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:

Tough Mudders!

I apologize for this taking so long to get updated, but we've just been buy...no more than usual...maybe we've just been lazy...:)

Anyway...The adventure week we had a couple weeks ago was EPIC in my book! First I climbed Pinnacle Peak with some friends, then Mara and I skydived, then the next weekend we did the Tough Mudder! It really was one of the toughest things we've done. 12.5mi and 29 obstacles was pretty intense! We ran with a GREAT group of friends and had some of their girlfriends hop around the desert taking picture of us. I had a small camera that took crappy pictures along the way, but thanks to them we have TONS of pictures. I stole some of them from Facebook, but if you want more you can go to my account and see more; I added some of the better ones here.
Overall the course was tough (duh), but for me the toughest part was the running in the desert sand part. My calves definitely did not enjoy that! By mile 8 I was cramping and getting OTM treatments from Mara (& Angleika) the rest of the time. One of the more breathtaking obstacles was the "Arctic Enema". Pretty much a tub of water and you had to swim under a thin board to cross...easy, right? What you can't see is the 5" of ice cubes on the other side of the wall... When you come up into them they wrap around your chest and it is incredibly hard to catch a breath!
The last obstacle was the one the race is known for..."Electroshock Therapy". 10,000 volts and mud...who could want more?! The hardest part about this obstacle was starting it. You had to stand in front of it, waiting your turn, and watching people get electrocuted right in front of your eyes! Eventually we headed on through. We started running, but as soon as we got electrocuted, you tense up and hit the mud and crawl. While I was crawling I got hit again, then the next thing I knew I opened my eyes under the mud (not a good idea by the way). Thing is I had NO idea where I was. One of the shocks must have made me blackout for a few seconds. The rest of the crawl I was barely able to see, but I made it through after a couple for shocks. It really was a great time! The shocks were tough, but it was all worth the challenge and the people we ran with couldn't have been better!

Other than that, we really have just been up to our same old routine of climbing, running and just flat out enjoying the upper 60s & low 70s we have been having! The bikes have gotten a TON of miles put on them over the last couple weeks! I'll put some videos from other people who taped the Tough Mudder from either the sideline or by running with a tiny GoPro camera attached to them...we WILL be doing it next year, so start prepping yourself for joining us, Michelle! :)

Here is one of the first person perspective videos...

Here is a taste of the Electroshock Therapy obstacle...

Rohan playing baseball. He is getting pretty good too! The first hit is weak, but the next two are awesome to watch!

More baseball:

Rohan’s Birthday Week

Well…our little man is 3 years old now! Crazy how time has flown, but we hope we’ve filled his life to date with some pretty awesome experiences…:)

We’ll start off with the Hawkeyes being in town for the Insight Bowl the week before last. Greg & Nico got me tickets and it was a good time tailgating, and watching the game…even though the Hawks lost…:) Rohan had a blast at the Hawkeye Huddle where the fans in town all meet at the convention center and prep for the game. Rohan kept calling it the Hawkeye Puddle…:

We celebrated New Years with friends and had a great time with the host (Kim’s) Nerf gun. He had bought it for whatever reason, but we took it to another level by throwing the Nerf darts since we only had one gun. It was decided we would have a future Nerf War with more guns and more people.

Rohan’s birthday week was pretty spread out and has essentially lasted from the end of Xmas until this last weekend. He had been looking forward to his birthday for weeks now and had been telling everyone how old he will be/is. We had a small celebration on his actual birthday, but Mara had to work that night so we postponed the actual party until a couple days later when we had a BBQ with “his people” as he calls our friends (mostly climbers from the gym). Rohan received 3 Nerf guns as presents from his friends, plus tons of Lightning McQueen cars/gear. We played several rounds of “Storm The Castle” with one group protecting the upstairs, and one infiltrating from downstairs. It was an absolute blast! There will be many more Nerf wars to come! We took time to sing happy birthday to Rohan, and of course spoil him with more presents. One of his favorites was a double sided light saber that he would charge upstairs with while we were playing our Nerf games…hilarious to see…he even had a war cry…:)

 The Saturday after his BBQ we meet up with some friends at Pinnacle Peak Mountain to climb a bit. It’s a different type of climbing (traditional) than we are used to (sport), but one of our friends lead the way and took 3 of us through 3 pitches and ~200 vertical feet to the summit of Pinnacle Peak. One of the coolest climbs I have ever done…and very rewarding to summit something like that!

 Afterwards we met Heather, John, Nelly, Matt, Don and Mary at Spinato’s Pizza. Nelly and Don had graciously offered their skydiving vouchers to Mara and I, so we paid them back in food…:) Heather and John were nice enough to take Rohan overnight so Mara and I could get up early and jump out of an airplane…and that’s just what we did! We got to the Casa Grande airport at 8am and were on our way up to ~10,000ft to jump in about 30min. It was awesome! Be sure to check out the video below!

All in all an AMAZING couple weeks, even after the whirlwind of Xmas and New Years when most people are slowing down a bit. We don’t even stop there…next weekend we are running the Tough Mudder race which was recently increased to 12.5mi and 29 obstacles! We have a great group of people to run with so it should be a blast! Can’t wait to post pictures of it! In the meantime enjoy what we have here:


My skydiving video (skip to 2:00 for the jump...):

Irena & Jen Walk Into A Nerf War Zone:

Singing Happy Birthday (I was REALLY late getting the camera start so I only caught the end...):