A triathlon!

Hey all.  Yep Karen said it.  I'm training through Team in Training for a triathlon.  My goal is to participate in the olympic triathlon which consists of .98 miles swimming, a 24 mile bike ride, and a 6 mile run.  I have not yet begun training with the team (our kickoff is this weekend), but I have been training on my own.  Since last week, I've been on 2 10 mile stationary bike rides, one 15 miler on the roads, I've run 3 miles 3 times, and swam almost 3/4 of a mile one day and a half another.  Granted I've a ways to go but I think I'm just about half-way there.

As part of the training with Team in Training, I am also raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  TNT has been one of the largest, if not largest, contributors to the society, raising over $850 million since TNT's induction 20 years ago.  If anyone wants to contribute or just to check out my progress go to my TNT site: http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/wildtri09/ktanaka

Thanks!

Kristyn

New donation

Another cool donation. Thanks to Kristyn, a $100 donation is being made to : "Team in Training: The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society". She is training for a triathlon and will be trying to raise around $3,000. Keep us posted on the training and how you do!
The website is http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/wildtri09/ktanaka

Big Bear Puppet show 1/17/09

photo by Nancy Kruse

It's a little long, well.. it's actually very long, but it's cute. I brought a bunch of my friends and their kids up to the cabin in Big Bear this weekend and had them do a puppet show. Maximilian (the announcer) is Raymond's nephew and the baby on the couch is his other nephew Alexi. The other two kids are Jonathan and Maya my friend Edwin's kids.

This one is a lot shorter. Raymond and Edwin thought they could do a better show.. it's debatable.

My dad came up with me on Thursday and we helped move the new tenant in and cleared off part of the driveway (I should have done a before and after picture, I think we moved about a ton of snow.) It's been very hot in big bear during the day, mid 60s, but we got so much snow this season, there was still about 3 1/2 feet on the driveway.

Grins2Go session

Grins2Go made me take down the picture that I posted a couple weeks ago. If you forgot which picture it was, it was the one we all purchased of the whole family with grandma and grandpa with the crazy photoshop job of my sister. I made screen shots of the pictures on the site at a low quality that anyone could have printed on their own home photo-printer. I don't consider that a "digital copy" considering it was a photo that we all purchased,  could have scanned on our own computer and shared, and was at a very low resolution. I should hope that isn't the copy you get for the 60 bux or whatever they charge for a digital copy. 

I don't appreciate the emails bullying my mother, and if you've found this blog post on google before booking your Grins2Go session, I please ask that you take this into consideration. Thanks.

January in New Jersey

We had nice big snowflakes today. Shows our back deck and front yard and the deer in the back. The deer just stopped and posed for me. I know the snow doesn't compare with Minnesota, Wisconsin and Boston, but you California people aren't used to this. It is warmer today, about freezing. Wes worked in the driveway on his boat forms, but got wet and cold.

Thanks to Chelsey, a $100 donation was made today to the One Acre Fund.
I checked out their website www.oneacrefund.org and it is so inspiring. Their mission is to solve the problem of chronic hunger in Africa through loans of seeds and fertilzer and technical assistance to farmers to increase crop yields and get their products to market.
Thank you, Chelsey

Karen and Steve

Favorite Kai Photo

What a beautiful cupie baby!

Grandpa Bowling

Tanaka Christmas

We took no photos on Christmas, but here are two of us doing puzzles afterwards. Sorry, I am slow and just figured out how to post. We did have a great Christmas with the girls and Viren. It had been over a year since either Chelsey or Kristyn had been home.

Kelly's Birthday

Kelly's Birthday Celebration at the Melting Pot in Brea. 

Kelly and I have been having weird car problems lately. The radiator on her car gave up on Friday and she was held hostage on Saturday while my dad worked on it. My car feels like it has a gallon of water sloshing around in the driver side door. I don't know what's wrong with it, but at least it works (I just spent about a grand on getting belts and a water pump! I'm scared at how much sloshing will cost me.) 

Anyway, We spent the day having tea at Tea and Teacups and then playing around at the mall for a few hours. We are kind of addicted to Sephora at the moment. Kelly got her birthday gift without me (which I will never let her forget.) They give you a gift for your birthday as part of the "beauty insider" program. I'm a beauty insider, can't you tell? j/k. You get points for samples and things. Samples are like cat-nip for beauty insiders. num num num. 

New Year's Peter and I went to a Cuban restaurant with dinner and dancing. We had been there several times before so we didn't think anything of it, but then when we got there and all of the entertainment was in Spanish... so me and Peter just danced and pretended like we knew what was being said and just clapped, shouted, and "sang" along with everyone else. Everyone really knew how to do all the dances too like waltzes, rumbas, and cha chas... which we also didn't know, so we just had fun trying to copy our neighbors or just had a good time, figured we didn't know anyone there anyways. It was a really good time.

Happy New Year!

The Turkey Vultures (Late turkey day pics)

I had to post these, they were just too funny.  I think sierra posted similar ones on facebook. 

Happy New Year all. I had a great new year's celebration with a bunch of capoeiristas and farmers, it was an interesting mix.  We counted down to the new year with a samba jam consisting of capoeira instruments, a banjo, an accordion, and a guitar!  The rest of the night was all capoeira and dancing.

New Years in Los Angeles

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Our friend Lauren had a New Year's Winterwonderland party at her loft in downtown LA. She is moving out by the end of the month, so she decided to have this huge party. We had a nice dinner in Little Tokyo, at the only place open! Hope you all had fun and safe holiday! Hopefully some of you have tomorrow off!

I need to write my list of New Years resolutions!