The day after Cole’s birthday we hopped on a plane to San Diego to watch Kate compete in her second 1/2 Iron Man at Oceanside. The day before Kate’s competition, we took the kids to the beach and despite the frigid water temps, it took them all of 5 minutes to decide that they wanted to be in the water. Click on any of the pics below to see a slide show and I’ll post more pics (from the Iron Man and other parts of our trip) shortly.

It’s the middle of April and this is post #2 for the entire year! Where does the time go? Erin pointed out to me this morning that I need to do better updating our blog because not EVERYONE is on Facebook and that is where I’ve been spending what little free time I have on the web. So you’ll be happy to know that I’m processing tons of photos from our trip to San Diego last week. I’ll try my best to get them posted this weekend; I know famous last words right?

Anyhow, to tide you over, here are a few shots of Cole on his birthday. The little guy was quite the trooper; the week prior to Cole’s birthday, we decided to have our kitchen cabinets restored, so the kitchen was ripped up (notice the canvas tarp under the cake?) and Cole couldn’t have his little buddies over for a party. Our plan ‘B’ was to take Cole and his friends to see the Monsters Vs. Aliens movie, but at the last minute I had to cancel since I was needed at work and we were flying out the next morning to San Diego. It worked out in the end though. One of our close friends joined Erin to help corral the kids, so I wasn’t too far into the doghouse

Happy Holidays!

We’re managing to keep warm despite the cold temps and snow that we’ve been receiving daily for more than a week now. Cole is playing his Indiana Jones XBox game as I write this. Ian is psyched to finally have a Nintendo DS like Nathan; they played a network game against each other for a better part of the morning yesterday. I smoked a 13lb roast on the green egg despite the fact that only three adults were going to enjoy it. Erin was annoyed enough to take a picture which I’ve included in the slide show below, but she decided it was a good thing today when I used the left overs (at least a small portion of the left overs) to make prime rib panini sandwiches. Thanks Amanda for the panini grill!

We’d like to wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Click on any of the pictures below to launch a slide show

Cole posing for pictures with a snowman

Cole wearing the elf hat that ‘cookie Gramma’ gave him

Ian showing off the snowman cookies he made

Cole

All three of our boys posing with Christmas hats

Erin captured this shot of Cole sound asleep on Christmas Eve with his book still open.

This was taken 1AM Christmas morning. It snowed all night!

Our boys on Christmas morning. Cole is watching Ian and Nathan play Nintendo DS.

Erin went back through all of our pictures and pulled together a few that represent the last 8 years of Christmas celebrations we’ve had in North Carolina, Ohio and Washington.

Click on the picture to launch the slideshow and Merry Christmas!

Cole visiting the lights at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens in 2007

We’re up to five Christmas trees in our home. One in the living room, one in the family room and one in each of the three kids bedrooms. In my family, we have a tradition of purchasing an ornament each year that is symbolic of something that happened during the year. The kids have a blast hanging their ornaments from years past and asking us what the significance of each one is.

The living room

Cole decorating his tree

Ian decorating his tree

Nathan working on his tree

Another shot of the living room

Happy holidays everyone!

After a full day ending with a parent/son baseball game with Nathan’s team over at Pine Lake park, I decided that I needed to try out a couple recipes from the books that I got for father’s day.  As a main course, I chose to make Asian spice-rubbed pork chops with wild mushroom-soy vinaigrette from the Bobby Flay book.  As a side, I whipped up some Risotto coupled with grilled asparagus wrapped in pancetta with Citronette; chosen from the Mario Batali book. 

We paired a bottle of 2006 Cinsault (columbia valley) limited release Chateau Ste Michelle with the meal and the results were off the chart.

Of course, I have to include some gratuitous shots of the food.  Guys, remember that the best way to continually justify the purchase of a Big Green Egg is to grill dinner often for the family ;-)  I think Erin would have let me spend 10x the amount on a green egg had she known ahead of time the kinds of meals that she would be served throughout the year.

Be sure to get thick 1+” chops

The wild mushroom-soy vinaigrette zaps the taste buds and tastes amazing with the grilled chops

After you wrap the asparagus in pancetta, refrigerate for an hour and you’ll get the best results when grilling

The citronette sauce gives the asparagus a tangy flavor that pairs well with the main course.

Here’s my plate just before I consumed every bite.

I am a spoiled soul.  Erin and the kids made a huge breakfast feast on father’s day with sausage, eggs with peppers, home made coffee cake, strawberries, honey dew and hash browns. In addition to the handmade cards, poems and Ian’s plaster hand print, the kids hooked me up with a couple of awesome BBQ books and grill accessories. 

The first book is Italian Grill by Mario Batali

I can’t wait to try the Beef Braciole “Pinwheel-style” recipe that is a variation of one of my favorite summer recipes; flank steak pinwheels.  The pork shoulder Braciole also looks like it could be a winner. 

The second book is Boy gets Grill by Bobby Flay. 

It is going to be a busy summer in our back yard!

After the great breakfast, my mom stopped by and all of us drove over to Tiger Mountain to hike about 3 1/2 miles to see the Talus Rocks.  Here’s a few shots I took during the hike; click on any of them for a short slide show. 

Despite all of the energy the kids expended on the hike (I think they probably ran 7 or 8 miles back and forth despite the 700+ foot change in elevation), we later met up with Ian’s t-ball team back in Sammamish for a family picnic.  Needless to say, there was not a single complaint last night when bed time arrived

Nope, not a typo.  Snoqualmie pass received well over 6 feet of snow between Tuesday and Friday and the pass itself has only been open to traffic for a couple of hours between Tuesday and this morning.  The PowderPig website (the school that we enrolled the kids in) posted some pictures on their site.  It looked like 5 feet of snow had accumulated on the roof of the chalet and that it would take hours to dig out the chair lifts.  Ian is chomping at the bit to get back to the mountains after last week, but the cancellation was probably a good thing since Nathan is feeling pretty crumby.

Not much else to report (that I can talk about anyway ;-)  I’ll try and post some new videos and pictures soon.

Yesterday was our second day of skiing lessons for Nathan and Ian at the pass. Like last week, it dumped snow all day long. The kids are all making great progress and enjoying the snow, although the drive home was kind of bad given the snow, traffic and affect that hunger has on kids.

I posted some un-edited video on the site. Click here to see it.

Nothing much to report. The holidays are still coming too quickly and I haven’t come close to finishing my shopping, but I refuse to stress over it Erin and I had a night out last night and we we able to purchase gifts for the kids in record time. Erin thought we might want to press on and finish up the rest of our shopping, but I convinced her to punt on that plan and enjoy a couple cocktails and dinner out instead
No one has to get Cole into the Christmas spirit. Erin snapped this pic of Cole eating ice cream with his Santa hat on.

Mom started the tradition of getting us kids a new ornament each Christmas that represented something from the past year. Erin and I have continued the tradition and bought the kids their own trees (Ian and Nathan share one and Cole has his own) that they can decorate with their ornaments. Here are a few shots of Nathan and Ian decorating their tree.

And last week mom and Amanda came over for dinner to celebrate mom’s 46th birthday (give or take a decade). Happy Birthday mom!