Cadie and I (E) visited family in Utah while Eric was in Vail for work and then we met up in Denver where Cadie got to meet and play with cousins Kaeden (2.5) and Issak (5 mths). It was great to be back in the rocky mountains!

Well, since E made provided a log, I thought I'd put one together too. Here's our travel log so far this year:
DC
Maryland
Virginia
Florida (airport only)
Puerto Rico (including the separate island of Vieques)
New York (airport only)
West Virginia
Pennsylvania
Ohio
Utah (E and Cadie)
Delaware (E and Cadie)
Vermont (Eric)
Colorado
Germany
The Netherlands
Belgium

My favorite place is Maastricht in the Netherlands, although the Rhine Valley was pretty impressive too.

Marathon Training Log:
Ted: 17 miles
Eric: 16 miles
E: 14 miles
Paige and Molly: 10 miles
Ouch!
Only three more long runs before the big day!

First Tooth!
Cadie has been working on her lower teeth the past weeks (extra fun while traveling) and one broke through on Father's Day. Here is a (copyrighted) photo from a shoot on Thursday pre-tooth. Just had to share.

Bikes Everywhere
I love that Europe is full of bikers. There were definitely more bikes than cars in the Netherlands. We would see moms picking up their kids after school on bike - one kid in a front basket, one kid in a back basket, and one kid trailing after on his own bike. Homes had bike racks built into them. There were also many interesting bikes signs. Of course we had to take pictures.
Bike rack in Bacharach, Germany:

Eric in front of bike parking, downtown Maastricht, NL (no car parking in sight):

Bike sign in Tongeren, Belgium (translation anyone?):

And one more sign - can't remember the location:

Toman Family European Vacation
We just got back from a visit to the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Eric had work meetings in Bonn and so we made a vacation out of it. Cadie was a great traveler but is having a hard time getting back to East Coast Time. This is Berg Eltz - one of the many castles along the Rhine and Mosel valleys in Germany, and my favorite. I'll post more when I'm less sleep deprived.

Happy Birthday to Us!
Within about one month Cadie and Amiya turn 6 months and Jess and I turn... a large number... We all spend the weekend in Ocean City to celebrate. Somehow I didn't get a picture of just the girls - Jess can I get your pics? We had some crazy allergies amongst us - corn, nuts, dairy - so there were 3 types of cupcakes. Did I mention that Cadie is crawling? Result: I'm not blogging or getting much accomplished. I did manage to run for 2 hours this morning as part of our marathon training. It was long and I kept my mind occupied by trying to do math. Seriously. Somehow basic math skills go down the drain when my heartrate goes over 150 so trying to figure out running benchmarks kept me busy (if that sign says I am 2.2 miles past the DC line and it is 3 miles roundtrip from my house to the DC line, how far have I run? - that one kept me busy for at least 10 minutes).

Cake vs. Pie (or any other dessert)


Normally when given the choice between desserts I chose the non-cake option. Cake is ok - it is just not my favorite. However, I have found a cake that I might chose over cookies or pie. SHOCK! It is cakelove's VEGAN vanilla cake with either chocolate or peanut butter dipped chocolate frosting. Cakelove is a bakery within walking distance to us that specializes in over-priced ($3.00 cupcakes!) cakes made from scratch. But their cute store and catchy name just make you want to love their goods. Cadie is allergic to milk protein which means I am not eating dairy and so a vegan cake option caught my attention. But I was skeptical - eggs and butterfat are usually important cake ingredients. I think the reason I am now hooked on cakelove's vegan cake is because it is really dense, moist, and flavorful. On the fluffy scale between angel-food cake and bar cookies, cakelove vegan is like a soft cookie. Now if I could just convince them to release the recipe!