the evening we met up with Siew Gin's sister who happened to also be in Houston, took her out for ribs and ice cream.  The next day after a quick swim at the pool, we started on our journey home.  Another long drive took us to Amarillo, where the boys got to taste Whataburger though they claimed Mooyah was better before our final drive home on Monday back to Colorado.

All in all, it was a lot of driving - 2,526 miles but everyone had fun.

Texas is closer than you would think to Colorado

Check out the stuffies

President and Vice President Mills

Dealey Plaza and the fifth floor window

Eating that chicken

The Alamo

Enjoying the riverwalk

The Cathedral

In the revolving restaurant

That tower was high

Ready for the mission

A different kind of mission

Enjoying our BBQ

Whataburger

Tyler gets very close to State time for 100 fly

Tyler took part in the HRA spring to state swim event today. He was trying to qualify for state in the individual events (he has already made it for relay).  He had 3 great swims, and just missed out by .9 of a second in his 100 fly. He has dropped over 4 seconds in the last couple of weeks.  He also had a great swim in the 50 (yards) free, getting down to 33.11 seconds.

Practice start - not sure this is a good example for Cody

Ski Keystone with Terry

Terry goes for a ski trip with his friends every year and I've tried to join him a couple of times but i was never successful. This year, he came to CO and i thought i should join him.

Tyler and I made it to Frisco on Friday to squat in his apartment that he got with his friends and spend the day Saturday exploring the blue runs at Keystone.

It was a fun day for all of us! :)

Cody and his team win 8 and under swim champs

Cody and I went to Eaton today for the 8 and Under swim champs.  Cody swam in 4 individual events and 2 relays and managed to get 4 medals for his effort as well as 1 pb.  Not only that, but his team were the overall winners as well.  Cody is getting faster at swimming for sure.

Second place in the relay

Medals and more medals

The winning team

My 41st *gulp* birthday dinner

It's not easy to say i'm in my forties, but here goes.

It was relatively quiet birthday this year. But Alan and the boys surprised me in the morning with cards and gifts. The boys' cards are already "funny" cards instead of sweet.. hmm..

That night we went out to Benihana for dinner which was a bit of fire and show for the kids. It was fun.

The boys liked the hats

So, Happy 41st to me!! :)

Cody passes Kumon DII Reading

Cody passed his Kumon DII reading today.  A couple of months ahead of Tyler

Good job Cody

Birthday dinner with the Heides

The Heides invited us out Saturday night for an early birthday dinner celebration for Siew Gin at 740 Front.  The food was quite good, and very fancy kids meals.  Thanks to the Heides for not only inviting us, but also picking up the tab!

Nearly finished our food

We are going to need a bigger cake and a few more candles

Home Depot valentines frame

The boys completed another home depot project today, Normally the projects are really easy to do, but this one was way more complex and we had to do a little bit of rework on Tyler's project.

Our final work