Happy Halloween!!

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Halloweekend

Friday

Halloween is one of those days that is way more fun now than it was before we had kids.   

It starts early - I was barely out of the pool after Masters on Friday when Sacha was calling for reinforcements.  The Grim Reaper and Little Red Riding Hood were in full costume at 7:20am...

They pretty much never broke character until the costumes came off before bed.  Sacha and I, on the other hand, broke character by eating candy all day like a couple of 10 year olds.

The Grim Reaper, Bee-go, and Little Red Riding Hood

Little Red Riding Hood

"Focus" is Viggo's specialty.  You can put the kid in a bee-suit, but you can't hide the eyes of a warrior.

The "Guitar Hero" look coming together... I believe every guy wants to try a mohawk at least once.  Turns out it's not the perfect hairstyle for West Van...  maybe a tad aggressive.  Fun for 12 hours though.

Saturday

After a day of soccer (Mattias), music (Aia), sleeping (Viggo), sneaking miniature candy bars (Sacha and I), we headed over to Ruth and Henry's place for a super-awesome evening of home made pizza and hanging out.  Ruth is Sacha's trainer at IF.

Pick a cool fall evening and try to come up with a better meal than home made pizza and red wine....  I challenge you.  Seriously, go ahead and try....  you can't.

Sunday

Barely able to roll my increasingly candy, pizza and wine-fattened body out of bed, I decided that I needed to crank out some serious exercise on Sunday.

I started with a solo-spin at IF, followed by Richard's spin class (which I highly recommend) - 2 hours all together.  Followed that up with a 7 or 8 mile jog with Sacha along the West Van seawall and up the Capilano River and back.

The brick was pretty mellow as we weren't trying to break any speed records on the run, but it felt awesome.  My legs were lively and I felt happy to be out there - which sometimes I do not when it comes to brick training.     

Sacha and I after our run.

The standard seawall route in West Van.  Click to enlarge.

Josip and Rob (mounted) - not sure what to type here............

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Victory or Death (Pumpkin)

That took a while.....  Carving pumpkins "with the kids" is a bit of a misnomer given the razor sharp knives, goopy pumpkin guts etc.  Yeah, not really a kid activity.

I am very proud of this year's Victory or Death Pumpkin.  The time invested (significant) was worth it in the end.  It started awkwardly as I mistakenly carved away a part that was supposed to stay - fortunately I was able to recover (with the help of some toothpicks) and focused to avoid any further episodes of dyslexia pumpkana....

The VoD slogan is a tad ridiculous and over the top but I dig it anyway....  Bla, bla, bla..... The main thing is that I can draw the skull (and now carve it). When you have a 6 year old son you need to be able to draw some bad-a$$ stuff and this is my calling card....

Happy Halloween!

P.S.  For those interested in where phrases like this come from (i.e. nerds like myself) here is a little background:

Victory or Death - By all accounts (especially this wikipedia one....)the phrase is an old one....  Over centuries it has been used by the Greeks (military), Americans (military), Germans (military), Scottish (military) and Axl Rose (even Axl was in the military).  Click the image to see his VoD tattoo...

I came across the Skull and Crossbones logo on Avia products.  The design originated with the company but was inspired by 80's/90's Duathlon legend, Kenny Souza's Victory or Death tattoo.  That's Kenny behind the Avia logo...

  

 

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Riding in style?

This afternoon I did a two hour ride...  actually it ended up being a spin on the trainer in front of the TV because I didn't feel like leaving the family all afternoon.  There was also an incredible amount of televised sports to be had from about 4pm on:  Seahawks vs. Bucs, Canucks vs. Hawks, and Red Sox vs. Rays Game 7 ALCS.

I was a happy camper in my corner of the living room with the remote control handy - the kids would pop in and hang out while I spun the legs and took in all the games.  Pretty awesome.  So awesome I shot a 24 second video which includes me wearing a ridiculous (but functional) headband.... enjoy.

If that headband isn't odd looking enough for you try this...

I'm not sure what it is about a soccer player riding a pony but it's all wrong. Just looks... wrong...

You can see it in his face, "Should I laugh, cry or tell my dad to put away the camera."

Mocha the pony did not seem too concerned by Mattias' cleats (or the un-equestrian-ness of his riding attire)... I suppose she was focused on the job at hand (hoof) which was to walk back and forth 1000 times with a different kid on board each time....

This trot took place at the West Van Pumpkin Patch. You didn't know there was a pumpkin patch in West Van? Well there sure is, and weird things happen there - like soccer players riding ponies and one-legged men gambling uncontrollably at the cake wheel and guessing the weight of freakishly heavy pumpkins (unsuccessfully in both cases.)

Don't worry the child in the carrier (Viggo) was not harmed while assessing the enormous weight of the pumpkin (my guess was 84 lbs... incorrect I assume, as the Pumpkin Patch Competition Committee has not called me.)

All kidding aside, the patch was a veritable extravaganza of beautifully idyllic scenes like the ones below...

Today we celebrated Aia's 4th birthday... That's all I will say about that for now, because I am going to post some pics on Tuesday which is her actual b-day.

I'll be up early for masters tomorrow and another week will be underway... I hope you all had great weekend!

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