Halloween!!!!

Yeah, yeah, yeah we know it's a bit late but after so many requests and finally getting the littleman to sleep here are the pictures from our wonderful Halloween ;). So we will start with all the yummy stuff.

Nathalie made an army of little ghost meringues! They came out perfect, of course :).

Werewolf cupcakes, these were a huge hit with the kiddos on the block, and some of the parents.

It's simply amazing what you can do to a cupcake with some marshmallows, fruit roll ups and icing.

Cookies!!! We ended up having so many we had to take them to work but they tasted even better than they looked.

Some Photos of Sebastian in his little ducky costume, mom and dad as well (just not in duck costumes).

Second try at Triathlon

Yeah I know this one's a little late and it's being posted after my third race, but beggars can't be choosers :)

Race report!

The Clear Lake International was this past Saturday (08/22/09), it was my second triathlon and what an improvement over my first. They had two races an Olympic (1.2K swim, 40K bike, 10K run) and a Sprint (750M Swim, 30K bike, 5K run), seeing as I just started this sport I raced in the Sprint. Also since this sprint was much longer then my first I am basing my comparison on average speed in each part of the race. Overall I did very well considering I estimated the race would take me 1hour and 45 minutes but I finished in just 1:34:12, I was totally shocked when I crossed that finish line and looked down at my watch. I finished up in 63^rd place out of approx. 235 racers in the sprint and I was 8^th in my age group (Male 25-29) out of 26. So all in all I really can’t complain about my performance.

My swim wave was the very last swim wave of the day to hit the water. This was my first open water swim so I positioned myself near the back left of the group. I was hoping this position would keep me from getting kicked or punched when the gun went off, boy was I wrong. After the first 100 meters or so things cleared up until I felt my hand smack the top of a rock. I found out after the race I wasn’t the only person to have a close encounter with this rock, and I was one of the more fortunate ones to have only a minor injury (more on that later). Other than that I only ran into the occasional person either swimming across my path or swimming slower then I (I passed quite a few people from the wave before ours), but I excited the water in 00:15:20. This was just as fast as my previous race (approx. 00:02:03 per 100M) except this time I wasn’t gasping for air and my transition from swim to bike went very smooth and I was out on the bike in 00:01:33.

As I hopped onto the bike I was feeling pretty good, I hadn’t forgotten my water bottle this time (the one big mistake of my first race) so I quickly downed a few ounces to wash out some of the nasty salt water I drank on the swim. That’s when I realized my hand felt weird (the one that hit the rock), and I looked down to see a nice gash down the middle of my palm. It wasn’t too deep and it wasn’t bleeding, well not anymore at least, so I just kept on going. Around mile 12 I was able to get a gel down with a few more ounces of water to start the run well hydrated. I slipped my feet out of the shoes as I came to the last 400 meters or so of the bike portion and prepared myself for transition 2.

After slipping on my running shoes I grabbed my race number and hat and took off on the run. Upon exciting the transition area I checked my watch and saw my T2 (transition 2) time of 00:00:52 with a total time of 1hour 8 minutes, all I remember thinking was “that can’t be right!” J My 30K bike time was 00:49:51!!!! I averaged 22.4mph which was a 6mph difference from my first race (I averaged 16.4 in my first tri). Talk about an improvement, I was expecting to keep my speed around 19mph.

So off I go with good ol’ spaghetti legs on the run, the first half mile is the worst. If you have ever seen one of those National Geographic videos where the new born giraffe tries to walk for the first time; well that’s about how I feel for the first half mile. Finally the blood works it’s way back down my legs and I start to pick up the pace, all I can think about at this point is the turn around at 2.5K. Finally just up ahead I can see the turn around and looking down at my watch it’s only been 12 minutes, which means I am also beating my estimated 30 minute run time! As I pass back through the water/Gatorade area I grab one last cup of water drink half and pour the other half over my head, my mind is set on the last mile that lays ahead. The 7^thplace finisher must have passed me during that last mile of the run because he was only about 30 seconds ahead of me, and I was ahead of him when we started the run. Crossing the finish line felt great, especially when I saw a total time of 01:34:12, 11 minutes ahead of my estimated finish. My 5K run time was 00:26:35 which means I was running 00:08:35 miles (I ran 00:09:29 miles during my first race), and it was apparent my training has me headed in the right direction.

Katy Triathlon

This past Sunday (10/25/2009) was my third sprint triathlon and final race of the season. To finish it off with a bang David, my brother-in-law, joined me for what would be his first race.

The morning for us started at 4:45am and it was chilly, around 58F, but by the time the race start was nearing it must have warmed up to around 65-70F. Still the water was a good 71-72F, and for a south Texas boy that means keep you eyes pealed for icebergs. At these water temps a wet suit is just about necessary but it's also one piece of equipment neither of us own. At most races they allow competitors to get in a swim warm up, but for some reason this time they were not permitted. At the time I thought this was odd but didn't realize until after the gun went off just how much this would affect my overall swim.

Swim start:

We had approx. 3 mins between each wave of swimmers to get our body acclimated to the water temp. I found out really quick that 3 minutes was not enough time and after the first 100M or so the cold hit me like a brick wall. It felt as if my lung capacity dropped to about 30%, I couldn't even catch my breath with my head above water doing the breast stroke. Not a good way to start a race, but I made it to the swim exit in 00:11:32 (about 2:18 100M times). Not good, I was expecting a 10 minute swim, but I was just happy to be out of the water and onto the bike.

Transition 1:

I was back out on the bike in 00:02:03 which isn't as good as the last race but after the swim it didn't matter. I wasn't as cold as I thought I would be getting out of the water. David was getting on his socks as I grabbed my bike to exit transition, I was glad to see he made it through the swim in one piece.

Bike start:

Once I got out of the neighbor hood the wind hit me, and I imediately knew this would be a much slower race then that last one. But I pushed through the wind and finished the 15 mile bike in 00:47:58 (ave 18.8MPH). I didn't see David on the bike but he finished not too far behind me with an average of 18.1MPH, way to go David that's awesome!

Transition 2:

I know it sounds odd but this was the highlight of my race, 00:00:45! My fastest transition time ever, and I was off on the run.

Run Start:

This is where the mental part of the race really starts to take affect, your tired, everything seems to hurt and all you can think about is the finish line and that you just got passed by another guy in your age group :(. Not that I am a terrible runner, I just seem to lose the most places on the run. This time around I started to cramp up on the last half mile and it took everything I had left to keep stride and finish the race. I finished the 5K in 00:26:08 (approx. 8:43 per mile), hopefully with more training next year I can get these times down.

In all I finished with a time of 01:28:27 placing 264 out of 590 and David finished up at 349 with a total time of 01:32:48, which is fantastic! I am sure he is now addicted like me ;).

~ Warren

Happy Birthday J-Dad!

Here are a couple of videos for you! Hope you have a wonderful birthday!

XOXOXO,

Warren, Nathalie and Sebastian

The first one is of Sebastian getting a little excited about Go, Diego Go!

The second is of him playing with a ball and Warren chasing him with the camera yesterday.

Day of Rest

One thing we planned on doing while here was rest, and we finally got it! Saturday night was the last night of the EVE Online Fanfest and we arrived back at our hotel around 2am. With nothing to get up for on Sunday we managed to sleep until noon which was "AWESOME" as Nathalie put it. So for the remainder of the day we planned to walk the streets of Reykjavik and see what else this wonderful island has to offer, maybe even try a little Puffin (we had Minke whale just the other night).

Iceland: AMAZING MEAL!!!

10-1-2009

My customers, CCP, took us out to an amazing restaurant called Seafood Cellar. We had about 14 courses (we lost count but all think that is what it came out to). We had the Exotic menu which means the chefs pick out everything. The most exotic things we had were antelope and zebra! Pretty crazy when you think about it. Overall everything was so delicious. For the desert we even had pate ice cream! We only got pictures of the desert...really wish we could have taken pictures of the other courses but it would have been hard to enjoy dinner with that many plates.

Our adventure from today will have to be posted...sneak peak: lot snow.

BTW: I was asking Warren how much Kronas (Icelandic money) we had left and he said over 54,000. He was obviously confused when he pulled money. He was supposed to pull $100USD worth but instead pulled out 80,000ISK. If you check your conversions...1,000ISK = $8 USD. So we now have over $400 of ISK left! Aye aye aye. He says it feels like play money when its in the 1,000s so it is harder for him to convert. Looks like I will be in charge of the money from now on.

We made it!

We made it to our hotel about 730AM Iceland time (+5 hours CST), ate breakfast, tried messing with the internet (couldn't get it to work) and then crashed. We just woke up and looks like we took an 8 hour nap! Well we technically haven't slept since Monday night since we didn't get but more than 3 hours on Tuesday. I told Warren this would be the best nap he has ever taken and it was...except the adventurous side of him didn't want to sleep that long so he could start exploring the city.

Still waiting...

Waiting at JFK

Warren and I are waiting, what seems like forever, to catch our flight out of JFK to Iceland. Hopefully we can get some sleep soon. Didn't get any last night. :(

We sure are missing Sebastian and his super cute smile...

Happy 1st Birthday Sebastian!

I got to stay home with Sebastian today...although his naps were off and made him grumpy along with his doc appt (4 shots) I enjoyed every minute of it.

He got to play outside with the neighbors.

Then after soom dinner it was birthday cake time.

He really didn't know what to do but I promise we have really good footage on our camcorder of Warren eating his cake w/o a fork so you can only imagine how much of a mess that made. I'm hoping this Saturday will turn out much better.

And a quick reminder of what he looked like one year ago...

Happy Birthday!!

Mommy & Daddy love you!

Sebastian's Cart

Pushing his favorite cart...I'm in love!!

Fig and Fontina Panini = WOW!

In Warren's Men Health magazine we saw an awesome panini that we had to try (last week). Actually anything with panini and good stuff we will never deny.

Since Warren and I both love to cook we take turns at different things. I was prepping and he was cooking/assembling.

As I like all things looking nice I left it very "presentable" for Warren. When he saw it, he just shook his head saying, "I love that you love to cook but this is just...[he got a funny look from me before he could continue]...too cute." What a sweet hubby ;)

The main star of the show was fresh figs, soooo good!

Layer that with Fontina, prosciuto, and greens and its just what I call success!

All in between crunchy toasty ciabatta...

After we were finished I was just wishing we had more figs. We will defenitely be eating spin-offs of this again!

Labor Day Weekend

We had a fun filled weekend at Lake Travis, or I should say Briarcliff as there wasn't much of a lake left. The weekend was a surprise for Ryan, Warren's brother, to celebrate the big 3-0. We had a ton of awesome food and a great time. I'll let Jenn blog about the dinner since she has all the pictures.

The birthday boy with his awesome cake!

Trying to get a decent family photo...fail.

Ryan with Layne

And of course, Sebastian. He doesn't look like a baby here, such a grown boy. :( Almost looks like he is taking the picture himself.

A cute video of Warren and Sebastian going down a slide...weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Finally!!!

I got a video working on my picture camera!!!! Check this out!!!! And yes this was taken today. :)

Hobbies - Part 2

OK, so I still haven't had a chance to checkout which cookbook but it is red and plaid as my mom stated. Actually, I'm lying...I did check I just can't remember.

The first thing to blame for my foodie ways is Ross...then Warren. When Warren and I started dating he was living in Bedford (in between Dallas/FW) and I was living with Michelle. When I would visit him he wanted to cook our meals. I was quite impressed and really excited that he liked to cook. Well let me tell you...I learned so much from those few weekends there. Don't put a hot pot under running water (warps pans), use sharp knives, and don't always cook on high are just to name a few. WOW, what a difference. So then my passion for learning grew. Warren and I actually learned a lot about each other in the kitchen...lots of funny quirks that we have.

Fast forward to our first few months of marriage (well we didn't have to fast forward too much I know) and we have a our big screen TV. Warren then introduced me to Food Network. I was hooked...or I should say now addicted. I thought it was so neat that people had such a passion for something that started to make sense to me. When you have family over the kicthen is the one place that everyone congregates to and feels comfortable. I love that! And then having delicous food on topt of that, awesome. I always loved good food but learning how to cook made me appreciate a few more things...the ingredients mother earth provides to nourish our bodies and the talent that people have on knowing how to make so many wonderful flavors come together perfectly.

We would watch anyone and everyone on FN, didn't matter as long as the food looked good. Then I sarted to feel connected with one host/chef, Giada De Laurentiis. Not only is she not bad to look at (which is understatement) but I loved her easy cooking and way that she grabbed my attention talking about food and how it brought family together. She got Warren's attention but her choice of clothing, but I am no one to judge, you got it, flaunt it!

Then I started to notice she had a gorgeous kitchen and dinnerware. Since my cooking addiction started with kitchen gadgets of course I was mesmorized by this woman. I have sense purchased 2 of her 4 cookbooks, made lots of her recipes and purchased a lot of the items she uses on her shows. I love her taste! Right up my (I should say "our" but who are we kidding) alley.

I record almost all of her shows and watch a few of them numerous times. She makes me feel relaxed and gives me confidence in the kitchen. I almost feel like shes an older sister.

Anyhow, my obsession over cooking has gotten out of hand sometimes but always wanting to make everything fresh and from scratch when I can. This is when my health side kicks in. It is pricey to eat healthier but I consider it an investment to your body since you are stuck with it your whole life. We have been trying to eat "cleaner" and lighter. We are also trying to lead by example for Sebastian. I make most of his food, thanks so C-mom's mothers day gift. I haven't had a chance to workout since dropping my baby weight but I have noticed that my celulite has been deminishing (not entirely as I think that is impossible, for me at least) since eating healthier and cleaner. So while this is all great, it is time consuming. So much so that I don't have time to take in another hobby. But hey, at least my hobby feeds mouths. :)

As for some other foodies, the Julie and Julia story has inspired me somewhat. Not to do what Julie did because that would just be suicide with a soon-to-be one year old. I will be trying to blog about certain recipes that I make and write about my crazy antics of trying to make stuff from scratch. I have list...I should post that on here and cross them off as I go...thanks Tabatha for giving me that idea. If you can put up with my random ramblings stay tuned!

I know everyone checks out our blog to see pics of Sebastian and since I have a hard time loading them up at night and can't post pics on my lunch break this is just how it will be sometimes. BUT, you can check out our sweet Layne's blog for awesome videos and pics of Sebastian...she is defenitely in the running for Aunt of the year! ;) http://chrisandlaynechilds.blogspot.com

Hobbies

So a few years ago people (or forms for one reason or another) would ask me, "What are your hobbies?" I couldn't answer that question before because I just really didn't have any or anytime to dedicate my little bit of spare time to. Even if I asked my friends they couldn't really tell me what my hobbies were.

But now I can...and everyone else since that is all I talk about! Most of you already know I have really taken on a passion for cooking. When I was younger (my days before college) I wouldn't be caught dead in the kitchen unless I was snacking on cookies and milk. So what brought this on? Ross, the "Dress for less" store. When I would shop there in college I would make my way through the house section and the cool kitchen gadgets intrigued me. Don't laugh, but I started to buy some because I thought it would look cool in my "contemporary" apartment. With a low college budget there really wasn't much decorating but there were some definite attempts and I think I did a pretty good job with all the hand-me-downs.

With all this cool looking cooking stuff I decided it was time to buy a cookbook and try out a few of my cool toys. Honestly I started to because I was embarrased when friends would ask me what certain tools were for and I really had no idea. Didn't think that my answer of "I just thought it looked different and neat" sounded very intelligent.

I can't remember the name of the cookbook but I can tell you later because I still have it. I tried out a couple of recipes pretty much picked from random. My family can tell you which ones they were because they had them a few times...I didn't have the confidence to try anything else since I did pretty good the first time.

I'm going to continue this story next time...it is my lunch break and have to get on a conference call in 20. It will also give me a chance to look up that cookbook.

Warren's First Triathlon

We are obviously WAY behind so I'm going to attempt to play catch up in August and we are probably going to be all over the place.

Warren had his first Triathlon on July 12 and he did an amazing job! I am so proud of him. Everyone has been asking us how all this got started...it was me trying to loose some baby weight (and Warren had a little bit too). So, Warren knowing I can't do it by myself with all the commotion going on right now he signed up for Weight Watchers online with me. We have now both hit our goal weight, but it is much more obvious on Warren.

In Warren's word this is how the Tri went...

Well I finished my first sprint triathlon this Sunday as many of you know and thought I would send you the results :)

Just some back ground on the race, this is any where near the length of an Ironman race, it's a 300 meter swim, 12 mile bike and, 3 mile run.

I finished #250 out of 404 people which I thought was pretty good ;)

I was #18 out of 20 in the Male 25-29 division and my times were 6:00 swim, transition 1 was 1:48 (which I feel is pretty decent for my first time), bike was 44:00 (this is where I need improvement I placed last in the division), transition 2 was 1:00 (yeah!), and run 28:26 for a grand total of 1:21:12!

All in all I was very pleased with my time, and can not wait for the next one in late August.

My BFF, Michelle went with me to support Warren and we made these really cool signs.