Sidney's Kindergarten Graduation

Sidney's Kindergarten graduation from Parkcenter Montessori.
Sid with his best friend Andrew.

Sidney's Graduation

Journey to the center of the earth...

This weekend, we went to Julia Davis Park in Boise to watch an outdoor movie: Journey to the center of the earth. The hollywood version of Verne's bestseller was a hit with the kids.

movie

2009 Boise 70.3

The stars were not lined up for this half Ironman. It started in the winter training or lack thereof... I caught 6 colds and had a skin infection on my finger. We eventually linked all this sickness to a tooth problem which according to the dentist had been present for a few months. My immune system was affected and I did not make the connection. Considering I had not been to the doctor over the last 10 years, being down in bed every other week-ends killed my psyche and did not help in my base preparation. With the root (canal) of my health problems taken care of, I quickly made progress. Until I was faced with the next setback: a toe fracture. Another visit to the doc where I found out it would take 4 weeks to heal. This means that I would miss the bulk of the pre-race running volume. Luckily, I could still maintain the aerobic engine with some biking and swimming. This took me to the last three weeks of training before the race within which I was able to log in a few long runs and a short taper.
Then on race day, lady luck snubbed me again. A bad storm hit everyone right in the middle of the bike course. With wet roads and gusty winds, the conditions were not optimal, until they became down right awful.
Lucky Peak was very choppy and my poor navigational skills did not help during the swim. Getting out of the water was a relief. And looking back, I certainly took it out too hard in the first miles on the bike. Withing 16 miles into the bike course, I had a rear flat. I surprisingly did not panic and changed the tube fairly quickly considering it was pouring rain (in 4 min 30 sec according to my Garmin). As I engaged the CO2 cartridge to inflate my new tube, all I heard was the sound of a brief swoosh of air being released Then, nothing. The cartridge was empty. There was barely enough air in the tire to support the weight of the bike and myself. (At the end of the race, I engaged the pump to measure the pressure and it read 25PSI, so considering the air filling up the tube extension of the pump, I probably rode 43 miles on 30PSI). I was getting passed left and right, by man and women, old and young. At one point, it was pouring hail. A true deluge. T2 did not come soon enough. With a quick transition into the run, I settled into a good pace until about mile 10 when my body started screaming. My feet, legs, back, core... Every part of my body was begging for a break. I finished in 5:10 (Swim: 38:00 / T1: 2:21 / Bike: 2:48:40 / T2: 1:14 / Run: 1:40:16). Surely disappointing but, considering the lead up to the race and my race day adventures, I could only be satisfied with my performance.

Colin turns 8

Colin invited some friends for his 8th birthday party. Agenda: Soccer game, water balloon toss contest, water balloon war, water gun fight...

2009_05_31

And the scoring title goes to.......

Another soccer season flew by but this time, we had two players. Colin played for the Missiles in the U8-9 league. With 5 goals in the regular season, Colin was the leading scorer on his team which only won 1 out of 7 games!!! Sidney played for the Stingers in his first season of U5-6 league and ended up scoring the most goals of his team with 6. Good thing we are not supposed to keep track of game scores at that age...
At the end of the season, Ladi and I organized an extra game for Colin's team. He had a breakthrough in this game and scored 4 goals and had two great saves for the 5 minutes he played goalie. Colin really comes out of his shell on the soccer field. His performance on the field will hopefully continue building his self confidence.

2009 Spring soccer season

Loose tooth monster

From 2009_06_01

2009 Ski season

Second ski season for Colin and Sidney. The snow conditions were good for the majority of the season until March came along. We witnessed a couple of late winter snow storms which extended the season by a few weeks. All in all, we managed to go skiing 12 days. The boys made good progress. Colin is either trying to test his limits for speed or catch air time. His quest for adrenaline comes to the detriment of his technique. I guess that's the age... Sidney is still on the steep part of the learning curve. Going on the back side to do some hard blues toward the end of the season was a testament to his hard work. Got to keep up with brother!

2009 Ski Season at Bogus

Colin's second grade class

From Colin's Second grade class

A spatial moment...

Today, we drove down to the Boise State University campus for the annual Engineering Day. Colin, Sidney and I witnessed a lot of experiments: Launching catapults, seat belt demonstration, 15,000 volt board, electricity transfer, vacuums, wind turbines... But, by far, the most exciting part of the afternoon was the presentation by NASA Astronaut Barbara Morgan. She shared with us a slide show of her time at the International Space Station and some incredible out of space anecdotes...

BSU Engineering day

Later in the evening, we stepped out in the backyard hoping we could see the International Space Station fly over our house. With clear skies and a little help from technology, the expectations were high. According to NASA, the station was scheduled to jet across our part of the sky starting at 7:08pm for 4 minutes. Sure enough, a bright dot appeared in the North-East on time. The ISS perfectly followed the predicted trajectory. It was quite inspirational to witness with our naked eyes an object the size of roughly two football fields race in space at 5 miles per second (8kms/sec).

Kevin Kirk concert

Friday night, I had the chance to attend a Jazz concert at the Egyptian theater in Boise. Thanks to Lynn, I was able to witness a great performance by Kevin Kirk & Onomatopoeia from a front row seat. In addition to being talented musician, these guys are great performers. They were accompanied by the Treasure Valley Youth Symphony orchestra and the show was filmed by Idaho PTV and will air in May. I only wish Laura and the boys could have attended...

Above the clouds

Boise has been drowned under a gloomy cloud cover for the last 5 days. Locally, it is commonly referred to as an inversion. Due to topography and weather patterns, Boise is occasionally subject to wintertime inversions. Colder and heavier air settles into the valley while warm air sits above. This causes air stagnation as the cold air and accumulating air pollution is trapped. The local sources of air pollutions such as wood burning smoke, vehicle exhaust, and local industrial emissions will build up under the inversion until a strong weather system moves through and mixes the air. Boise annually endures these winter inversions for an average of 20 days. As bad as it is to breath in the smog, a quite beautiful byproduct of the inversion can be found if one drives up Bogus Basin road to the local ski resort. This is exactly what we did this Sunday. At about 5,500 feet high (1,676m), the fog suddenly cleared up to blue sky and bright sunshine.

Above the clouds

We were literally standing on a mountain island surrounded by an ocean of white clouds. It was very tempting to dive onto that fluffy looking blanket... Laura, the boys and I enjoyed a great day of spring-like skiing in the middle of January. Once again, our Church of the Wilderness was a great inspiration.

Happy New Year...

Dressed in the year of our birth, we partied like it was 2009 with Andrew & Rachael, Jeff & Melissa, and a bunch of tight asses!!! Happy new year everyone...

Happy New Year 2009

BONZAI !!!!!!!

First day of the season at Bogus!!! With 31 inches of new snow in the last 5 days, the call of the great white was just too irresistible. The great snow conditions were a nice compensation for the fog, slight breeze and 15F (-10c) temperature. Sid picked up right where he left off last year with some nice measured turns on blue runs while Colin was just out of control straight down the hill, BONZAI !!!

The Boys at Bogus

Ho Ho Ho.....

Guess what Colin and Sid received from Santa? Here is a hint: the Lego company is not going out of business any time soon...

Ho Ho Ho.....

Air time

Laura went sledding with the boys and the cousins by Hilltop cafe on Highway 21...

Air time