tiramisu: weekend pics, cooking and racing

i'm not sure what made this weekend fly by... maybe it was because stefan left us on sunday for an out of town work engagement thereby cutting our weekend together short? regardless, we did enjoy some highlights before his departure:

stefan's cooking is delicious. after a visit to the farmer's market, he got into the kitchen with his cook's illustrated magazines and lived in there for a few hours. the end result?

first, he baked the ultimate banana bread. he grumbled a bit at the fussiness of the recipe - extracting and concentrating the moisture from the bananas. but he knew the magazine never failed him, always producing happy results. and of course this was the case with the banana bread; flavourful - yet not too banana-y - and perfectly moist, not wet.

and then stefan cooked the most delicious shepard's pie. the creamed potatoes were seriously to die for and the filling nice and rich. it made enough for two dinners; unfortunately stefan couldn't partake in the second round (he was on the road) but that meant more for kai and i. thank you for feeding us stefan :)

kai participated in a tuff kids race - a 1.5km race that included hurdles, scrambling under tarps, running through a maze, getting across slippery rocks, and jumping over ropes but mostly running. the obstacles were a brilliant idea and probably the only reason kai enthusiastically wanted to participate (good thinking distance runwear). if it had been just a run i imagine he wouldn't have wanted to take part. he loved it, i loved watching him, and our lovely friends darrin, alexia, and kara came to cheer him on with their baby rattles... so cute! afterwards, we indulged in pastry and caffeine and had a fun play at the house. such goodness for a sunday morning!

my favourite photo... moments before, he saw his dad (hence the smile) and quickened his pace to impress him :)

darrin was the only one who saw kai cross the finish line and cheer him on... so i made him run to the finish line again for this photo and i cheered him on :)