Visit from "Aunt" Tara

Dear friend Tara Ryan came and visited us in D.C. this past weekend. It was great to have some time to visit and catch up. Tara was one of two friends that toured France and Italy with Maranda and I in 2003. She is also our official fashion muse (we cleaned out all "dated" clothing from our closets with her input)! Kieran had a blast getting to know his "Aunt" Tara, as they listened to lots of up tempo music and had hours of dancing and playing. Some of my favorite memories from her visit include a fierce argument between Kieran and Tara whether a white fluffy animal was a "poodle" or a "sheep," with Kieran standing his ground on the sheep identity between fits of laughter.

One legacy that is likely to endure was Tara introducing Kieran to the song "I Want Candy." He now regularly (hourly) asks for that song and sings it in full voice with animated dancing (I assume to impersonate the sugar high induced by candy consumption). So the last couple nights when Kieran has asked to skip dinner and eat candy instead, my thoughts have fondly turned to Aunt Tara...

Here are some good shots taken by Tara during her trip. See her facebook album as well.

I love hate diets!!

Seven guys in my department decided to take on a weight loss challenge. We each contribute $20 to a pool, and the individual with the most % weight loss by December 17th gets the cash! This is a great idea as one of the only things that is more motivating for guys than food is competition! The last two days we keep passing each other in the halls with suspicious glances at the cans of soup, heads of lettuce, and other secret diet foods we are each holding. Our initial weigh in was this past Monday, so this coming Monday we will find out how we did our first week.

So in order to structure my approach a bit more, I have started the South Beach diet. I am a skeptic of most diets in general, because I think they oversell the potential for weight loss, and don't emphasize exercise enough. However, I have heard enough good things about the South Beach approach that I have decided to try it. It strikes me as a more balanced version of the Atkin's diet (pardon my ignorance if I am way off?). There is a lot of emphasis on avoiding high carb foods as well as trans fats. I truly didn't realize how many carbs I was eating until I tried to omit them from my diet this week!

The diet goes in three phases. The first phase lasts two weeks and during this time you abstain from all carbs. This is intended to break your carb addiction, after which carbs are gradually reintroduced during phase 2, which is the primary weigh loss stage. The final stage is entered after you have lost the weight and need to sustain your losses. You (theoretically) stay in this phase the rest of your life, only re-entering stage 2 if you need to loose additional weight.

After four days of boiled eggs, raw nuts, heads of broccoli, humus, fish, and plain yogurt, I am definitely missing my *regular* food! I will say that I have really noticed a change in the early afternoon hours, I have not had my typical lunch hangover, which I guess is my blood sugars crashing after my body absorbs a bunch of simple carbs. Look for further updates regarding my terrible wonderful dieting experience.

Cox Farms Visit

Kieran and Dad went to Cox Farms this weekend with our church as part of an outreach to local homeless familes (several families were brought to the event by members of our church). Kieran had a lot of fun, especially on the hayride (loved the spooky barn), and the pumpkin drop (pumpkins are dropped from a lift ~60 feet high!).


Here are some of the best shots (I will post a video of the pumpkin drop later).

Pumpkin Idol (note that he is leaning the mic, don't know where he picked this up!)

Kieran with his friend Elizabeth

Kieran showing a crazy face!

Trick or Treating

Kieran had a fantastic Halloween! He chose a Bob The Builder costume and happily bounced around singing "Can we fix it? Yes we can!" He was very brave during Trick-or-Treating, even given some fairly elaborately decorated houses on our street. Kieran went door to door with his friend Shreya (shown below). Also check out the video clip at the bottom of Kieran singing Bob the Builder theme song.