new shoes

Alex has a new pair of shoes (selected by vehement pointing and grunting)

Zoe cooking

Zoe at the climbing gym

A party for Chloe!

(Don't worry, the child at grill level is actually separated by glass and some space from the coals!)

With authentic (well, kinda) American Hamburgers being grilled.

Parmenie

I rode the col de Parmenie and Chatain today. The route goes along the digue for a while, and then up the not-very-steep col de Parmenie, then up and down a few intermediate cols and then back down to Tullins. It's a very pretty route, through some charming small towns, and I think I'm going to go back with the family at some point. A little googling revealed that it was part of the 2008 TDF (as part of a 200 km stage!).

Grenoble

We went into town to walk up to the Bastille, but retreated because of the heat. Instead, we opted for ice cream for the kids, and cold beers for me in the Place Tribunale. Earlier, I had explained to Zoe that the new shoes she received from her Nana were super-special jumping shoes ("With jumping pads!"), which Zoe took to heart. The unintended and unwelcome result of this was that Chloe and I were obliged to hold Zoe's hands while she jumped down each of the hundred or so stairs that lead back down to the river. "Jumping" essentially meant a several centimeter hopped, followed by kicking her feet into the air to be fully supported by us!





Later on, while I was trying to feed Alex and Zoe dinner, I was faced with a child (Alex) who was steadfastly rejecting any kind of vegetable. In desperation, I finely diced some of the broccoli I was feeding to Zoe and mixed it into Alex's yogurt. This cunning plan did not work, unfortunately, and was met with a sour and horrible look.

I guess I can't really blame him

Ombleze!

We did a day trip to les Gorges d'Ombleze, in the Drome with Simon, Vanessa and the kids today. After parking at the pullout right after the gorge, we set up the picnic cloth and had lunch. We then switched off climbing and corralling kids. Simon and I were up first, and we quickly decamped to a field across the river. Somehow, the kids seemed immune to the extremely cold water, and amused themselves for hours in it.

Alex, meanwhile demanded that I take him to the river and dip his feet in the water. This resulted in much anguish and crying; he does not seem to have the same cold tolerance as the other kids! Instead, he was quite content to grab handfuls of sand and rocks and spray the river (or whoever was unfortunate enough to be within range of his impressive throwing arms). He would also scoot closer and closer to the river, so I had to repeatedly reset him, to try to limit the range of his projectiles and prevent him from tumbling into the river. We set up the little tent,


and came up with other desperate measures, such as hide and seek, and eventually it was our turn to climb. The first climb turned out to be more mud and ivy than rock, so I opted to go up the via ferrata to the ledge and traverse out to the warmup. The rock in this sector is spectacular: a very rough and blocky orange limestone which climbs very well. The only problem is the slightly exposed belay ledge! We also hopped on a nice 6b+ with a tough overhanging tufa start (and a few too many bees for comfort). After switching off one more time at the Jardiland sector (nice 5a's and 7a's) we went to the Moulin de la Pipe for dinner. The food was excellent as usual, and a nice end to a long day. At the parking for the last crag, I found a fancy Android phone, which I dropped at the restaurant. The woman working there acted like I was crazy to be dropping off there. I guess I should have left it in the dirt to get run over or stolen, but I thought that since the moulin is the only thing for many km, and is frequented by climbers, that it might be a better place for it.

Chevalon intervals

did intervals for an hour after work today on the micro climb (40 meters?) in Chevalon. must. build. power. Not sure it is the right power or duration, but I was going for just under 300 watts for 3 minutes, then rest 6 mins, repeat 5x. vomit.

Mont St Martin

Rode the dreaded Mt St Martin ride (average inline: 10%!) just to get the first time on it of the season out of the way. It has to be the longest 6km ever! I did it in record slow time: 36:22, and 40 watts less than my best. I would dearly love to be able to get back to 33:00… and my long term goal is to do it in less than 30 minutes. I don't think that is going to happen this year though! Maybe if I fast and the load up on just enough calories to get myself up there.

Climbing!

Chloe, Vanessa, Simon and the kids went to Rocheplaine to get some climbing in. Unfortunately, Alex has been sick since yesterday, so we took turns taking care of him in the apartment. Poor little guy! Simon, a guy from work and I checked out the new crag higher up the mountain, and it is fabulous. Excellent rock, and interesting moves! The route I got on was a little taller than I expected, so I had to run out a few bolts. Anyway, I really hope we can find a topo of the crag, because it is excellent.

photo credit: simon

Cycling, kids

Rode la Placette and down through Coublevie today: it still feels hard, but is getting better!

Also, Chloe went to a baby shower for most of the day, so the kids and I went to the park a couple of times

Getting hit by car= no bueno

First of all, I am fine: no broken bones, just some blood and bruising. The bike also fared ok, and I am glad to have a steel fork on the bike. Had it been carbon fiber, I would now have to start worrying about whether the fork was cracked! So: it was about 3 minutes into my ride, and a d%^khead driving a white 205 decided that he would turn in front of me while I was going ~30 kph. I managed to slow down a little, but hit the car and then went down, skidded along the tarmac for a while, and rolled (I think) a little before both cleats released. When I got up, I saw stars for a few seconds, despite not having hit my head, and then got to work confronting the driver. I explained in my best french that there was a bike lane and he should look around a little before turning. He was suitably apologetic, and in the meantime a pompier who had been driving behind the miscreant had pulled over and checked to see if I was ok. After establishing that nothing on myself or the bike was broken, getting all of the relevant info from the driver (should my bike turn out to be severely damaged and need replacement by a full carbon rig), I set out again. From the scene of the crime, I rode an adrenaline fueled 40k along the bike path at my best pace this year: average speed 31.7 kph. I know, not too fast for flats, but progress! I just need to keep getting in crashes (just kidding, mom!!)

Climbing

We went to petit desert with Simon, Vanessa and the kids. It was a beautiful day to be outside!



On the way to Petit Desert, we passed a circus that was getting set up. It seems pretty common practice to let the circus animals graze on nearby medians and fields. This provides for fun and interesting photo ops, as well as much kid excitement!



I wasn't going to let Zoe near 1000 pounds of potentially irritable camel, so we watched them chew from afar. That is, until I saw a mob of kids descend upon the camel and climb in between the humps! Even then, we watched for a while, and when the kids left, we slowly approached the second hump, and zoe very gently pet the camel (while shrieking with glee).

Carnaval

Carnival is a much anticipated event, mainly by the parents of young children. The holiday entails dressing up-in the case of little girls as a princess of some sort, either in pink or purple, parading through the village, and then burning Monsieur or Madame Carnival. This year I didn't want to miss it, so made the trek to Saint Egreve with Zoe, Alex, Vanessa, Simon, and the "little girls" (Ivy, Piper, and Erin) for the festival.

Saint Egreve is a bit more organized than Fontanil and Carnival is serious business. We arrived in time for the face painting (which even the 2.5 year old twins sat through) and then bought some paper cones filled with confetti (which did not actually last through the parade, but quickly ended up on the ground around the salle).


Alex avoided the face painting, but was very content to collect pieces of confetti and offer them up to anyone within earshot, proudly proclaiming "caca." He may have a limited vocabulary, but he has the important words down (mama, papa, caca, ball, and most recently bon-bon).

As for all the other Carnivals, it was raining, but the parade went off as scheduled (apparently for over an hour). Zoe and Ivy lasted one circuit of Rochepleine before Vanessa and I convinced them to take shelter under an awning. Simon and the twins got separated from us and did a much longer loop, steadfastly marching through the rain, following Mme. Carnival.

Due to the cold and wet, we all left before the culmination of the festivities (lighting a smiling Mme. Carnival effigy on fire).

An unfavorable review

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/04/lami-louis-201104

bikes

One of the best places for kids to bike: in the fields near the autoroute…

Carrefour, Climbing

I woke up this morning to see a light rain soaking the street. So much for my plan to take Zoe out on bikes! Instead, I started systematically looking at the webcams of all the local ski resorts, in the hopes of taking Zoe up there for her first ski lesson. Unfortunately, it was raining everywhere, so we settled instead upon going to the climbing gym. After a hasty shower and SMS rendezvous with Simon and Vanessa, Zoe and I were off! Ten minutes later, we were back at the apartment, and I was running upstairs to get all the things that I had managed to forget the first time.

Once at the gym, I had to physically hold Zoe in place to prevent her from free soloing the climbs. We eventually got both of our harnesses on though, and she absolutely CRUISED all the climbs! I was so proud of her! Since I have been fully addicted to climbing every since I touched my first hold, and my enthusiasm for it has not diminished at all over the years, I have of course been hoping that Zoe might share some of this enthusiasm. I am, however, very conscious of the fact that children frequently have no interest in the activities of their parents, so I am trying to be careful not to force this upon her. I will be very happy if she likes it, but I absolutely will not be one of those dads that drags their kids into the gym and tries to scream them up the walls. As it happens, there was one of those dads right next to us, who was yelling at his daughter to keep trying, and she ended up bursting into tears. He was yelling so loud that at one point Zoe though he was talking to HER, and looked a bit frightened. I guess I should have said something, but I didn't really want to get myself (and Zoe) into a situation. Soon after Wonderdad left, Simon and Vanessa showed up, and more climbing, running around and somersaults ensued. EV is actually very well set up for kids. I think this might become a common rainy day activity!


Next, it was shopping time. Shopping turned out to be a bit of a disaster. I forgot to bring bags, and then realized that I did not have our fidelity card. No fidelity card means no in-cart barcode scanning, which is the main reason why Zoe likes to go shopping. I bought her some bracelets to compensate. Then I got on line, and had it close after I had been waiting for five minutes. Yes, in Carrefour, when the checker decides to close, everyone after then next in line gets ejected. It's an efficient system! Next, we went to the little kid rides, where a guy actually ran in front of us to make sure he got his token first! In the end, Zoe got on her favorite ride though, so all was well.


We cooked broccoli tomato pasta together for dinner. Zoe really likes cookling!

Carnivale

Like last year, Zoe went to the Carnivale, which is put on by the city. I am still amazed and delighted by how many activities are organized by the local government, and Zoe seems to really enjoy them. On Saturday, I had taken Zoe to the toy store to find her a costume. She arrived with a pretty good idea of what she wanted (Purple princess dress), so when we were browsing the aisles and came upon a purple and pink princess dress, it was a Raiders of the Lost Arc moment. I half expected choral singing in the background and a beam of light to illuminate the dress. Zoe got very quiet (which is her "11" on the excitement scale), pulled the box of the shelf, looked at me steadily, and said "this one." There would be no debate or substitutions, particularly since a purple dress had been the subject of about half of our conversations with her for a month or so. Anyway, this morning, I did the best braid I could summon and dropped her off at the nanny's with the dress. I took a few hours off work in the afternoon to come home to take pictures of Zoe, and witness the spectacle. They had "Monsieur Carnivale" loaded up onto a truck when I got there


And Zoe was there, with her nanny, looking very princess-like. I noticed that this particular kingdom seemed to have quite a few other little princesses

It started raining immediately, of course, so the parade started. This involved a surprisingly large group of little cowboys, ladybugs, dogs and princesses walking behind the truck, while enraged chav drivers trailed behind.



Next came the burning of Monsieur Carnivale! It was by now raining very hard indeed, but whatever they added to Monsieur Carnivale to increase his flammability worked very well




Finally, we went to the activity hall, where they had even organized snacks and drinks for the kids: bonbons, brioches and sodas! An excellent event, even with the rain!

Condolences

Chloe's granddad passed away. I only met him once, but I was impressed that he managed to live by himself (with a lot of help from Chloe's mom, but even so!) out in the country. I can't remember which company he worked for, but I think it was General Dynamics, as he had lots of pictures of airplanes that he had worked on up in frames. Chloe arrived just in time to help out with arrangements for the funeral etc.

Chloe en route to the states

And she took Alex with her, since he is dearly missed by much of the family, and this will give them a chance to see him. It probably will not be a fun trip for Chloe, though. The flight left at 10 AM today from Geneva, which meant that we had an early morning getting them to the gare routiere. Good luck, Chloe!

Grandpa sick!

Chloe's granddad is sick, so she will probably have to go to Albany tomorrow.

Brocante, Cafe

We met Simon, Vanessa and Co. to check out the usually awesome antique fair along the banks of the Isere (in the St. Laurent quarter). I was hoping to find some nice old photographs, but there wasn't much available, other than postcards. I also was keeping an eye out for fancy salt and pepper shakers, since my mom has been in search of them for a few years. I struck out on that quest as well. The kids seemed to enjoy it, though.


After checking everything out, we crossed the bridge to Pain and Cie, where Chloe had the brilliant idea of a "Kid's table", and it worked remarkably well

Alex ate most of my chocolate hazelnut croustillant

It's always fun going into town, and sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be a better place to live. I think we're better off where we are with the kids, though.

Climbing

we did a few routes with Simon, Vanessa, a guy from work and all the kids. It was a gray day, but St. Egreve is very well set up to climb with kids. The Rocheplaine park is two minutes from the base of the cliff! I was expecting to not feel any exertion at all on the 6a+, what with our months of training, but it still felt a little bit hard. Chloe, by contrast, seems to have really benefitted from the training, and had no problems at all. The next few weeks (which is when we should theoretically be at our peaks) should be interesting. We trained sub-lactate threshold endurance in January, and power in February and the beginning of march, so next comes power endurance.

Another cool thing: for the past year I had been hearing rumors of a new crag at St. Egreve, and had seen various climbers walking up trails on the left side of the mountain (where the really isn't anything except an old crag with very difficult routes). Today, while I was looking after kids in the park, I finally saw where the new crag is! It looks like there might be some nice overhanging rock to the left. Woo!

Also, I found a wonderful site comparing the suitability of various climbing sites for kids:
BBGrimp