apAdventures

Ivan has always been the little entertainer in our family. Yes, he’ll dance for us, or “show off” with a silly stunt, but his real talent lies in his facial expressions. This boy has an expression for every single thought in that smart little head of his, I swear. He’s taken his lack of understandable vocabulary and turned it into a theatrical performance that any pantomime would be jealous of. And it’s not just us that notices. He’s very good at making strangers smile, or even sometimes laugh. He knows when to turn-it-on for an adult, or especially his mama…who can’t help but giggle at “the look,” regardless of circumstance. He’s quite the character, as many like to say. And now he’s 2 years old! Here are a few birthday photos that capture just a few of the many many faces of Ivan. Enjoy.

You’ve got my attention even though I’d rather turn back around and keep playing in the pool

I’m not in the mood to smile for the camera so I’ll give you this face to work with instead

Alright, you’re not getting the hint that I don’t want to smile. Now you get “the look.”

Yes, I’m excited to get into the pool already. Stop bothering me.

Fine, take a photo of this.

I’m tired now from the pool photo-shoot.

Blue sandals! Just what I always wanted.

I’m tough, grown-up…and ready to fight a fire.

but now I need help putting my helmet back on

Why is he touching my stuff?

A cake topped with bananas?!!! This is the best day of my life!

Happy Birthday Ivan!

posted by arr

I realize this post is a few days late but better now than never. These pics are too cute not to share. Of course I’m biased. 🙂

Ivan was hilarious to watch during our egg hunt. He went wild every time he found an egg, screaming “egg!” and then running at us to show it off. These pics make me giggle every time I look at them:

Silas did find his fair share of eggs too. (Note: nevermind the brown earth-toned colored eggs. I forgot to add the vinegar to our homemade dye this year. Silas still thought they looked pretty though)

The Easter bunny brought the kids a wiffle ball and bat….make that 6 balls actually, cause no doubt they’ll get lost. That’s one smart bunny.

And a walk / ride out in the desert to top off easter morning

Ivan gets to ride too

…although I think he’d rather ride on a bike than wagon

Easter dinner

Mmmm, pig

ps. And since everyone is gonna ask – Ivan’s face is all banged up because first he tripped and hit his face on the courtyard bricks, then he fell off the compost bin and hit his face on the adjacent bin, and then he tripped in the park (on grass!) and hit his face on the sidewalk he was running towards. All in one week! Poor baby, he must be in a growth spurt.

posted by arr

We’ve decided to call it quits on Hueco a few weeks early this year. We’re tired and/or injured, and have some big home improvement endeavors that we’d like to get started on. [We’re getting air conditioning in the house!!!!! Wooo!] So to wrap things up we banged out two back-to-back weekends…with the intent I’d have a shot at squeezing in a send of Bloody Flapper Traverse, v9 of course, haha.

The big news from the first weekend was that Paul sent The Flame, v12, sore finger and all. This one surprised me. I figured he’d have at least another working session on it, and that day he had already tried it a half dozen times. Apparently he was just warming up because after a lecture by Silas on how “practice makes perfect” when it comes to climbing to the top of rock climbs, he put his shoes back on and climbed it to the top. Woo! “See dad, practice makes perfect!”

Last weekend turned out to be very special due to our old El Paso friend Raquel (who now lives in Austin) being in town and joining us. The boys absolutely adore her, as does she them. We had an outstanding day trying some of the climbs-less-traveled and sampling projects we’ve already picked out for next season. And then we topped it all off with some delicious bibimbap at a Korean restaurant.

As for Bloody Flapper Traverse, I didn’t do it. I gave it 13 goes over the course of 3 separate days and fell at the last move every time. This isn’t earth-shattering news by any means since I’ve been falling from the last move since the spring of 2008. Yes, 2008, really. Well, minus the baby off-time of course…but still! I have some theories as to why I can’t pull it off – a mixture of lack of psyche when I pull on (cause I’ve pulled on with the intent to send soooo many times) combined with muscle memory I’ve probably built up of falling from the move versus sticking the move (cause I’ve fallen from that move soooo many times). Whatever the case may be, I’ll go back to it in the fall. Walking away is not an option for me. I’ve never put this much time and effort into a climb and not eventually done it. I can say that now since I sent Better Eat Your Wheaties. 😉

In the meantime, amongst the home-improvement chaos, potential surgery on Paul’s finger and summertime fun with the two little monkeys, Paul and I have already started crafting trip plans, boulder problem tick-lists and training schedules (in that order). RMNP, Hueco, Bishop…all three? We’ll see where this year takes us, after our “off-season” is over here in hot Tucson.

Pit stop on the way to Hueco

Silas and Ivan reenacting The Three Billy Goats Gruff (their “horns” are up and they’re getting ready to butt the troll off the rock, I mean, bridge)

Paul ticking off Russian Woman, v9 on the Acme Roof

more Russian Woman

Ivan finds a hueco

Silas playing mama with Franklin

Shhh, Franklin is asleep

Ivan our blondie. I could stare at this tousled mess all day. Love it!

Silas our climber kid

Yeah boy

Who wants a drool kiss?

Traffic jam back at camp…

…tequila…

…and a dump truck being bossy to a defenseless jeep. Such drama.

Dad showing off the results of all that front lever and planche training he was doing most of the winter when he couldn’t climb on account of his finger

Our view of choice to wake up to in the morning: Hueco!

Raquel on The Weenie Roast, v4

more weenie roastin

Storytime at the boulders

Paul sampling The Ugh, v11, which is on the same boulder as the 4-star classic The Egg, v8. Wanna make a guess as to what’s on my next season’s ticklist? 😉

posted by arr

We bought Silas a big kid’s bike today. This was quite the graduation from his Radio Flyer tricycle and Skuut balance bike. He’d been looking forward to it tremendously – finally getting a “big bike” that “older kids ride” with “only two wheels, one in the front, one in the back” and “pedals!”

We got his new Diamondback Viper with 16″ wheels home, took off the training wheels, helped him onto it, gave a shove and he was off!…balancing all on his own and riding it. Really riding it!

He quickly figured out that the faster he goes the better he can balance. Which resulted in me running full speed down our road next to him urging him to slooww down! Use those brakes! SLOW DOWN!

He crashed. He cried a little. Then he wanted to do it again. Up and down our dirt road he went with me running alongside him feeling utterly useless (with the exception of getting started, he does need help with that). He rode it so much his small little self got too tired to even push it back to the house; his small little self with that big ‘ol helmet on his head trying to push along that big ‘ol bike.

And then to top the day off after all the bike riding was done, we were out in the garden picking the evening’s dinner salad and he discovered the biggest fava bean EVER! (shown in the pic below, laying on the bike seat). He was almost as proud of this find as he was of his riding performance.

A big day for little Silas.

posted by arr

Another trip to Hueco last weekend gives me another big send to add to my ticklist! I did Mr. Serious, v8 first try of the day! Woohoo! This climb was the other biggie I had my sights set on this season. I was hoping I could clean it up quickly having just completed Better Eat Your Wheaties and thankfully I was right. Now I’ve got a nice chunk of time still this season to devote my attention back toward another long-standing project: Bloody Flapper Traverse, v9.

I’m not greedy, just motivated! I swear! 😉

Mr. Serious, v8. Done.

And now let me bring you up to date on Paul’s climbing. He’s been ramping up very slowly since January in attempt to take care of the finger, climbing with “the brakes on” and choosing his problems wisely so as to ease back into the small crimping. Brakes on and all, he’s managed to impress me with the climbs he’s pulled off (which can be hard to do after 11+ years of climbing together, hehe).

Two weeks ago he did Sub Zero, v11, a compression climb next to Glas Roof that lives up to it’s cold and windy name…bring your puffy if you’re ever asked to spot someone on this one, brrr! Anyway, in classic “Paul-style” when it comes to the easier double digits, he projected it one day and then came back and sent it the very next day. Not bad.

Paul ticking off Sub Zero, v11

This last weekend though I think Paul’s send of Scream, v10 (the stand) trumped mine of Mr. Serious (even though I opened this post writing all about me, me, me. Ah, the risk you run when you let your wife do all the talking, hehe). Scream is one of those climbs that packs a heck of a punch in just a couple of moves. It’s hard. It was a climb that Paul had tried last season and failed. Note, I wrote ‘LAST’ season, as in LAST season when he was climbing pretty darn strong, cleaning up a new boulder problem a day it seemed and making progress on Nagual, v13. LAST season, he couldn’t do it. And now THIS season, having taken the majority of last summer and the fall off from climbing and only just getting back into it a mere 2 months ago, he sends it! Go figure. Actually, we did go and figure. We thought about it long and hard on the drive home. And the conclusion that we came to was that all that front-lever and planche training he was doing during the time he wasn’t able to climb really paid off for a climb like Scream. Scream didn’t require crimp strength…just pure core and shoulder power. Cross-training….yeah baby. 🙂

Paul balled up (look at the location of his feet!) and sending Scream, v10

So what does Paul have his sights set on for the remainder of the season? Well, unfortunately the finger issue is not 100% resolved. The harder he tries climbing on crimps, the more the pain starts to creep back in. He’s now scheduled for 6 weeks of physical therapy. In the meantime, his interest is in more non-crimpy boulder problems. He tried The Flame, v12 last weekend and has it mostly worked out. I’m thinkin we’ll probably go back.

Faced with the crux of The Flame, v12

And finally, what’s a good climbing-status post without cute photos of the bambinos? Here ya go…enjoy!

posted by arr

Better Eat Your Wheaties. Done.

Last Thursday may perhaps hold the most memorable send of all time for me. I finally (FINALLY!) completed a boulder problem I’d been dreaming about doing for a long, long, very long time: Better Eat Your Wheaties, v8. This is one of those climbs, maybe the only climb come to think of it, that I vividly remember walking up to for the very first time. I suppose most climbers have one of those moments at least once. First thought: What is THAT climb? Immediately followed by second thought: How hard is it? (Not because harder is better but because it’s nice to know if it’s in the immediate realm of possibility).

At the time that I first laid eyes on Wheaties it was not in the realm of possibility for me. It wasn’t even close. I was barely making my way to the top of v4’s and 5’s with a lot of work. Wheaties was a dream climb. A “someday” sorta climb. A “if I send this one I’ll be satisfied for life and will quit climbing and move back east” kinda climb. I’m pretty certain that on that first day I was standing there gawking at it I really believed it was a climb I’d never do because it was too hard. That day was November 20th, 2004. I know this because I’m an obsessive climbing nerd and keep a climbing journal.

One year later, climbing not much harder than v4’s and 5’s, I got on it for the very first time. It was a moonlight tour with Paul, our friend Grit from Germany, Tammy and Vince, and Sam and Ana. I remember Ana running up it and then insisting that Tammy and I give it a try. So we did. And we got our asses handed to us on that incredibly hard first move.

Two years after that (now the fall of 2007), a bit stronger and bit smarter on how to train, I went back to it to see how hard it felt. Four days on it over the course of four months and my assessment remained the same: yep, still too hard.

Then came our big trip in 2008 to Rocklands, South Africa where I sent my first v8, Minki. At this point I had a nice base of quality v6’s from a variety of crags and even a few 7’s. Now we’re talkin! But, before I could get back to Wheaties, along came Silas. I’ll take Silas over Wheaties any day.

Now it’s the Spring of 2011, with Silas toddling around under the boulders and me training like a madwoman to get back in shape ASAP. I stick the first move of Wheaties for the very first time. This is HUGE! The climb has now been unlocked and I start working it in earnest. But alas, summer comes too soon and it gets hot. And then but whom should come along after that: Ivan. And I’ll take Ivan over Wheaties any day.

Fast forward past all the getting back in shape again and it’s now the fall of 2013. I’m finally able to stick that first move again. Game on. I quickly start linking pieces of it together over the course of a few weeks and by December am giving it full-on sending go’s. I was truly convinced I could pull it off before the holidays. I was wrong. On our final day there before heading east for 3 weeks to lounge and gorge over the holidays, I fell off the last move.

So here we are now at the end of my Better Eat Your Wheaties journey. Nine years, 34 days of effort, 2 babies and a whole lotta late-night training later, I pull on and…

effortlessly…stick…every…single…move. A climb that had been so impossibly hard for so long now felt easy.

Pulling over the top of the boulder I was positively beaming. I could faintly hear Paul’s and a handful of other dude’s whoops and hollers below and may have uttered a little “wooo!” of my own. Standing up I almost got emotional as tears welled up in my eyes. But then I remembered the handful of dudes below, quickly composed myself, climbed down, and hi-fived the crowd. Wheaties is mine.

Cheers!

posted by arr

posted by arr

Look what I caught the kids doing today! Yes, that is a carabiner clipped to Ivan’s diaper and the chain of rings is their “rope”. Silas is belaying him up onto the wall. At this moment Silas is yelling beta at him – telling him to chalk up and then traverse over. After Silas notices me snapping this photo he says “Don’t worry mama. We’ll be back in 2 weeks.”

With all these exciting high-action Olympic winter sports going on (that we’ve all been watching here), one would think they’d be skating around the house in their socks or trying spins and grabs off the couch. Nope. Not my kids. My kids are headed off on a climbing expedition. I can’t help but smile. 😉

posted by arr

Since we’re on the subject of food – we recently took a trip up to Crooked Sky Farms in Phoenix where we get our produce from through our local CSA. It was member’s day which meant a free brunch, a tour of the fields, some fresh u-pick veggies straight out of the earth, and a chance to meet Farmer Frank. Silas and Ivan were quite impressed. For Silas, Farmer Frank’s fields were the biggest GARDEN EVER!!! And for Ivan…well, there was plenty of dirt everywhere to play in…need I say more?

Farmer Frank’s fields at Crooked Sky Farms

Brunch. That little shack is where Chef Steph cooked up the food!

Rides for the kids

Silas on the “Otis” tractor (if you don’t know who Otis is it’s probably because you don’t have kids)

Touring the fields

Picking some dill

Cleaning out the broccoli leftovers

Mmmmmm!

posted by arr

Lunchtime, YES!

What the???!!!??

Silas, did Mama put leaves in your sandwich too?!?!?!

Yes Ivan. Leaves are healthy. This is healthy food. Now eat it or you’ll starve.

A long, long time ago a non-climber friend came along with us for a weekend of bouldering, curious to get a glimpse of the rock climber life. One of the evenings back at camp over a hearty meal of hotdogs, beer and Poore Brothers salt & vinegar potato chips he asked us if we ever wondered how hard we could climb if we ate healthier food. Huh. No. We hadn’t thought about it. We hadn’t even considered it! And yet at the time our whole existence on the face of this planet revolved solely on climbing stronger, harder, better. What a novel idea.

While that indeed was the very first time someone had ever questioned or even commented on my eating habits, it’s taken nearly a decade for me to even begin to define for myself what food I think is good to eat versus bad. Having children of my own was a definite swift kick to think harder and learn more about the topic. Add to that my perpetual quest to climb stronger, my occasional tree-hugger tendencies toward the environment, my wish to live happily ever after with Paul by my side, and my insatiable desire to stay active in the outdoors that I love until I can no longer get out of bed in the morning due to extreme old age, and you’ve now got yourselves a food information addict. I can’t get enough of it. Where does my food come from? What does “processed” really mean? What’s so bad about GMOs? Why organic? What is fortified flour? Why the craze now for full-fat versus reduced or skim? Why is honey or maple syrup supposed to be better for you than refined white sugar? Isn’t it all just sugar anyway? Why does almond milk taste the same as soy milk taste the same as flaxseed milk taste the same as coconut milk? Cause when I make them myself from scratch they most certainly don’t taste anything alike. And what are all those weird ingredients on the label anyway?

With all the internet material, documentaries, books, magazines, co-ops, farmers markets, local farm-share opportunities, farm-to-table restaurants, etc. out there now-a-days the opportunity to learn about food is hard for me to ignore. I feel empowered to be able to learn a tidbit of info and then have the authority to decide for myself whether to agree, disagree or ignore. I feel as though it’s my responsibility to learn about it, because I have two small children who look at me like little hungry birds waiting for their next morsel at the dinner table, completely dependent on my good judgement that I’m not handing them a rotten worm. I feel that I owe it to my family to carry on the homegrown, homecooked traditions that I myself grew up with, to the best of my ability. I feel like it’s just the right thing to do! And it feels good.

So what is my philosophy on food right now? It’s gotta be real. Real as in straight from the farm or garden onto my plate. Local and fresh. Sustainable. Nutrient dense. Minimally processed. Grown without any pesticides or chemicals that may harm myself or my baby birds. Prepared with ingredients that I have in my own pantry. This is the new baseline we’ve set in my household, a baseline that I’m sure will fluctuate up and down and probably sideways as life runs its course. And that’s exactly the beauty of it all and why I decided to write about it here in the first place. My food consumption is a lot like my climbing. It belongs to me and me alone and therefore I get to write the rules of how it shall be incorporated into my life.

posted by arr