Big day for Nicolas

I suppose it is the curse of being the third child that many of your major milestones get less attention than the siblings who were lucky enough to precede you. Occasionally that is the case for Nicolas who has done some pretty cool things and gotten less than his fair share of the fanfare.

For example, Nicolas was the youngest rider by two years in the horse course this year yet he road solo around the ring and through the obstacle course! His teacher, our friend Barb, commented that she was amazed at his composure on a horse.

Yesterday was another milestone for Nicolas which should not go un-noted. For the first time, and by request, Nicolas rode his bike without training wheels. This was completely unprompted. He just came up and said, "Daddy I want to ride my bike without training wheels today." No maybe this was to be expected, we have not been pushing him to do it and he must have decided on his own that he is ready.

He did great and rode the first time with only a push from me to get going. As he headed down our alley he did have quite the escort (see pictures below). He also started to master stopping (very important to riding) and has yet to tackle turning. This meant that we had to wave Julia and Lea off a few times because they were buzzing around the wobbly Nicolas like bumble bees which distracted him. It was quite the scene for a little while there in the alley while Nicolas went back and forth and his sisters zoomed around simultaneously encouraging him and laughing all along.

For my part I got him going and then dutifully ran along behind him watching to see how he was doing and running interference for him to save him from a sister induced accident.

He never fell although he did tip over when stopping. He was not phased and got right back on the bike. Needless to say we are very proud of him and are looking forward to some great family bike rides!

Here are some pictures.

Going the extra mile in August

I just finished my running for August and I am pretty sure this has been the best training month meaning where I have done the most running, and setting a personal best!

This month I ran a total of 94 miles! That includes weekend runs of 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 (this morning) miles as well as averaging 11+ miles per week. It has certainly helped that I did not travel and I have definitely had mornings where I wish I could stay in bed. For example we met at 5:30 this morning which meant I had to get up at 5 am to get ready. I woke up at 4am so I was juuust starting to get drowsy when the alarm went off. But, I knew I had to get out there and I knew that the others would be out there waiting for me, and they were. The last two runs were along the Los Gatos Creek trail which takes me past some of our old haunts from when we lived over in Saratoga including multiple parks and lakes. We are starting about 20 minutes before dawn so we start in the dark along the trail. At the beginning we are generally together but the faster folks take off after a short time.

I've really tried to focus this month in order to set a good foundation for my 1/2 marathon in early October. I still have two longer runs to go, a 12 and 13 miler which I will do in September. The 13 miler will be basically the same length as the race so once I complete that there will be no doubt about whether I can finish the race. The main challenge will be to keep from going out at too fast of a running pace.

With two weeks to go before the race I'll taper, running less and less per week, until I run just two 3-4 mile runs the week of the race just to stay loose.

Big Milestone Day Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is a big day in our kids lives and in our lives. It is the first day of school here in Santa Clara for ALL of our kids, Julia 4th, Lea 2nd and most significantly Nicolas in kindergarten! This means that for the first time in 9 years all three kids will be in full day school 5 days a week!

Probably the biggest impact will be for Melissa who will have time to devote to her passion of refugees and do some things for herself. She will of course also be volunteering in their classes and at the school as she did before and now she has 3 classes to help with.

It also means no driving over to Sunnyvale 3 days a week which is about 1/2 hour each way. So the extra time off the road is a bonus too!

All the kids are excited about tomorrow and I will certainly blog about how the school year goes as the grow and have new experiences.

Doubling down for the race

Well as I get closer to my goal of completing the San Jose 1/2 marathon I have decided to double down to give myself the best possible chance.

The first thing I've decided to do is give up drinking until after the race which is on October 3rd. Now, I am definitely a fan of an occasional glass of wine, mug of beer or even mojito so this is a very serious step for me. The main reason I am doing this is to reduce the amount of "empty" calories I am taking in as I train. I have had a long time goal of losing weight and by stopping the extra intake I figure I can accelerate my weight loss. I also heard about a study that said for every pound you lose you take several seconds off of your running pace and I have also wanted to run faster mainly so that I can get these long training runs over faster.

I think it is working already as I have been consistently below 210lbs for the last few days, a level I haven;t been below in a long time.

The second thing I have done is continue to stretch my runs out and in fact I ran in the double digits (10 miles) for the first time ever today. It was a little painful but I think that was for a different set of factors. I went out strong but finished very poorly (it was 10 miles after all) and I think I have a slight cold.

Now this was a good milestone for me to achieve as the general rule of thumb for running long races is: if you can do 20 miles you can do a marathon (26 miles) and if you can run 10 miles you can run a 1/2 marathon so in theory I could make it today. This means I have 5 weeks to improve my running and reduce my weight. Fortunately I don't have any travel so I should be in good shape to hit the race perfectly in stride.

Family Picnic

Last Friday was our annual company picnic. We missed last year because we were traveling down to Florida so I really wanted to make an effort to go. There is usually a really good spread of food and nice entertainment for the kids and this year was no different.

There was a huge BBQ with fresh fruit / salads and veggies and a portable stone pizza oven making some pretty good pizzas.

There was also an ice cream truck for desert which was handing out all kinds of free ice cream and I think the minimum number our kids had was 3 each!

Another highlight was the very talented face painter and our kids took it to the limit (we didn't expect anything else). Julia was a dragon, Lea was a tiger and Nicolas was a Zebra. All pretty appropriate for their personalities in the end. There was also an awesome balloon artist who matched Julia's impressive face paint with a cool pair of wings so that she could be a fanciful dragon. She was subsequently the talk of the picnic.

Here are a few photos from the picnic.

Viewing the Fire

Last Saturday we took a drive over to the coast principally to enjoy the scenery and I thought we might make it down towards Santa Cruz and the Lockheed fire which is currently burning in northern Santa Cruz county. At the time the fire was 15% contained but now it is over 70% contained with no injuries or deaths and only a few buildings destroyed.

After a stop a the beach and a place called the Pie Ranch, (hmm yummy pies) we did get down near the fire along route 1 which was still open to the public.

In fact there was a creek that the fire fighting helicopters were using to refill their buckets and drop on the fire line which was about a mile or so away. The wind was blowing in the opposite direction so we had a clear view of the water filling and dropping operations. It was at the same time sad and exciting. I took a few pictures before the batteries ran out on our camera. You can see the helicopter and the smoke in the hills behind.

Oh yeah we also hit a chilly beach and saw some kite and wind surfers taking advantage of the strong winds.

Day out at Great America

Last Thursday we took the kids to the local theme park called Great America. Despite the fact that the park is litterally 1 mile from our house and we have enjoyed the free fireworks many times this was our first trip into the park. The occassion was our friend Steve and Jen's son Mateo's 7th birthday and we thought it would be a fun way to end the summer, and it was.

Julia in particular was game or riding some of the more aggressive rides so I took her and the other two older boys (Diego 9, Mateo 7) on two rollercoasters, one called the Deamon and one called the Grizzly.

The Deamon had two loops and a double corkscrew so it was a pretty fun ride although compared to the others in the park relatively tame. The Grizzly is a classic old wooden roller coaster like you might find at Coney Island or some other older theme park. They all liked both of them and I am sure we will go back. In fact I think we may get a season pass next year since we can ride our bikes over (saving on parking) and go on rides for an hour or two all summer long and really get our money's worth.

Steve shot some video with his iPhone when we were on one of the rides and there are a few pictures as well. The park also features a pretty cool water park with rides, slides and a wave pool and we also spent some time there as well.

Finishing in the money!

Last night was out once per quarter Rivermark Dad's Texas Hold 'Em poker tournament. This tourney has been going on now for 4 years and has a rather hilarious trophy which is a giant (2 ft tall) Golden Horse which the winner gets to keep until the next round.

There are some serious players in this game including several who go to Las Vegas for some of the main event international poker tournaments. They play here because it is a well run game with reasonable payouts for a nights work. 30-33 people usually start off and the final 6 in the game get paid.

Last night I had a pretty good night (I am used to getting to the final table which is the last 10 players) but rarely finish in the money. I touched money and came home with $100 for 6th place which was more than double what I put in.

Just FYI first prize took home $750 which is pretty good for 5 hours work!

Nicolas has a loose tooth!

Well we've reach another milestone here at chez Kreisa. Nicolas now has his first loose tooth, the signal that he is starting to separate from early childhood. He is very excited about his tooth and shows it to anyone who will look at it. It is the bottom right of the four front teeth which I think are the first to go typically.

So there is lots of change for Nicolas this month, starting kindergarten and now loosing teeth! I must admit Melissa and I have mixed feelings, we are of course happy for him but a little sad to see the beginning of the end of him being a little one!

I'll post a picture when it finally comes out.

Cool video + goatee idea?

A co-worker who also sports a goatee sent me this cool timelapse video that was made during a year long trip in China. The story as told by Chris Rehage is that he intended to walk from China to Germany and thought it would take a year.

For a number of reasons he didn't make it although he did walk almost the entire way across China. His hair and goatee go through quite the transformation over that year. Maybe this is something I should do!

The Longest Way 1.0 - one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

San Gregorio State Beach

We had a great day today going to San Gregorio state beach. This beach is about an hour away and basically right where highway 84 ends at the sea and includes a great picnic area, awesome tidal pool and great cliffs and caves for exploring and beach combing.

It was sunny and warm for most of the time we were there (we hung there for about 3 hours today) and had a great time. The kids played in the tidal pool which was warm and some in the surf although the water felt very cold today. We built a big sand castle with a moat and Melissa made a mermaid.

We followed the whole thing up with a trip to Pescadero which is a cool old a farming town founded in 1856. We had a late lunch and hit a couple of the shops. There isn't much there today so I can only imagine 1856!

We took quite a few pictures which I have posted here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?146986&id=578330169&l=ce6363d6b6

Enjoy.