Secrets

Today our baby girl learned to ride. It was as sweet as when her brother learned. I knew she would ride sooner than her brother did but I didn't think it would be over a year sooner! 4 years 1 month and 16 days...wow.



Tonight after dinner we were telling each other secrets (whispering in each other's ear):

Me: "You rode your bike SO well tonight! I am SO proud of you!"
Giana: "I rode my bike REALLY far! I am SO proud of me!"

How sweet is that?

Can a Fat Man Pass???

Last weekend we decided to take the kids on a hike on South Mountain. It's been almost a year since we did this and we were curious how much progress they had made in terms of endurance and interest. Last year we made it to the end of the fire road and back (which is about 2 miles).

As we headed out I knew right away this year was going to be different. The kids were excited and moving along at a fast pace. I said to Amy that our days of being stronger than them were quickly drawing to an end. They hopped, skipped and ran all the way to the end of the fire road ahead of us.

I was happy because I had National Trail on my mind and the skip in their step was confirmation to me that we were going UP!

Hidden just slightly off the start of the trail is a petroglyph wall. We stopped to take a few pictures before attacking National. Once on the trail, the kids delighted in tackling what to them was more like "boldering" than hiking. Every big slab they had to climb was met with an even bigger smile. Amy & I enjoyed watching them problem solve together and encourage each other at each obstacle. We also appreciated the congratulations they gave each other. It's a pattern we hope they continue to share for the rest of their lives. It's nice to see them interacting in such a positive way.
Once we neared the ridgeline, we stopped for a snack near the Bermuda Triangle. It was funny to tell the kids that their parents ride their bikes on this "trail". They both couldn't believe WE could do that. :)

As we continued on I kept wondering when they would hit the wall and was watchful for any signs of them getting tired (since we'd still have to hike back out). They just kept on moving and laughing and exploring. As we neared Hidden Valley I thought they'd get a kick out of going through the tunnel and so we turned off National. As predicted they thought it was "cool". They wanted to explore the walls so up we went!
We let them lead since we were enjoying their antics and wanted to see how they would do as the problem-solving got a little more difficult. With a little direction in regards to avoiding serious exposure, they managed pretty well.

We were now close to 3 miles in and they were as excited as when we started off. I was glad we were nearing Fat Man's Pass since that would be a good turn around point. We had originally planned on an hour or 2 hike and this was starting to look like A LOT more already.
We squeezed through Fat Man's Pass and started our return. We looped back on National and headed down.
As the sun began to set, we enjoyed the views of the city and chatted about all things "nature". It's pretty cool when your kids start asking intelligent and inquisitive questions and follow up questions. This feels like the time in their lives that you as a parent can have the most impact. It's a wonderful feeling when you get moments like this to connect with them.

As dinner time neared, we had eaten through everything I had in my pack. I hadn't planned on enough food for 4+ hours of hiking. We reached the fire road and the kids were no longer "skipping". They were ready to be DONE. We coaxed them along the last mile with promises of dinner but they were cooked. Fortunately we could see our car in the parking lot and that got them motivated enough to finish the hike.

Yeah, we overdid it a bit. A guestimate of the distance would be between 6 & 7 miles with a significant amout of elevation change. That's a lot for a 4 & 5 year old. I'm glad that overall, they enjoyed the adventure though. I know their parents sure did. We all slept pretty good that night though.

It's all fun and games until somebody loses a tooth!

Well it was bound to happen. Another one of those milestones comes along. In the last week or so we noticed Aran has been, for lack of a better description, fingering and tongue-ing his bottom teeth. All this attention (along with further inspection) lead to the discovery of a couple loose teeth.

He knows from preschool and from his cousins that this is a normal step in losing his "baby teeth". He is however pretty anxious about it. Will it hurt? Will it bleed? When will it happen?

After a lot of re-assurances and a few days, Sunday morning arrives and one of his teeth is barely hanging on. The family heads to the bathroom for further inspection. Mom is armed with her camera while Dad & Giana form a surgical unit at the bathroom sink.

As I investigate, I find myself in a bit of a dilemma. The tooth is probably 95% out but that last 5% seems attached pretty well. I'm worried that if we don't take it out, he might end up swallowing it while eating or drinking, etc. I'm pretty sure if I attempt to remove it, it could hurt and/or bleed. The only reason I'm able to inspect it so closely is because I promised Aran I wouldn't hurt him.

So I'm in a quandary over my concern for his safety (how bad could swallowing a tooth really be?) with my promise to him that I wouldn't hurt him. There is no way I can violate his trust or break the promise.

What to do...

Then it hits me...

His sister has been sitting on the bathroom counter right next to me watching my every move like a hawk. As we're BOTH staring into Aran's mouth I say to her: "Do you want to see if you can pull Aran's tooth out?"

You would've thought I just asked the Grasshopper to snatch the pebble from my hand...

With cat-like reflexes (and before her brother could process what I had just said to her,) she reached into his mouth and gave the tooth a good YANK!

Her precision and speed was WAY better than I could've ever attempted. But the tooth was still in his mouth. What she HAD done was get it to about 99% out...

...and here comes the blood....

Aran is in shock now. He lets out a little "ouch" that seems more like it's in disbelief than it is from pain.

Giana, while still staring into Aran's mouth, calmly states: "Boy, there's a lot of blood in there."

Aran turns white. I've seen this "look" on his Mom's face before...

Right before she faints...

I decide it's time to tell a little white lie (while dabbing his teeth with a paper towel.)

I say: "It's just bleeding a TINY little bit" in a VERY suggestive way as to try and let his sister know it's time to tone it down with the "blood talk"...(of course it is just a little bit of blood but it looks like a lot to his little sister's eyes)

Giana responds in a matter of fact tone with: "Well it sure is red in there."

I love that girl.

As I'm dabbing up the blood, I'm suddenly holding his tooth!

Out it came.



The color now returns to Aran's face and in an instant he's transformed into the proud owner of bartering material for the tooth fairy.



And his big smile returns...

...minus one tooth.



The neighboring tooth is already a wet noodle in his mouth.

He has made it abundantly clear however:

"Giana will NOT be pulling out this one!"

:)

Valentine's ski trip!

So we decided to celebrate Giana's 4th birthday by traveling up north to Flagstaff. The kids have been wanting to go "play in the snow" and we wanted to see if they might be big enough to try skiing this year. I made some calls to Arizona Snowbowl and enrolled them in Skiwee school (for ages 4-7). It was just slightly more for a full-day lesson versus a half-day so I signed them up for the full-day and hoped that Giana would do OK without her daily nap. The instructor on the phone was pretty firm about dropping the kids off quickly and NOT interfering with the lesson so it was shaping up like Amy & I would be able to ski ALONE also. I quickly decided to call this our Valentine's Ski Date and kill 2 birds with 1 trip to Snowbowl :)

It couldn't have been easier. We arrived and checked in, dropped the kids off, bought our lift tickets and just like that we were on the lift for our first run of the day... We couldn't believe how empty the mountain was on a Friday and it being a holiday weekend also. There was NO ONE on the mountain.

After about 6 or 7 runs, we stopped for lunch and thought we *might* get a glimpse of the kids from the deck of the lodge taking their lunch break but no such luck. We hoped they were doing well (and since neither of our cell phones had rung, we assumed all was well).

After lunch the lines got bigger as the afternoon half-day crowd started arriving. We still managed a dozen or so runs for the day and the slopes had hardly anyone on them.
As 3PM approached we decided to take Boo Boo Trail over towards Heart Prarie to meet up with the kids' class. As luck would have it, we skied up on Giana's class on their last run of the day. We couldn't believe how well these Skiwees were doing!
She was focused on her instructors and pretty proud of herself. We followed them back down to the lodge and Aran's class was already finished. We took them both back out for a couple runs with us and they did fabulously! Here are a few unedited videos of our runs with them.



Aran skiing on Heart Prarie and catching up to Giana and me.


Giana just liked to point her skis downhill! Next time we'll work on turns! :)


Aran skiing on Bambi and going through some trees.

As you can see, it was really busy on the bunny hill too - NOT!

It was an awesome day on the mountain and Amy & I agreed that we will be doing this again for sure. (And now Aran says he doesn't want to cross-country ski anymore - D'oh!)

We're not sure when our next opportunity will be....but we are ready!!!



It was a great way to kickoff Giana's birthday weekend! The rest of the weekend was memorable as well - and now our baby is 4! Where does the time go...

Rock & Roll 2010

So, here we are again. I said last year that I would train for the half-marathon this year and I didn't. I wanted to but a couple of calf strains on back-to-back training runs in late November sidelined me and inertia kept me there...Either that, or just laziness. I REALLY wanted to let the calf heal and not re-injure it so I convinced myself that I *might as well just hold off until the race again*. (picture the Guinness guys shouting "Brilliant!" here)
(Amy & me at the starting line)

This year I managed to recruit my wife to join me and one of my brothers from Texas, Nestor. It would be the 1st for both of them. Amy has never been a runner but she was committed and trained really well.

I coached her along and I knew she was ready and would do well. I guessed that she would be close to the 2 hour mark and could possibly even break below it on a good day. That was all pure speculation since she had never run that far.

On the registration form, she put down a guess of 2:30 for her time but had decided to bump it up the day before at the Expo at my suggestion to around 2:10. She ended up in Corral 10 for the wave start and I decided to join her there so we could run together and so that I could possibly pace her along the race (as long as I could).

We had agreed to try to keep it just north of 9-minute miles and see how it would go. I really was just hoping I wouldn't re-injure my calf.

We were off and as is typical of race day, we were going a bit faster than planned. Mile 1-8:43, Mile 2-8:24, Mile 3-9:03... We then slowed a bit to save ourselves. The next 5 miles ran off at what we'd hoped. Amy started feeling it a bit but she knew that she would get a second wind, like she had throughout her long training runs.

At Mile 9, she said to me: "You cannot beat me without training at all." As I took those words in over my ipod, I thought to myself that she was really starting to feel it now. I also thought about how competitive she is and I felt for her that she would be worrying about THAT when she should be focused on her own race. For a second I thought that it would be awesome to cross the finish line together - maybe even hand-in-hand...and then I glanced at my GPS. My heart rate was at 179 and I knew it wasn't going to happen. I reassured her that she was doing great and that she would be dropping me soon, that I was running at my max.

At Mile 10, we were at 1:32 and I knew we'd be close to the 2-hour mark. I told Amy that it was time for her to go. I wasn't sure if we waited too long but I didn't want her to blow up either by going too early. I knew she had to go NOW.

That was all it took. She kicked it into overdrive! Off she went.

I was now in pain. My lack of training had caught up with me. I just wanted to get to the end. I was happy that I would most likely beat my time from the previous year but it just hurt and it took all I had to get through the last few miles.

The joy of crossing the Mill Ave bridge and the shot of adrenalin from seeing the crowds in the previous years had little effect on me this time. I just wanted to finish. It hurt but I made it. I had "hoped" to beat my 2:15:00 from 2009 and I am happy that I managed a 2:05:00 this year.

Amy didn't break 2 hours but she finished super strong at 2:01:33. I remember that feeling the "1st time" and for her to finish so strong is awesome. I'm really proud of her.

I'm also really happy for her that she found out through this process that she actually LOVES running. She loved going out for her training runs and really looked forward to them. I hate training (as if that isn't obvious). Pretty cool to discover a passion almost by accident!

My brother also finished his first half-marathon. It was his dream to be able to do a half-marathon and it was very special to be able to help him accomplish his dream. The funny thing is now that he's accomplished it, he's ready for the next one! Way to go brother!

It was great to run it with BOTH of them and Amy is already planning her next one!



Post script: Today I realized that Amy's comment at Mile 9 was not a worry but a declaration! "You cannot beat me without training at all."

She was TELLING me that it was NOT going to happen! My sweet wife was actually trash-talking me! (as much as she can anyway). I don't know if she was thinking out loud or just letting me know but I wasn't going to beat her. Way to go Amy! Look at you - you badass! I love you.