Super Star Birthday!

My honey turned 31 last week! So of course, we had to celebrate.

In October, Eric asked me to make him a Super Mario Bros. cake for his birthday. No prob, I said. Then I saw a picture of the cake (left).

Ummmm....yeah right! So with a little compromising, I made a Red Mushroom cake. It's a classic icon of the video game and with it being on an invincible star board, everyone should know what it is. It's just not the same if you have to explain what it is.

Since I used to watch a lot of Food Network: Challenge, I have been very interested at trying my hand at rolled fondant. Fondant is a type of icing that is commonly used on wedding cakes. It can be molded and handled like clay, but of course, its edible (well, if you can get past the taste anyway).

Some things I would change next time around:

1) in the case of the Red Mushroom, I would use a broader bowl to make a more squat mushroom. The bowl I used made the cake have a bit of an X-rated appearance.

2) use a traditional buttercream for the filling. I made a Swiss meringue buttercream, which tasted great on day one, but when we cut the cake, I think the heat messed with the texture a bit. It was still tasty.

The results of my fondant experiment are below. It wasn't too much hassle to work with and it does give everything a very polished look. If I attempt another fondant cake, I'll definitely cover a sheet cake that way it won't bunch in the back of a spherical form. 

The Retograde Series: Episode 3 - Boston Update

Despite near stress fractures in both legs, Eric had a good Boston Marathon experience. He finished in a time 3:10:56. Awesome! Ariel and I are so proud of him. We signed up to receive updates on my cell phone, but something happened to Boston's system and no one was notified. I'm sure there were some pretty upset spectators out there. I was a little ticked, but technology is only good when it works, right?
Eric was a bit disappointed with his finish, but even with the slower-than-expected time, he re-qualified to run Boston next year. He is seriously considering it, as an act of redemption. We'll see how that goes. We have some time before we really have to make a firm decision. Right now, Eric is training for the Denver Rock-n-Roll Marathon in October. Sounds like a good time to me.
Check out the full Boston race report at http://www.ironeric.blogspot.com/

Below is part of the telecast of the race. I woke up late and totally missed the TV coverage. Dang sleep. Around 1:05, look for a guy dressed as Minnie Mouse. Eric is off to right. He's wearing a neon lime-green shirt and a white hat. When the word "Thunder" comes on screen, Eric is behind the letter "d". I guess he did get on TV after all.

Happy 30th, Big Daddy!

I'm still catching up on all our April activities. Sorry. Anyway, we were happy to celebrate Eric's 30th birthday!

The girls (Ariel, Vicki, and I) took Eric to his favorite Italian fast food place-Fazoli's. Once you eat their hot and buttery, fresh-out-of-the-oven breadsticks, you'll understand why it's his favorite.

That evening, he had a poker night with the guys at the house. I'm glad he had the opportunity to share this milestone with the peeps that helped get him to this point. For better or worse.

That weekend, the 'rents took us to Cheddar's, our new favorite American restaurant. they have some fat and tasty margaritas for $3.50! I know . . . yum! And jumping back into the cake decorating saddle, Eric requested a monster cake for his bday. Hey, I had a Barbie cake a couple years ago, so no snickering.

I found some pics of what he wanted on the Internet, but the final masterpiece looked more like a McDonald's Fry Guy and less like the monster Eric had envisioned. I chalk it up to artistic interpretation of a theme. It tasted great, so I don't think anyone noticed my (lack of) artistic skills.

This day was also exciting because Ariel took her first two un-aided steps all by herself. We tried our hardest to get it on video, but as she often tells us, "I am not a circus monkey, so don't expect me to perform." And there you have it.

P.S. I did celebrate my 30th back in October. I wish I would have done something big to celebrate, but I was still trying to find a balance with motherhood and wifey-poo duties. So we went to Pet Palace for their annual costume contest instead. I had a great time, but nothing beats an evening with your good friends and an awesome margarita!

Top of the Marathon Heap

Eric will be running the Boston Marathon on Monday, April 19th. Start time in 10 am Boston (EST) or 8 am Denver (MST). While Ariel and I will not be physically present to perform our support team cheering, we'll be with Eric in spirit and shaking our cow bells to death.

And now a few words from our runner:

If you'd like to follow my progress during the race, you can sign up to receive text messages or email alerts. My Bib #2450.

Here are the two methods.

TEXT - Simply text the word RUNNER to 31901 using your US mobile phone. You will then receive an sms text response with instructions on how to submit a runner’s bib number (Eric Greene - 2450). (Message and data rates may apply. You will be opted in to receive four messages during the race. Send STOP to quit. Available on participating carriers AT&T, Alltel, Boost, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon, and Virgin.)

If you sign up by email method, you will have to create a username and password.

EMAIL - Continue to the registration page for the AT&T Athlete Alert program on the race website. Sign-up using your mobile phone number for SMS text message updates, or by entering an email address for email updates. Click here to sign up now or http://registration.baa.org/2010/cf/RegAthleteAlert/pg_AthleteAlert.cfm?mode=entry

TV (Universal Sports) - Check your local listings. (They usually cover the race a few hours after the completion, but it's still exciting to watch.)

Wish me luck, but please don't tell me to break a leg. (To find out what this is about hop over to Eric's blog).

Iron Eric
http://www.ironeric.blogspot.com/
"Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful"- Joshua J. Marine

Running Library

We now have a new feature on our blog: Eric's running library. Since Eric has qualified for the prestigious Boston Marathon, he's been ramping up his weekly running totals. So to kill two birds with one stone, he's been "reading" audio books during his runs (5-14 miles).

On the right hand side of the blog, will be the running library (we might rename this, maybe something with more pep). A letter will appear before the title to denote Eric's ranking of the book. This is followed by the title, author, and genre.

He's been killing some books lately, so we thought it would be nice share with all of you. In case you are of the reading variety. If you have any suggestions, we're all ears.

A Super All-Star

I'm going to take this entry to brag on my husband for a little bit. Not only is Eric a terrific person, he is driven and self motivated.

Within the last month, he was named Employee of the Quarter (EOQ) at work. EOQ is based on co-workers observations and acknowledgement of hard work that goes above and beyond the black and white job description. Way to go!

Eric also competed in the Salt Lake City Marathon. Now, he had three main goals for his 5th marathon:

1) qualify for the 2010 Boston Marathon (he needed to post a time of 3 hours:10 minutes). That's 7 minute, 15 second miles. Wow!

2) run his race in under 3 hours

3) return home with his daddy-to-be status (that means I wasn't supposed to go into labor early while he was out of town)

Well of his hard training paid off. He meet all the goals he set out for himself. We're going to Boston! Eric posted a time of 2 hours:58 minutes:14 seconds. Very impressive. You can get a more detailed account of the race on Eric's blog http://www.ironeric.blogspot.com/.

And as of this posting, Shortstop is still tucked away in Hotel Mom.

As one of our last date nights (without needing a babysitter), Eric, his brother, David, a friend of David's, and I went to see X-men origins:Wolverine. Since Eric has taken a liking to growing out his "mountain man" beard, he thought he might embrace the X-men energy. He shaved his beard to look like Wolverine's. He even styled his hair a bit to get that "wild" look. David thought Eric looked ridiculous, but I have to say, Eric could pass (especially if he had a leather jacket) for the popular mutant. He just might have to re-create this look for Halloween.

I thought the movie was a bit disappointing, but we had fun.

Eric, you are an Ironman!

So, I'm just getting around to posting our trip to Couer d'Alene, Idaho for Eric's first ever Ironman triathlon. We drove through Wyoming and Montana. I just fell in love with Montana! It was so green and it seemed that if you just reached out, you could touch the mountains. It is more "wild" country than Colorado, which is why I gravitated towards this state.

Anyway, after two days of driving, we arrived in Idaho and barely had time to unpack the car, before we were off again.

Eric is part of a triathlon blogger community so we met up with like 30 people in an already crowded brew-pub. His crazy online friends were super nice and I must say, super sadistic. The highlight of the evening was when an anonymous benefactor paid the bill for the entire group! What a way to support Ironman athletes.

If you ever have the opportunity to be part of a Ironman athlete's "support crew", bring a chair, a cowbell, plenty of drinks and snacks, and good cheering voice. Race day, I got to hang out the the Bloggers' mass support crew. We spent the day searching, cheering, and photographing our athletes. They were an awesome bunch.


Eric finished in a time of 11 hours and 38 minutes, which is a great finish for a first-timer. He was very pleased with his performance, but after he crossed the finish line, Eric said, "This is my first and last Ironman." I seriously doubt that. Maybe in a couple of years. The Tri Bloggers had a post Ironman bbq on Monday and a good time was had by all.

One the way home, we decided to sight see through southern Idaho and northern Utah. While it was very pretty and scenic, it added 3 hours to our total drive time. Yikes! We'll plan better next time. Despite my grumpy, irritated days on this excursion, it was fun to be around so many goal driven individuals and their totally rocking support crew!

PS. If you want to see more pictures and view the video of Eric crossing the finish, visit Eric's blog at ironeric.blogspot.com or click on the link under "blogs we like."

Father's Day

We celebrated Father's Day with Eric's fam. We feasted on tasty steaks and potato casserole. I made a strawberry and cream cake, but it was nothing like the monstrosity I made for Eric's bday.

This year, we had an extra guest as Jesse's friend, Olga, was visiting. She is from Kazakhstan and she had a 24 hr flight just to get to Colorado. I give her mad props, I'm such a wimp when it comes to traveling by plane.

Roger got a new digital camera from the crew. I'm kicking myself right now because I forgot to take a picture of the card Pazu gave to his "grandfathers". It had the feel of a scrapbook page and Pazu's picture was on the front and it said "Happy Father's Day" in stickers. On the inside, I put a quote by John Steinbeck that said,

"I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that dogs think humans are nuts."

.Then I wrote something Pazu would say on the other side. I think the grandma's were more in love with the card.

It was a beautiful day and we had a wonderful visit. (This is the picture on the front of the card).

Bolder Boulder 2008

For twelve years, Eric has faithfully participated in the annual Memorial Day 10K run-the Bolder Boulder. The Bolder Boulder is the largest Memorial Day celebration in the nation. Over 51,000 runners/walkers registered to take on the course (6.2 miles). They were celebrating their 30th anniversary, so there was a lot of hoo-hay to go around.

On BB race day, we usually stay the night at Eric's parent's house, since they live 20 miles from Boulder. We wake up at 4:45am, so we can eat, pack a bag, and be out the door at 5:45 am. Then we drive in the cold and the dark to be at the runner drop off point (near the start line) around 6:30am. Since Eric is a fast guy, he usually runs in the AA wave, which starts about 7:00 am.

As the captain of the support team, I then drive to a parking spot near the finish line and bust my butt to get into the CU stadium, by the time Eric is expected to start. Half of the fun of being a spectator is to try and catch your loved one coming down the ramp into the stadium. I all my years of BB spectating, I've only missed Eric enter once. Yeah, I'm that good. (If you can blow up the pic, Eric is in blue and wearing a white visor. His race is #200).

We met up with some of Eric's blogging buddies then we headed to the outdoor expo where you receive free goodies (mostly food samples) and can visit with various sport related vendors.

This year, Eric had an ambitious goal. He was determined to beat Jesse's (his older brother) BB record he set when he was 17. A time of 37:38. Well, Eric beat it by 2 seconds. But 2 seconds is as good as two miles. He also set a new personal record, beating his old time by 5 minutes. Way to go Iron Eric!

Then we went home and slept for a good remainder of the day.

May God bless all the active military, veterans, and their families on this 2008 Memorial Day.

The Tale of Eric in the Capital

I've been slacking. I forgot to mention, that Eric went to Washington, DC for a business trip, at the end of April. He was there for a library conference. Since the boy is still training for his IronMan event, he did some serious training, which included some serious sight seeing.

Eric's hotel was off Connecticut Ave and he ran all the way to Arlington National Cemetery and the Iwo Jima Memorial. That's a 10 mile run-one way. He also paid a visit to the zoo, tomb of the unknown soldier, and to the memorials of Lincoln, World War II, and Roosevelt. And you can't go to DC without seeing the White House or the Washington monument, overlooking the Reflecting pool.

One day, Eric rented a bike and huffed it all the way to Mt. Vernon-a one way trip that will cost you 15 miles.

He had a lot of fun and really enjoyed his self tour of our nation's capital.

Happy Birthday Eric

Happy Birthday, Eric! My honey turned the big 28 today and to celebrate, he took the day off of work and did a birthday triathlon. Yes, he's crazy. He had to swim 2 miles, bike 28 miles, and run 8 miles. He finished just under 3.5 hours. He did a great job.
Later, his family came over and we went to McCabe's Irish Pub where we filled our bellies with way too many calories (oh well). We came back to the house for presents and cake. He received cash, a heart rate monitor, workout clothes, tri stuff and gift cards. He made out like a bandit. Eric had a great day and was happy to spend it with the fam.

Irish Eating. What's Inside?

Make a wish and blow!