81°F In Late Feb = AWESOME!

Just when we figure we can’t spend more time outdoors, it hits 81F and we find ourselves eating almost every meal outdoors!  This last week had some awesome weather, and we did some really nice runs from the gym (after we climbed of course!).

Friday we had a small public tour of TGen, called DNA By Moonlight, which was a lot of fun.  There were about 60 people from the community who had the chance to see 6 labs and got a small schpeal about what we do, and how the technology works.  Everyone seemed to really enjoy it, and there were some students who came that were compelled to look a little more at our Helios Scholarship program.
Afterwards we decided to try and make Grandma's Ice Cream Dessert.  It was an absolute favorite of mine growing up and I hadn't had it in years.  It's not the healthiest of things, but how can butter and sugar wafers be healthified!?!  We did make one small mistake (adding the chocolate on top when it was too warm), but it only made a small difference.  The rest was GREAT, and I think we have some guests coming out in a few weeks (G&G Syring, and John & Margaret) that might like to try some...:) 

Saturday we did some much needed yard work by completely removing our cactus from our front yard.  It was a nice cactus, but we just didn’t want it in our yard.  The root ball posed a challenge in that it was rooted pretty well in the ground, and heavy as hell.  But that’s one of the reasons we got a truck…J  With a little ingenuity and some horsepower I was able to rip it out of the ground no problem.  Mara helped hack some of the weight off and we tossed it in the truck and hauled it to the dump.  Our replacement Ficus tree should be installed next weekend.

Sunday was pretty packed as well.  We started on a 10mi bike ride that turned into a 16mi bike ride.  The trails we looked at on Google Maps didn’t show the fenced off areas that we couldn’t get past, so we had to ride quite a ways out of our way to get around it.  It felt great, but we all needed a nap that afternoon!
One thing that has kept Rohan busy the last few weeks was a planting project.  Mara and I are notoriously bad cultivators of plants.  We have literally killed bamboo, and all that needs is water once a month.  Given that we live in an area that gets 300+ days of sun per year we picked up some small starter pots and some basil & parsley seeds to plant.  We found a nice kit that has a sort of built in greenhouse and it made the plants come up pretty quickly.  Rohan has been fascinated with them and how they will "grow really big".  We transplanted the three smaller pots to a new, larger pot so they can continue growing.  We also got some more seeds, this time lavender in hopes of perfuming the kitchen nicely, and also got some cilantro.  It will be great if we can start a little herb garden that we can even start to cook with.

"Happy Valentine's Day Birthday"

"Happy Valentine's Day Birthday" is what Rohan has been saying ever since he learned that AZ became a state 100 yrs ago on Valentine's Day.  Pretty cute..:)  We celebrated the centennial with some local craft beers with a friend from TGen and capped off with some tacos at a local dive (Tacos de Juarez) that is pretty scary, but awesome food!
Tuesday we had a nice dinner party at our friend Shannon's place. She cooked an awesome goat cheese, fig, and onion dip that was outstanding! We mad some Pao de Queijo and we also had steak, great mashed potatoes and gravy and great dessert!  Rohan had a blast putting on his shirt and tie and getting dressed up with everyone.  He was quite the charmer for all the single ladies at the party...:)

Wednesday we had another dinner party, tacos this time, at another friend's house.  Mara had to work so it was just Rohan and I.  There were 2 larger dogs there so Rohan kept busy hiding from them and throwing toys.  He may, or may not, have been trying to sleep in their kennel...:)

Satruday we fianlly got around to going to the Phoenix Zoo.  We got there around 10am and walked for the next 3 hours around the zoo.  Rohan was so excited he walked the ENTIRE time too, probably over 3miles!  He was nice and tired at the end.  We saw lots of cool animals and Rohan now has a couple zoo books from the library.  After hitting some balls on the driving range, we went over to our friend Patrick's for an amazing wine & cheese night.  Patrick is from Luxembourg and has a great taste for cheeses and wine.  Rohan played really good with another 5 & 7 yr old there and they were all passed out hard by the end of the night.  Rohan, somehow, lasted until Midnight, even with all the zoo walking and only a 45min nap.  We hung strong until 3am before heading home...I was a little sleepy the next day...:P

Sunday we took Rohan to one of the parks by our house and took his training wheels off.  He had been wanting to do it and he was really excited.  He did WAY better than we expected.  The only time he fell was when he started thinking about falling, then he started bracing himself to fall even before fell...:)

We capped off the night with a run to Best Buy and picked up a new Asus Transformer Tablet.  Pretty much in geek heaven right now...:)

Other than that, just planning my trip to Vegas to climb in the Red Rocks this week, did a couple destiation runs, and even relaxed long enough to watch a movie...Shreck, with Rohan...:)

Rohan Raring at the Jaguar:

"That a big turtle!":

Rohan sans Training Wheels:


Rohan's wipeout:

Blastoff!

This last weekend was pretty awesome.  It had been a while since Mara had a whole one off so we spent most of the time outside.  We did several runs and parks as usual, and also found some time to climb.
One of the more exciting things we did was take Rohan to the Challenger Space Center in NW Phoenix.  Rohan has been hard core into shuttles as of late (he has 2 or 3 favorite YouTube videos).  The museuem had anything and everything space related.  Tons of pictures of rockets and spacecrafts of all sorts.  Rohan really liked Ham the space Monkey that they shot into space in the early 60's.  Rohan considers him a national treasure...:)
The center also had a 10' space shuttle model and a launch simulator which Rohan REALLY liked.  Top off with a mock Mission Control Center, and Space Lab and I think there is a good chance Rohan will be attending Space Camp when he's a little older.  There was also a video on the 7 wonders of our solar system.  Rohan is good at recognizing Saturn and Earth, as well as the Sun, so that was pretty exciting to watch.  We capped off our 3hr trip (it went super fast) with a demonstration of a Tesla Coil and electric fields and my favorite...Eddy Currents.  Pretty awesome morning!  After the space center we grabbed some salads and hit a huge park in Glendale for a picnic and play time.
Sunady we watched the SuperBowl with some friends and grilled out.  I had made some Anaheim Peppers stuffed with cheese and sausage, then wrapped in bacon.  They were on the grill when the grease started dripping and made a HUGE fire in the grill.  The peppers actually turned out REALLY good!  The fire was hot enough to burn the tin foil we had them on!  Pictures are pretty sweet though...:)
Other than that, just enjoying the weather at the dog park, kid park, AZ Best Fest, and pretty much anywhere else outdoors that we can find...:)


Rohan watching space shuttle launches. He loves that they go to the International Space Station: