Joey continues to grow like a weed and is keeping us very busy. We’ve had about 8 inches of very much need rain this week so we’ve been spending a lot of time indoors. Here is Joey enjoying the fire.
From the USGS site this morning:
A light earthquake occurred at 4:03:25 AM (PST) on Saturday, January 16, 2010.
The magnitude 4.3 event occurred 4 km (3 miles) WNW of Beaumont, CA.
The hypocentral depth is 15 km ( 9 miles).
We are about 70 miles southwest of the epicenter. It woke me an Annika up. Everyone else… still sleeping!
Posted in Random | Tagged earthquake | Leave a Comment »
By popular demand, here is a Joey update.
Joey is finally getting into a routine. He slept seven whole hours last night and only had two little accidents in the house today! He is also napping a bit more during the day, and seems a lot more relaxed.
Here are some more pics.
We are crate training Joey, but in the meantime, he has picked out a cozy spot by the sofa.
Here’s a couple in our back yard.
Posted in Family | Tagged collie, Family, smooth collie | 2 Comments »
We got our new puppy this afternoon. He is a 9 week old Smooth Collie.
Here are the first pictures of him in our backyard.
We have tentatively named him Joey! The other leading names were Sprite, Baron, Google and Jamba!
Posted in Family | Tagged collie, puppy, smooth collie | 6 Comments »
Mom and Dad came down on Christmas Day with my nephew, Vinayak. We went down to Crystal Cove Beach and enjoyed the sunset.
Here is Vinayak with Mom, Anjali and Vikram. Vinayak is a Junior at Purdue studying EE (my cousin Raju’s son).
Posted in Family | Tagged Christmas, Crystal Cove, Family | Leave a Comment »
This weekend, I took Annika and Nikhil up to Reno for the National Junior Olympics. Both had qualified at the Regionals in San Diego about 4 weeks ago.
We had a nice flight up to Reno from LAX. The weather unfortunately was not as nice. On Friday night before the race we had about a foot of snow. Just getting to the course in the foothills of Reno was difficult and the races were all delayed.
This is the morning view from our hotel room at Circus Circus.
Here are Annika and Nikhil on the morning before their race during the course walk. You can see a light snow falling.
This is Annika in the team tent before her race.
Annika’s race was first up. She ran in the older Bantam Girl’s group (ages 9-10). It had stopped snowing just long enough for her race but began snowing again soon afterward. Running on the snow required special cross country spikes (shoes) with 1/2″ spikes in them. She ran a great race and persevered the brutal conditions and finished 162 (out of 200+). Annika’s team of 8 won the prestigious National title! Quite an accomplishment.
Here is the rest of her team at the awards ceremony in the evening displaying their “gold”. Two of her team mates finished in the top 25 with three others in the top 50. Their lowest overall point score (kind of like golf) earned them the win.
Nikhil’s team raced under heavy snow conditions and even stiffer competition. His team placed 11th overall(Nikhil is the 3rd runner in the pic – green/red jersey). This was the best picture I could get with my puny litle camera!
Here is Nikhil with his buddies after the awards ceremony.
And one last picture of Annika and Nikhil.
Next year’s race will be in Alabama. We’ll be going again if they qualify!
Posted in Cross Country | Tagged Cross Country, Junior Olympics, Reno, Running | 2 Comments »
Over Thanksgiving holiday, we went up to Mom and Dad’s house.
Here is a picture of the kids with their cousins (Kiran and Maya).
On Thanksgiving morning, the kids ran a 5K race in San Jose called the Silicon Valley 5K. This race had 11,000 plus runners. Annika got 2nd place in the 9 and under category and Nihil got 2nd place in the 13 and under category.
Annika knocked another 30 seconds off her 5K time from last month and Nikhil got another sub 20 time though both were slowed down by having to dodge the slower runners that lined up in front of them. It was crazy!
For Thanksgiving dinner, we went to Abhijit’s house. He had spent all day cooking a monster dinner. Here are the girls before dinner.
Here are the boys working on their seventh piece of homemade pie!
Here are all the kids after dinner.
Posted in Cross Country, Dinner, Family | Tagged Dinner, Family, Thanksgiving | Leave a Comment »
Last weekend, Annika and Nikhil ran at the regional Junior Olympics qualifier in San Diego (Escondido). They both qualified for the team and their team placed 1st and 2nd so they are moving on to the nationals race in Reno in a couple of weeks.
Here are some pictures from the event last Sunday.
Posted in Cross Country | Tagged Cross Country, Running | Leave a Comment »
Nikhil and Annika both qualified for the Junior Olympics at the Southern California Association meet last Sunday.
Here is little Annika running with the older Bantam group (ages 9-10). She held her own and beat out several scoring runners in the older age group. Her team placed first in the race.
Look at her concentration!
Nikhil also did extremely well and will also move on the the regional qualifier in San Diego this weekend.
If their team makes it past the regionals, we will be going to Reno in December for the nationals.
Posted in Cross Country | Tagged Cross Country, olympics, Running | Leave a Comment »
This weekend, I took the boys camping at the plush new Outdoor Educational Center. This is a new $30 million, 160 acre camping facility on Irvine Ranch land. The weather was nice but a bit chilly in the 40’s and 50’s at night.
Here is Vikram in the morning.
Here is Nikhil with some of the other boys in his scouting troop.
The boys got to participate in a new high ropes course. Here is Vikram on one of the ropes activities.
First the climb up the telephone pole.
Here he is up about 30 feet tethered by a belay line.
Here is a view of the ropes course from the campsite.
No fear whatsoever!
On the first night we made smores on a open firepit (which was powered by gas). No logs to light, no mess to clean up and no danger to the environment. All of the campsites are raised and groomed making it easy to pitch the tents. The bathrooms are tiled and spotless.
This is the equivalent of the Ritz Carlton for camping! Thanks to James Irvine for creating this wonderful facility. We’ll be back soon.
Posted in Boy Scouts | Tagged Boy Scouts, Camping, Orange County | Leave a Comment »
Nikhil and Annika ran in the Tustin Dino Dash 5K. Nikhil crashed through the 20 minute barrier. This was Annika’s first time at the Dino Dash. There were about 2000 runners in the race. You can see Annika in the green shirt in the back of the picture.
Here is Nikhil near the finish on his way to a 19:25 time.
Here is Annika after the run with Mom. Mom and Dad were down for the weekend to watch the race and visit the grandkids.
Here are Annika, Nikhil and their friend Colby. Annika got a 24:50 time and a second place medal for her age group.
The full results are posted here (overall 5K) and here (age division awards).
Posted in Cross Country | Tagged 5K, Dino Dash, Running | Leave a Comment »
The kids dressed up at school for Halloween before going out for the night.
They have gone from being princesses, angels and cartoon characters to ghoulish vampires, ghosts and devils!
Here is Annika with her friends.
The best part was the haunted house in Serrano.
Here they are counting and sorting their loot at the end of the night.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Candy, Halloween | Leave a Comment »
A couple of weekends ago, Nikhil and Annika ran at the Mt. Sac races. This is the largest cross country meet in the US.
Here is Annika finishing up her 2K race. She finished in the top 15 in a field of about 100.
Nikhil’s race was a 3K and even more competitive with a lot more hills that Mt. Sac is famous for.
Here is the starting line with well over 100 at the line.
This is the first of several long hills.
A great race experience with a truly competitive field!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Cross Country, Running | Leave a Comment »
Nikhil and Annika ran a 3K and 2K at the Wildcats meet at the Wild Animal Park in Irvine this past weekend.
Here are a couple of pictures.
Here she is with her 5th place medal finish among the sub-bantam girls. She got a 9:20 something time for the 2K improving by about a minute from her last race.
They both have races this coming weekend at Mt. Sac. Nikhil has a race in the Sweepstakes Varsity race on Friday afternoon and they both race on Sunday. We have a weekend of running and driving!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Cross Country, Running | 1 Comment »
Last weekend, Nikhil and Annika ran at a meet in Corona – the first one of the season.
Nikhil ran a 3K race and finished in 12:25.
Annika ran her very first cross country race. It was a 2K that she ran in about 10 minutes and placed 10th.
Posted in Cross Country | Tagged Cross Country, Running | Leave a Comment »
This summer, I have been taking a group of boy scouts on a series of road rides to enable them to earn their Cycling Merit Badge. We started with a series of 10 mile, 15 mile and 25 mile rides – two of each. Last weekend, we capped it off with a 50 mile ride thru Tustin, Irvine, Newport Beach and Huntington Beach – and back! We rode along the beach for parts of it and also enjoyed the Back Bay on the way back.
Here we are at the half way point in Huntington Beach at the Dairy Queen.
This is a view of the Back Bay.
It made for a very long day, but we all did it in about 5 1/2 hours. Pretty amazing!
Posted in Boy Scouts | Tagged bike merit badge, Boy Scouts, cycling | Leave a Comment »
On one of the days, we went to a zip line “park” run by Canopy Safari. It was about an hour’s drive into the jungle from Manuel Antonio. It started out with about a 20 minute walk up the hill. From there, it was about 20 zip lines down and a couple of rappel lines. Here are some pictures.
After each zip line, they hurried us through to the next one. It was loads of fun as you can see from the expressions….. but I must say, it was all a bit too “sanitized” for my liking. Guess you have to do it once but, I would go back for another river ride instead!
Posted in Vacation | Tagged canopy safari, Costa Rica, Manuel Antonio, Vacation | 2 Comments »
On one of the days in Costa Rica, we went white water river rafting on the Savegre River. Our tour was conducted by the Amigos Del Rio group. We chose the full day adventure down the Class 3 rapids of the Savegre River. The adventure started with a bus ride to a way point about an hour outside of Manuael Antonio. From there, we climbed into a 4 wheel drive hum-vee type vehicle for another hour drive deep into the rainforest.
Here are some pictures from the adventure.
We started off slowly and then hit some major rapids. It definitely looks scarier than it felt at the time.
They referred to this section of the river as La Boca del Diablo or the Devil’s Mouth.
There was also another section of the river we got to “surf a hole” – a technique where you are paddling upstream against the flow of the river and keeping up – too cool to describe.
We were fortunate to have a great tour operator and boatman (Ramirez) leading our raft. Only a few of us fell out of the boat and were quickly rescued! This was an amazing and thoroughly enjoyable day on the river.
Posted in Vacation | Tagged Costa Rica, Vacation, White Water Rafting | Leave a Comment »
We just got back from a week of vacation in Costa Rica. This time we rented a beach house in Manuel Antonio Beach. Manuel Antonio is a small beach town about a 3+ hour drive from the capital city of San Jose in Costa Rica. We rented a car at the local Budget and drove the 130km to our slice of paradise.
Here are some pictures of the kids on the beach behind the house.
Each day we built a (bigger and bigger) sand castle in the hopes of battling the high tides. Each morning we would come out to see the waves had wiped clean our hard-work!
One of the features of the beach house was the daily monkey crossing. We got to see a troop of monkeys crossing thru the back yard. The monkeys would stop by pretty much every afternoon for plantains and flowers.
In between the beach and the monkey sightings, we enjoyed the wonderful backyard and pool.
During the week, we also did a day of white water rafting and one day of a canopy tour. I’ll post those pics separately.
Posted in Vacation | Tagged Beach, Costa Rica, Discovery Beach House, Manuel Antonio, Swimming, Vacation | 2 Comments »
Cross Country season started and Annika and Nikhil ran their first 5K’s of the season at the Guy Poncy Memorial 5K held at Anaheim Stadium. Here is a link to the race results which were not easy to find!
Nikhil picked up where he left off last year and ran a 20:41 (6:40 pace). Last year at this time, he got just over 26 minutes. It was a very cool course and the kids got to run on the field inside Angel Stadium.
Annika ran her very first 5K with a goal of 30 minutes. She sailed through that and got a 28:49 and got 3rd place overall in the 14 and under Girls Division. Too much fun!
Here she is with her medal!
After the race, I took the kids to the Angels dugout for a group picture.
Posted in Cross Country | Tagged 5K, Cross Country, Running | Leave a Comment »
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