A Seattle Tan!

Yes, that's right, I officially have a tan from being in Seattle! It was such a perfect weekend! Hopfeully this means that the amazing Seattle summer is finally upon us. Well worth the wait. Friday we had an 'All Officers' Meeting' which was a tour or Fort Worden in Port Townsend, WA. It's big claim to fame is that it is where An Officer and A Gentleman was filmed. Now I really want to go back and watch the movie to see what all I can recognize. We had perfectly blue skies for our treck around the Fort and since it's on a peninsula, when we got to the top of the old batteries, we had great clear views across the sound and could even see the other fort over at Whidbey Island. After our tour we had a little picnic on the beach and enjoyed some fresh sea air...soooo delicious!

Saturday I got my hair did for the last time by the same girl I've been going to for the last 2.5 years! She's moving down to San Jose, so if any of my Bay Area family members needs a great hair stylist, I've got your girl! I might even have to wait till I go visit down there again for my next haircut...I am dreading having to find a new girl...booo. After wandering around downtown for a few hours enjoying the sunshine and shopping, we headed of to a house warming party for one of the houses that Ryan's firm just completed. It was a perfect day to hang out on their beautiful roof deck with great views of the water and mountains while sipping on a few beverages! Later that night we decided to use a Groupon voucher that was about to expire to go see the new Pirates of the Carribean movie in 3D! 3D movies are so much fun...it gets me even more excited to see the next Harry Potter movie in 3D!

Sunday morning Ryan went off to ride bikes down mountains again, so I got to enjoy several hours of gloreous sunshine sitting on our roofdeck! I just started reading 'The Help' so I got a good ways into it while soaking up the rays. I saw a preview for the movie last weekend and decided I should probably get on reading it before the movie comes out. So far it's a great easy read, and perfect for laying out. At the end of my several hours I had definitely built up a good tan thanks to the beautiful Seattle summer! I can't wait for more weekends like this one!

A British Weekend

Redhook Sampler

This memorial day weekend we hung out with some Brits. Our friend Aimee who is living in Seattle for the next few months had her brother in town for the weekend, so we took him around to a few local sites. Saturday we went out to the Redhook Brewery in Woodinville (near a bunch of the wineries) where we did a little beer tasting. We started out with some lunch with a sampler platter of beer for each of us. Then proceeded to the brewery tour (only $1) where we got a little sample cup that kept being refilled throughout the tour. The tour was pretty simple, but the highlight was definitely the beer tasting. Delish. You'll also notice that I am taking a few more pics these days. The reason being that I finally upgraded to the fabulous new iPhone. My old one was getting so slow that when I did try to take pics with it, it took so long to load that the photo op would be gone by the time I was ready. The same was true of anything else I tried to do with it...soooo slow. Finally I gave up being frustrated with the lack of speed and decided to get a new phone. Lucky for me the new white iPhone just came out, so I was able to snag one of those bad boys! Hopefully this will help me take lots and lots of pics now since my phone is always on me, and it happens to take fabulous photos!

Me, Ryan, and Aimee

Top Pot

Sunday we decided to take a day trip over to the Olympic Peninsula to go check out the beaches. We started off with some bfast at Top Pot...always a favorite to take visitors to. Then we missed the ferry that we were hoping to get on so we had to wait another hour for the next one. Finally several hours later after a little detour through Forks, WA we made it out to Rialto Beach. Unfortunately it wasn't as sunshiney out as we were hoping, but at least it wasn't downpouring, so we were able to hike up the beach a couple miles and see the sites. We had ben with us, and he enjoyed running around like crazy until he scared a little yorkie dog and we had to put him on the leash. At the end of the hike was the highlight. The 'hole in the wall'. Essentially just a giant land bridge, but it was really pretty, and we climbed all over the rocks around it.

Aimee, Chad, Ryan, and Ben

Hole in the Wall

After our little hike we headed back towards Seattle with a little stop in Port Angeles for some dinner on the water. We finally made it home around 1am and poor little Tara was sitting there like a good little girl waiting for us. Actually she probably hardly even noticed that we were gone :)

It was awesome to have the day off on Monday. We actually got to sleep in and it was amazing! We ran a few errands and caught up on some housework most of the day. I also got to meet up with Sarah for a little girls date to see Bridesmaids. I didn't really know much about the movie going into it, but i must say I was pleasantly surprised. It was hilarious! It was also fun to see it with my childhood friend since it was all about a childhood friendship...yay middle school friends!

On another note, tomorrow is Tara's 13th birthday!!! Look how pretty she is! I love that I've gotten to take care of her for the past few years, she's such a special little girl ;) Happy Birthday Tara!

Seattle's Best

The weekend after GA was slightly exhausting for both of us. Several weeks ago I had finally started getting back into a running program and was doing pretty well at increasing my milage again so I was up to about 8 miles pretty easily so I figured I'd sign up for a 15k (Seattle's Best 15k)...no biggie. Then I got crazy busy and we started traveling and such so all that went down the drain. I was, however, still signed up for my run. I also failed to notice when I signed up that this run started at 7am. So Saturday morning I was up bright and early to do a nice little 15k run in the rain. At this point I just wanted to finish which I did with no great speed. If nothing else, maybe this will help me get back on track for training.

That same morning, Ryan got up bright and early with me, dropped me off for my race and continued on to ride mountain bikes down a mountain with some friends. Although this wasn't taken on that day, here's a video of the trail that they did.

Needless to say we were both pretty pooped by the end of the morning. We had a few minutes of rest before heading off to a photography workshop which was interesting but ended up being slightly useless towards the end, so we left a little early and headed home to relax for the night.

How did I not take Pictures?!?

 

Wow, I have been severely lacking in the picture taking department! I could have sworn I had taken a photo of our fabulous pinata pre-decapitation, however, it turns out I did not. It looked pretty similar to this little guy though, super cute! I also made lots of fun little treats...including some delicious strawberry rhubarb empanadas! Again, I love a good excuse to bake with rhubarb!

We had a good time this weekend with lots of fun friends celebrating Ryan's birthday and punching the little penguin (since we didn't have a stick) and drinking margaritas!

For Ryan's actual birthday we headed out down to GA to celebrate with his family, enjoy a little sunshine, and visit family and friends in GA. Again, I have been terrible at taking pictures lately, but we did have a fun time playing yard games while cooking out lots of delicious foods!

It has also been incredibly beautiful in Seattle this week. I love the smell of the ocean on a warm day. I'm not sure I could handle not living on the water ever again! It's amazing!

Licensed to Ride!

This weekend we took our tests to get a motorcycle endorsement on our licenses. In order to drive a motorcycle in the navy you have to complete a certified safety course, at the end of which you receive your endorsement, so that's what we did this weekend. It was two long days of classroom time and time spent on the motorcycles learning basic techniques. The first day was BEAUTIFUL out, so it was awesome spending a few hours riding motorcycles in 65 degrees and sunny weather! The second day it was supposed to rain all day, so we felt pretty grateful when it held off most of the day. Unfortunately it started right in the middle of our riding test. Luckily we are both pretty awesome and passed with flying colors (Ryan got 100%!). It was a pretty exhausting weekend of long days of riding, so we didn't have time to do much else all weekend. Saturday night we did make it out to one of Ryan's co-workers' b-day parties at a bar up in Capital Hill, which was a good time. 

Sunday we had left the dogs at home all day and were pleasantly surprised to come home to nothing destroyed and no messes! After a little rest, we started making a piñata for our piñata party in a few weeks! I forgot how messy this process can be! Can't wait to see the final results :)

 

Puppy Play Time

This weekend, although it wasn't terribly sunshiney, it also didn't really rain, so that was a pretty big deal! On Saturday we took the kids (puppies) to the park to get rid of Ben's energy and give Tara a little exercise. The place we went has a huge open space that Ben just went crazy in. He loves to just sprint circles around everyone. At the end of the park, there's also a little spot where you can get into Lake Washington. Tara dipped herself in a little bit, but I think it might have been a little too cold for a full on swim. Ben got a little further in this time too, but he's still pretty timid about water. Hopefully we can fix that this summer!

On another note, I am officially obsessed with my new Nike Free shoes. I was a little nervous about running longer distances in them thinking that they wouldn't be enough support for my feet. I started out with a 6 mile run in then and they are awesome! They're so light weight and flexible. Hopefully they'll help me get back into shape this summer. I have such crazy work hours getting up before 5am most days that I find myself completely exhausted all the time. It makes it pretty difficult to be motivated to get into a running program. Hopefully I'm starting to get back on track though! And the shoes are super cute ;)

Beachin' It

This weekend we did our first overnight backpacking trip of the year. We headed over to the Olympic Peninsula bright and early Saturday morning and started our hike near Ozette Lake. We hiked about 3 miles into the forest before getting to the shore. The rest of the hike for Saturday was just to head north about 3 miles along the beach, so we weren't in any hurry. A couple of weeks ago we had taken a photography workshop to better learn how to use our semi fancy camera. We used this time along the beach to try to practice a few of the things we learned. Although we were lucky that it didn't rain on us the whole hike, we unfortunately did have overcast skies the whole time, so the lighting wasn't the greatest for photography.

One of the things that I've been wanting to get a good picture of up here is a bald eagle. I see them all of the time, but never have a camera on me! We ended up seeing quite a few on the beach and snapped a few pictures, but it looks like I'll have to wait to get that once in a lifetime amazine eagle picture. All of ours were a little too dark, but we tried!

Right before we left on the hike we ordered a new awesome zoom lense for our camera (free thanks to credit card reward points!). Once we figure out how to set all our settings on manual mode and figure out which lense to use for what, hopefully we'll be getting some really amazing photos out here! Can't wait for that sunny Seattle summer too...I can feel it being almost here!

At the end of the beach part of our hike, we found a cute like spot under a tree right next to the beach to set up camp. After warming up a little bit, we cooked up a delicious tortellini dinner complete with severl glasses of wine in my new titanium wine glass! I think that along with the sound of waves hitting the shore really helped me sleep that night, which I often find difficult to do sleeping on the ground. We stayed out on the beach watching the sun set, although the clounds blocked most of it. We were still able to get a few good shots of the sun peaking through the clouds.

Sunday morning we woke up and had a little coffee and breakfast on the beach before packing up and heading back into the woods to find our way home. As soon as we made it back to the car it started raining, so we really lucked out on that! Unfortunately the beach didn't allow dogs on the hike, so we had to leave our little kiddies at home, so that's always nice to come home to wagging tails after a weekend of hiking!