My Winter Olympics

I just spent a fabulous week in cold and snowy Big Sky, Montana enjoying all the winter sports we could get our little hands on! The trip came about when Ryan's cousin invited us to join a group of his friends at one of their family's mountain cabins. I'm so glad we jumped on that opportunity because it ended up being an amazing time with a great group of people!

[view from our cabin]

We started out with a day of snowboarding/skiing. The slopes were perfectly groomed and not packed at all, which made for ideal snowboarding. I was a little nervous at first dealing with my broken wrist still in a cast. I was hoping to have it off by the trip, but the doctor took some more x-rays the day before we left and decided that I needed to keep it in the cast for another 3 weeks (goodie). It turned out to be just fine though and actually just acted like a wrist guard on steroids so nothing else could happen to it. Somehow I still managed to impair myself at the end of the first day by knocking the wind out of me and hitting my head pretty hard (I think I even chipped a tooth a little bit...oops). I managed to snowboard back to the cabin and decided to take it easy for a few hours till I stopped feeling dizzy. At least I didn't break anything else!

[getting ready to snowboard]

[bottom of the slopes]

The next day we went at it again. I was definitely sore from the day before so it was a little rough. To give ourselves a little break from the slopes, we spent a day snowmobiling. It was AMAZING! Most of the couples just got one snowmobile and rode together. I'm really glad I didn't do the same! It was so much fun driving my own! In the open spaces we were able to really play around on them, getting up to 70+ mph and bouncing over all the little hills in the snow! The path we rode took us to the top of a couple of peaks which gave us beautiful 360 views of the surrounding mountains all covered with a blanket of snow. There was also a pretty good amount of open space at the top to play around in, so we took our time to enjoy the destination.

[top of the mountain]

[amazing views!]

[pretty snow everywhere!]

[more snowy mountains]

We also took a day off the slopes to spend snowshoeing. There was actually a little path in between two ski runs that lead us up the mountain. It was more fun, however, to wander off the path and play around in the fresh snow. Our little path lead us up to a big open slope that had, again, great views of the surrounding mountains and beautiful white snow all around to play in! We had packed a lunch, so we took this opportunity to take a break and have a little lunch while enjoying our surroundings. It was great exercise and a fun little adventure!

[us and our goofy snow shoes]

[trekking up the hill]

[lunch break on the slopes]

[enjoying lunch and the view]

[hiking back down]

The last full day that we had in Montana, Ryan and his cousin got in the last little bit of snowboarding, and his cousin's girlfriend and I decided to do a little more snowshoeing. It was starting to get a little more snowy and blustery but it was a really nice hike. We all ended up at the ski lodge with a few drinks to cozy up after the chilly day.

[Me, Ryan, Daniel, and Lesley]

After all that fun we headed back to finish off the week in Seattle. It was a lot of fun to play around in the snow all week. Hopefully we'll still get some more good snow in Washington so we can finish off the snowboarding season strong!

Flying High

Since I work on a Naval Air Station, I thought it was high time that I flew a plane. Well, maybe I didn't fly it all by myself, but I did get to do a few turns in the air and a take off. I did the flight with the thought that I may be interested in pursuing my private pilate license. I'm still interested in that, but am debating on the timing/finances for it. For now, I enjoyed my intro flight in my itty bitty plane!

My Valentine Suprise!

So, this past weekend was Valentines day, followed by presidents' day (which of course I got off of work). I was told the week before not to make any plans for the weekend because I had a suprise planned by Ryan. I like suprises! Saturday morning, after we dropped of Tara for a puppy sleepover weekend, we got on the road and I found out that my suprise was a weekend in Portland! Yay! I have been wanting to go there ever since we moved to the Pacific Northwest, so I finally got to visit. The weather looked a little iffy as it started to downpour on the drive down, but somehow it managed to stop raining right when we were getting to Portland, and start up again right as we were leaving it the next day...perfect timing! We stayed at a super cute little boutique hotel right down town, so we had the valet park the car and we spent the rest of the time walking around.

[our super cute hotel]

[the largest independent bookstore in the country]

After walking around the city a little bit, we came back to the hotel and asked our concierge to see about getting a reservation at this great little restaurant The Urban Farmer. It kind of sounds a little redneck, but it's a super chic place that is apparently really hard to get reservations for! Luckily they had one time available for the rest of the night, so we snagged it up. The place is actually at the top of a hotel, so when we went to dinner we asked the hotel doorman where to find The Urban Farmer...he said 'it's on the 8th floor, but it's booked up for the night' to which we responded 'don't worry, we have reservations'. We're just that important to already have our name on the list :) The food and atmosphere were great and definitely worth the wait!

[fun at Urban Farmer]

Sunday morning we checked out of the hotel and left our stuff in the car while we headed to Voodoo Doughnuts. Apparently a really famous doughnut place where they have crazy flavors (like nyquil...eww) and doughnuts shaped like different things and even celebrities I think. After we got there and saw the line wrapping around the block, we decided we weren't quite that motivated to be touristy. I don't know what the deal was, but every place we tried to go to for breakfast was packed. Finally we found a cute little french place which probably ended up being better than any of the other places anyway. It was fabulous!

The rest of the afternoon we spent with further explorations of the city and a nice walk along the riverfront. It ended up being a really nice day all the way up till when we were headed out of town when it started raining again. It was a great suprise weekend it Portland! Just a few more days until our next exciting trip...Montana!

You Should See The Other Guy!

Sooo...the other guy is a mountain...and he's still standing :( We went snowboarding again on Crystal Mountain. I started out with a lesson at the end of which I was doing pretty darn well! After the lesson we took a snack break and headed up again for my last ride for a while. I hadn't even made it very far down the slope (which was starting to get a little icey) when I wiped out pretty badly. I am very thankful for my helmet purchase which saved my little round head, but my wrist was not so lucky. I was already in a lot of pain and still had to get up and ride down the rest of the mountain...at this point I was freaked out about falling again and making it worse, so it took a looooong time.  After going to the doctor on Monday and again on Tuesday, they determined that I had a small fracture and fit me with an oh so fashionable blue cast. I was going to go for pink but decided that blue was probably more appropriate for a naval officer. It has been a challenge trying to do everything with one hand and be a lefty! But I am learning quickly. I can't wait to get it off though! I have a check up in 3 weeks to see if I still need the hard cast or switch to something a little less cumbersome.

[my arm]

[get well flowers from Ryan!]

Pretty In Pink

So much for making healthy treats, but I just made some fabulously delectable and oh so adorable pink lemonade cupcakes! I made some regular size and some mini size for those of us who 'just want a taste' (MOM!). They turned out amazingly good. I'm planning to pawn them off on my coworkers tomorrow and people at bible study tomorrow night. That way I shouldn't be eating too many more of them! I'm sure all the guys will love the pretty pinkness of them too! I found the recipe here.

I was going to make some peanut butter fudge ones tonight too, but I think that might have to wait till next week. Get excited!

Safety First!

This weekend was attempt number 2 for snowboarding! Before we went this time we stopped by REI to shop for some helmets. Although I'm pretty sure I won't be going fast enough to have any serious injuries anytime soon, I suppose you can never be too carefull. After seeing the prices of most of the helmets, I was about to decide that it wasn't worth it when the sales lady came over and suggested that I check out the childres' helmets because I look like a have a very round head. I tried one on and to my suprise it actually felt like it fit better than the adult ones...aaaaand it was about a third of the price of them! Yay for being thrifty! On a side note, this is the second time that someone has told me that I have a very round head when first meeting me. I was not aware that that was such a noticable feature of my appearance!

Sunday we went down to Crystal Mountain again. The snow was waaaaaay better this time. The last time we went it was a little warm so the snow was pretty slushy. This time there was a nice layer of fresh snow and it actually started snowing a lot more as the day went on. Although I still had plenty of wipe outs, I felt a lot better about this snowboarding trip. It was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to give it another try soon :)

Healthy Goodies!

Sooo...I like to bake a lot, but I have a tendency to lean towards recipes that satisfy my sweet tooth without satisfying my daily health requirements. So this weekend was a little attempt to rectify that! First were some fabulous whole wheat strawberry banana mini muffins. They are so cute in their little bite sized forms! They're also guilt free and super delicious. Later that day I also made some low fat peach frozen yogurt in my new ice cream maker. I am a big fan of this little device and am thrilled at how easy it is to make fabulous low fat treats with it! I can't wait to try out some more fun recipes.

Whole Wheat Strawberry Banana Muffins:

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup low fat vanilla yogurt
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 bananas, mashed
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup frozen sliced strawberries

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease 12 large muffin cups (I used mini muffin tins), or line with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, applesauce, oil, brown sugar, vanilla and bananas. Combine the flour, baking soda and cinnamon; Stir into the banana mixture until moistened. Stir in the strawberries until evenly distributed. Spoon batter into muffin cups until completely filled.
3. Bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the tops of the muffins spring back when pressed lightly. (I did it a little shorter since they were mini muffins)  Cool before removing from the muffin tins.