LEED AP!

I am so happy to have gotten this Saturday over with! I've been studying for several weeks now for the LEED test (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). If you pass the test you become a LEED AP (Accredited Professional) and can write that certification on your resume or after your name to sound cooler. A lot of architects are now trying to have their buildings LEED certified, and it's really helpful for them to have a certified LEED AP in their firm to help with the building certification. I think at some point it's going to be more or less mandatory for architects to be LEED AP or at least have some in their firm, so it was really good to get this test out of the way. They are changing the format of the test in a couple of weeks, which is mostly why I wanted to get it done now. We took the test Saturday morning, and both Ryan and I passed. It felt soooo good to get that done, and throw out all of our study materials and forget everything that we learned in the last few weeks! Since we've missed out on doing things and enjoying the beautiful weather the last few weekends that we've been studying, we spent the afternoon at the zoo (I had a coupon). It was so relaxing knowing that I didn't have anything else (i.e.. studying) that I should have been doing all day.

Saturday night we joined one of the guys that Ryan works with and his neighbors and friends on a little bicycle bar crawl through Georgetown. Since I haven't gotten a bike yet (I have been trying hard to find a good one that I can afford) I was luckily able to borrow an extra bike from one of the neighbors. Unfortunately it was a little too tall for me, so I was a little shakey on it all night. I made it though, and it was a lot of fun to check out several little bars around Georgetown. Next time hopefully I can bring my own bike!

Sunday was even more relaxing since there was really nothing at all on the schedule to do! We went to see 'The Hangover'. It was pretty darn amusing!

Now I have two days of work till I head out to Washington DC for the rest of the week and weekend!

Mi Casa!

So this is my little house. I got it because it has a big fenced in back yard, and my dog is way too spoiled! I don't have nearly enough stuff to fill it with, but it looks like I'll be getting a roomie with another puppy soon, so that'll help out!

Dining In

This past Friday, I spent the day on the Naval Submarine Base in Kitsap. We started out the day playing ultimate frisbee with all of the officers from the surrounding bases. Yes...I get paid to play ultimate frisbee... Then we had a little bbq. After that, I snuck off to read my book while other people continued to play sports. I finally finished all of the Twilight books, so I can concentrate on other things!! Really, I was just wasting time until the real reason that I was way over on this other base. That evening we had a 'Dining-In'. It's a formal Navy dinner with lots of silly traditions and a script and such. Attending it was most of the Civil Engineer Corps Officers from my base and the other bases in Washington. We were having it in honor of one of the Captains that is about to retire from the navy. It was really good food and drinks, and we all got to participate in little skits for entertainment and such. It was a long evening. I got out of there after 10, and just made it onto the 1135 ferry to get back to Seattle that evening.

Saturday we were back into the studying fun. One more week until that will hopefully be over with! At least it wasn't quite as nice and sunny out this weekend, so I didn't feel so bad being a hermit and studying. Sunday we had lots of puppy fun! We did the Furry 5k run in Seward Park on Lake Washington. Although we didn't participate with Tara, most of the people running the race had dogs with them, so it was fun to see a couple hundred dogs running around. And it was a little bit of a challenge trying to run around them all. Afterwards we got Tara out of the car to walk around the pet expo. Maybe next time she'll be able to participate. I took her running a couple of times to see if she would be up for it this time, but she didn't even make it a mile, so I figured running 3 would probably not be the best idea. I don't need her to have a heart attack!

It's nice and sunny out, and I'm studying...

Ahhhh...the long weekend was fabulous. Probably not as productive as it should have been, but enjoyable none the less. I was actually supposed to have Friday and Monday off, but since several of the other people in my office were taking Friday off, I was asked to hold the fort down. After being there for a few hours, I had several people asking me why I was in since all the military people were supposed to have the day off, so I finally gave in and left. I'm sur

e life will go on without my supervision.

We watched the new Star Trek movie this weekend. It was definitely much more humorous than I expected...for true Star Trek fans, it was probably over the top cheesy humor, but I was completely amused. I was also quite impressed by the little uniforms that the female officers got to wear in the Starfleet. Why can't the US Navy have that good of a sense of fashion!! Not fair! I would love to wear a little red dress to work everyday! I actually just got the skirts to go with my uniforms a couple of weeks ago, and got the cute

little black pumps to go with that this weekend. So now I actually get to dress like a female when I go to work! It's so much more flattering, and I think it's boosting my moral and confidence in my workplace, and I think I look much more professional now. It's not nearly as cute as the Starfleeters, but it's an improvement. Whoever designed the pants for the female officers should be shot! Not cool.

Sunday we got a little reminder taste of the ol' south. We went to a birthday pig roast for a couple of guys. One of the guys is in the firm that Ryan is going to start working with next Monday, PBelemental. It was such a nice day out, and even hot enough that we were inspired to stand in the shade for most of the afternoon. The guy whose house it was at had built a pig roaster into his deck specifically for this annual birthday bash. There were also an assortment of other southern foods like okra, greens, hush puppies, and banana pudding. It was amusing to me that a lot of the people had never had a lot of those kinds of foods, but thinking back, neither had I before I spent 5 years in the south!

We spent a good amount of our free time studying for the LEED test that we're planning on taking next month. There is sooooo much to study and memorize it's really overwhelming! It was also hard to buckle down this weekend when it was so nice out and it was supposed to be a nice relaxing holiday weekend. It should not have been spent studying! Hopefully it'll all be worth it in a few more weeks.

I also dug my yummy muffin cookbook out this weekend to try out a new recipe. This time it was spiced carrot muffins. They're essentially little carrot cakes, and they were quite delicious. I also tried out some lemon blueberry scones that turned out quite delicious :)

Lopez Island

So, I had to 'work' on Saturday this weekend (lame, I know). Really I just needed to be around the area to be on call if anything bad happened that needed to be reported on base. So I had to go in Saturday morning, pick up the phone and such, do a little paper work in my office, and head home for the rest of the day to be on call. Ryan took the train up to Mt. Vernon Friday night, so we hung out in Oak Harbor on Saturday watching movies and putting together my new inversion table. I have yet to decide if it was a valuable purchase, but my physical therapist says he personally owns 3 of them (I don't know why you would need more than one) and swears they healed all of his wife's back problems, so I figured I would give it a shot.

Since we were already on the Island this weekend, Sunday, after I was officially relieved of my duties in the morning, we took the ferry from Anacortes to Lopez Island. It's one of the San Juan Islands (there are several other ones as well). We decided to go to this island this weekend because Ryan's firm has a couple of projects in the works on the Island right now. First we went to check out a project that the firm had done a few years ago. Apparently some really rich person owns a whole peninsula on the island and has created a little resort of his own. The part of it that the firm did was the pool house which is really the only thing that the public can see without going onto the private property. The building holds an olympic sized pool and that's about it. The front glass facade opens up to make it more of a covered outdoor pool in the summer. It's a pretty sweet little building that apparently doesn't get the use it deserves. I guess when you have lots of money and own a peninsula you can make expensive things like that just for kicks and giggles.

Next we ventured on to the Bumblebee house (named such because it's on Bumblebee st.). It has the most amazing view of the sound! The house sits on a cliff and has huge windows and a big wrap around deck that faces the water. It would be amazing to just sit there and stare out onto the sound all day long! The house is still under construction, but it's close to being done. Another highlight of the house is the little bath house off to the side. We peeked in through a hole and saw two little bath tubs inside the room. The roof of the bath house can open completely up so people can take a bath and stare at the stars. It would really be a pretty awesome experience! The whole complex looks awesome already, but it would be really cool to come back and see it when it's done. Or even better, it would be great to be friends with the people that own it and hang out there for the weekend!

The last site we visited was at the early stages of construction still. The project is being built into a rock, so a lot of the rock had been carved out leaving parts of it that will be incorporated into the building in different areas. One rock face will become one of the walls, and another part of the rock was acting as the base for what looked to be a fire place. So far there were just a few concrete walls starting to go up. This house also had a water view and sat up on a grassy hill. It was hard to tell exactly what it'll look like completed, so it would be interesting to go back in a few months to see it a little further along in construction. Giving the firm, I'm sure it'll be another really amazing house. Plus, I love concrete, so it has a good start in my book already!

After lunch, we spent the rest of the day hiking through some of the parks. We saw a little island off of the island we were on that was covered in seals bathing in the sun. Tara thoroughly enjoyed all the running around, and even got a little sore again the next day from climbing up and down the cliffs. The whole island was just full of beautiful views, and it gets me excited to check out the other islands in the sound too. These island are where they filmed 'Free Willy' too, but I didn't see any whales this time. I am definitely going to have to do a whale watching cruise at some point if I don't see one on my own soon!!

My Lady Loves

I just got home from an absolutely fabulous weekend with my favorite Auburn ladies! Mari Michael's mother graciously offered up her lovely home on the beach in Perdido Key to house our festivities (thank you so much!). I flew into Atlanta Thursday afternoon and met up with Liz and Evelyn and we road tripped it down to the Florida pan handle. It has been way too long since I've seen my girls, so it made for a great 6 hour drive of catching up and preparing for the weekend fun. We finally made it to the house a little after midnight to be greeted by Laura, Lindsay, and of course Mari Michael. Again...it has been WAY too long! (i think I'm getting excited all over again just writing this post)

Friday we had some serious work to do on the beach. Liz and I had both brought our Twilight books and it was amusing to see how many other people that we didn't even know with their Twilight books on the beach. I suppose it is appropriate beach reading. We also participated in some pretty hardcore hula hooping on the beach. Excellent abs workout :)

Friday night Brucie, Mari Michael's mom, hosted a lovely little cocktail party on the deck and several other people joined us. Did I mention that the weather was PERFECT and the moon was FULL! So beautiful! Towards the end of the evening we even took a nice 'long walk on the beach' and it was amazing to see the moon reflecting off of the gulf.

Saturday was another really rough day at the beach joined by even more friends and 'professional beach goers'. We had gone grocery shopping Friday afternoon and somehow devoured every last bit of food we, and others, had brought. I'm not quite sure how that was accomplished, but it was impressive. Due to our depleted food source, we went out Saturday night and had dinner on the back deck of a place right on the water. Mmmmm...seafood. You would think I have had enough of that in Seattle, but alas, it never gets old. Dinner was followed by the Flora-bama bar. Apparently I can't handle the craziness too well anymore, so I unintentionally fell asleep as soon as we returned home, which was probably a good thing since we got up relatively early to head back to ATL. We wanted to make it back to Atlanta in time to see Liz try on wedding dresses...it was so much fun, and obviously she looked soooooo beautiful! Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures, otherwise I obviously would have.

After 5 hours of sitting on a plane with the start of a cold and a really scratchy throat, I made it back to Seattle at a little after midnight. I got to watch 'Bride Wars' on the plane...good, but I'm glad I don't have to waste a Netflix on it now. It was a great and much needed trip and now it's back to reality...lame. At least I can look forward to a long weekend in 2 weeks and DC in 5 weeks!!

Pooped Pammy

I think I may have had a little too much excitement lately! This past week I was in a training class at one of the other Navy bases on Washington. Instead of staying on base, I chose to stay in Seattle and commute there everyday. It's really not a bad commute since half of it is just sitting on the ferry and then there's a 30 minute drive afterwards. It was nice being able to come back to Seattle every night (much more exciting than Oak Harbor) but waking up at 5:15 to catch the 6:10 ferry was a little rough. By the end of the week, I was already pretty exhausted.

Friday afternoon we went to an open house for an architecture firm that Ryan is trying to work for. They actually had asked him to build a model for the open house but since he is already employed by another firm, he's not allowed to work for anyone else yet. The project hasn't begun construction yet, but it was interesting to see the old building before it was renovated to see how much work was going to go into it.

Friday night we went to a Davis Sedaris reading. It was FABULOUS! He read about 5 or 6 short stories that he had written, and they were all completely hilarious. I think his voice and reading abilities just add an extra effect to the words. He's had about 3 or 4 nights of readings in Seattle, and all of them were completely sold out. I'm really glad we were able to make it to this one. Definitely worth it!

Saturday I got my hair cut, and I love it! I just put highlights in this week too, so I am more than ready for my Girls Weekend at the Beach next weekend! Unfortunately the rest of the day was rainy and gross, so I didn't get to show it off much outside.

Sunday I ran another half marathon. Actually, I don't even know if I can qualify it as a run this time! It was almost and hour away and it was a pretty early race, so once again I had to get up super early. We had hung out with some friends the night before so I didn't get to sleep as early as I probably should have. So I was pretty much just fighting to stay awake while I ran. Luckily it was a beautiful day outside for a run, unfortunately all I could think of was that it was a beautiful day to take a nap in the grass too, and was very tempted to just do that instead of run. Somehow I finished though and took a little nap in the car before I even attempted to drive home. After a couple more naps, we ended up walking around the water front. Ryan just got a new Digital SLR camera, so we had fun taking pictures the rest of the afternoon, and I was enjoying being in a tank top and flip flops! I am definitely ready for some serious sleep this week though so I can prepare to party all next weekend in Gulf Shores starting on Thursday!!! WOOOOHOOO!