Happy Thanksgiving!

This last week was a short one for me (only 2 days of work), but Mara had to work her normal shifts as usual...:(  We did make the most of the time though.
Thursday we met up with friends at our friend Kim's house for a n awesome potluck.  Rohan has such a blast playing with all of "his people".  Rohan was going strong all night, and ended up still running around our house when we got back at 11:30!  He has some epic endurance!
Friday we met up with everyone at the gym the next day for several hours of climbing.  Rohan was still exhausted from the night before and napped for almost 2hrs at the gym.  Since he's been mobile, he's never napped longer than 20min at the gym, so he was pooped!  We met up with everyone at Four Peaks to bid our friend Ed good luck.  It was his last day working at the gym. He'll still be around, so hopefully we'll still get to see him.
After we left Four Peaks we put Rohan to bed, then started our newest project, replacing our kitchen sink!  My parents gave us a gift card to Home Depot when we moved and this sink has been sitting in our front room ever since...:)  It was pretty easy to install, and the black resin sink now matched our black faucet, and black appliances...including our dishwasher which we found this week at a garage sale for super cheap...:)
Saturday we wrapped up the sink project and headed out for a long bike ride up and down the canal near our house.  We ended up hitting the Reach 11 Sports Complex where a lacrosse tourney was going on.  Rohan didn't really seem that interested until a bunch of girls in skirt uniforms practiced nearby...:)  We met Kim and Angelika at IKEA for some knick nacks before crashing when we got home...:)
Sunday we spent the day wrapping up little projects, catching up on laundry and dishes, and started putting up Xmas lights.  I havn't done Xmas lights since I was little, and even then it was mostly Dad, so it was a lot of fun to do on our own.  We didn't go nuts (like Dad did...:P), but we had a nice outline of the house and garage.  Rohan's toy room got our 4' tree and he LOVES to turn it on.
Mara took Rohan to the library for the first time today and he absolutely LOVED it.  He came home with 7 books ranging from baseball to dragons, to Chinese dragons and cookies...:)
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!!

Enjoying The Weather

This last weekend we took FULL advantage of the mid- to upper-70F temps in the Valley of the Sun.
Friday we took the oppurtinity to hit a park with Rohan and soak up some sun after a long week.
Saturday we started off by exploring the canal near our house and found it's an awesome bike trail that hooks up to a hore park and soccer complex!  We'll be hitting that up for trial rides and trial runs...:)  We also came across an Australian Shepard Club's agility competition.  Rohan was having a blast watching the dogs run up and over A-frames and through tunnels.  After the bike ride we met up with friends at AZR and climbed for quite a while, getting some pretty good routes in considering we've been hit and miss lately with Mara working nights.  Saturday night we met with friends who are moving to New Mexico after some military and professional promotions...wish them the best!
Sunday we actually slpet in a little (8:30am) which felt great.  We then hit up another park, then met some friends at Lookout Mountain to climb.  We got on a couple good routes, and the weather, with partly sunny skies, was perfect!  Man, do we love fall/winter in AZ!
Looking forward to a short week this week; for me at least, Mara has to work every day...:(  But we'll find some things to do while she's available.
Enjoy the pics & vids!

Rohan hoisted up at the gym was having a blast with Taylor trying to get his legs:

Rohan ran almost a half mile after these birds...:)

The Most Funnest 4-Day Holiday Weekend

You know that feeling where work is actually a break from your normal, exhausting life? Well...that is what most of our work weeks feel like, and this one is no different! We started Thursday when I got off a little early and we had a lot of time before we had to pick Rohan up from daycare so we decided to bike there to pick him up. Mara looked up a route and it turns out that there is some GREAT bike trails that cover 99% of the 6.2mi from our house to his daycare...yes, coincidentally it's a 10K...:) The bike trail took us past some parks we surely need to check out (especially when Chris & Shell come in December!), and also took us over several pedestrian bridges which Rohan would LOVE on the way back. About half way we realized I had run over a nail at some point and was leaking air slowly. We stopped a couple times and filled the tire up (luckily we always bring a pump!), but didn't take the nail out for fear of a full on flat tire. We picked up Rohan and he was SUPER excited to get picked up with the bike stroller; he talked about it the rest of the weekend. A mile from daycare my tire lost air really quickly. We decided to pull the nail out and hope the tire slime would plug the hole, and luckily it did! If you are unfamiliar with tire slime, we are huge proponents of it's use, especially with all the thorny trees and shrubs around AZ! All in all we ended up going about 13mi, with some exploring we did, and Rohan had a blast travelling in style. My legs were a little sore with pulling his chariot, with a low pressure tire (more drag), and to cap it off a swirling wind which felt like it was uphill both ways...:) Friday, Veteran's Day, I had to run into work quick, but afterwards Mara and I got in some climbing at AZR, which we usually never get to do by ourselves. Afterwards we picked up Rohan and headed to Lee Lee's Oriental Market in Glendale. It's a drive for us, but always worth the trip. This time we were on a mission to experiment with Thai food, which we have been eating out quite a bit, but really haven't been able to find all the right ingredients at the local chain supermarkets. We found all we were looking for, and even stuff we weren't! :) We ended up making an AWESOME Tofu Panang with rice noodles and Tom Ka Ga soup. We might have to stock up on Thai ingredients! We capped the night off with a good long walk with Rohan and the dogs. We came to a small community park around 10pm, and let the dogs run around. Rohan was still a little antsy and asked to get out. He preceeded to run for about 30min, non-stop, at full speed, and even a little faster! We must not have wore him out that day, but he definitely showed us how much energy he had! Saturday was a pretty awesome day as well, and the best/busiest day of the holiday weekend. We got up early and made some waffles and turkey bacon (the key is to microwave it!). After a filling breakfast we hit up the Gateway Trailhead in the McDowell mountains. We LOVE the trails out of this trailhead, but haven't been there since we moved. Rohan hiked about 1/3 of a mile before we put him in the backpack and headed up to Bell Pass. It's a trail we hadn't been on before, and gave us an elevation gain of over 1500ft! Rohan was asking all sorts of questions about what rocks, trees and plants were so that was pretty fun. We even got to see our first tarantula...lots of pictures...:) When we got to the top of Bell Pass we had an awesome view. To the SW we had the views we usually see from the McDowell's, but since Bell Pass is a saddle, we had an awesome view to the NE of the Mazatzal Mountains and Four Peaks range...very cool. We had a nice picnic lunch at the pass, then headed back down the mountain. After we picked up some fruit to get back some of that energy we just burned we headed WAY South to a petty zoo, called Marley Farms. It was one of those areas where you take as far South as it goes and ends...and there's the farm. Rohan was geeked up by the horses they had near the ticket booth before we even parked, so we knew this was going to be a good trip. The ticket booth person told us of a couple unique animals they had there too...we'll get to them. We started off by feeding the goats, which Rohan liked a lot now that he's about their size. There was one in particular that kept hanging around Rohan and us. After the goats we saw some llamas, kangaroos, a duck, a peacock, chickens, roosters, turtles and cows. The we saw the Zonkey...Donkey Mom/Zebra Dad...called Ms. Pippy...as in Pippy Longstockings due to her zebra stripped legs...pretty cute. Rohan liked feeding her, and never shied away from feeding any of the animals. The big test was when we met James the Camel. He was massive, probably about 7ft tall, and very friendly. Rohan leaned back at first, then smiled and held his hand out to touch him. After the camel we fed some horses and a deer followed by another trip in to the goat pen to pet them some more and say goodbye to Rohan's goat buddy. After driving back to civilization, we picked up some well deserved kabobs and steak and beer and headed to our friend Kim's house. We spent the rest of the night grilling out, watching climbing/skiing/Epic Mealtime videos, and of course, several rounds of the Mike Tyson Quotes song...:) Sunday was our "slowest day" which we spent climbing for a couple hours, eating Thai leftovers, and switching Rohan's room with the guest bedroom. Rohan showed us he needed to burn more energy off by taking his bike around our block, which we do often, but then Mara and I each took turns running around the block again, with very little rest...this kid had some endurance!!! We are so happy our bed is so comfortable...:) Hope everyone else had a great weekend, and remembered to thank a veteran, not just on Veteran's Day, but everyday we enjoy our freedom. Halfway up Bell Pass Trail:

Tufa Fest

This last weekend we had the awesome pleasure of a Rohan-free weekend!  A HUGE thanks to Heater & John for taking the little guy for the weekend!  Mara and I attended Tufa Fest (a climbing festival) and the weather & climbing location wasn't really "kid friendly".
We got to the area (Oak Flat Campground) Friday afternoon and hung out with a couple friends who were brave enough to camp with wind & rain the forecast.  When it did start to rain we headed to our tent and found it was leaking...shitty.  We grabbed what wasn't wet and slept in the RAV4...which wasn't very comfortable.  Neither of us slept well given the rain, hail, strong winds and eventual flurrues in the morning...yeah, it was 34°F in the morning.  We checked on the tent and one of the poles had shattered during the wind storm!  Glad it was leaking otherwise we would have been in there! :)  The only reason our tent stuck around was because I had tied it to a tree...fun!
We warmed up with some coffee and oatmeal, then met up with some friends from my work (Kim & Aaron) who we were taking outdoor climbing for the first time.  We scrambled up about 150ft above the highway to some awesome climbing areas.  We all climbed several routes, and I got up a 5.10c which is the highest rated outdoor climb I've done.
We capped the night off with about 150 other climbers with a huge bonfire, a burn bar, potluck, drunken climbing games, and a raffle.  We came out pretty good in the raffle winning a shirt, chalk, climbing gear, headlamp, and guide book!
Again, a hhuge thanks to Heather & John for entertaining Rohan!  He got to go to his first movie (Puss In Boots, which he LOVED!), and got to watch some horse racing with John.  He was almost sad to see us! :P  Rohan as been accelerating in his biking abilities since he can practice indoor on our tile whenever he wants.  He now goes around the block without help, when just a month ago he was stuggleing to peddle.  Awesome to see how excited he gets to ride outside!
We are hoping to be able to get out again this weekend, but the forecast is for rain, so we'll have to see!  Hope everyone is getting some solid outdoor time before winter is upon us!


He can do this, and has done this, for hours...: