Yay Little Brother!

Little brother came up for the weekend to visit! He got in Thursday late at night and he's our first official overnight visitor in our new house! We spent the day Friday wandering around our little neighborhood and seeing the sights like this little park that overlooks Seattle. Friday night we went out to a charity masquerade. It was for Urban Artworks, an organization that Jordan's sister in law (and fellow Seattle architect) volunteers for. It was so much fun to have a fancy little night out. The masks were all made by the kids that are part of the program and some of them were completely awesome. I loved mine! They also had great food and wine and entertainment for the night. For the charity part, there were several tables set up with donated items for auction. We went around a put our names and bids on a few items. As the night went on we updated our items a few times, but only ended up winning one of them. We got a set of super awesome down pillows!! Jordan went away with a pretty sweet photo he bid on too, so we were all big winners for the night! At the end of the night they also had a live auction which was super intimidating. Unfortunately all of those items were waaaay out of our price range so we didn't participate. There were some pretty sweet steals though for those people who did win. We finished out the night with an ice cream stop at Molly Moons on the way home...yumm!

Saturday we put Jordan to work on the house. It was super awesome for him to volunteer to help us out because a few of the things definitely require a couple of guys with actual upper body strength. We mostly just did demo and clean up work tearing down the back potting shed outside of our bedroom. After all the help this weekend, we're about halfway done tearing it down and a ton of the extra construction debris has been disposed of. It was huge progress for the weekend, thanks little brother!!

[before]

[after]

[loading up a truck of trash] 

Saturday night we hung out with Jordan's sister and brother in law again. They had us out to dinner at their house and it was super delish! Good work on that one Matt! I had told them I would bring over the dessert for the night so I gave a cake roll my first try (chocolate strawberry)! Unfortunately I only have a picture of the last remaining slice of it. I think it ended up tasting really good and maybe even better the next day when the last slice was devoured, but there were a few things I would change for next time. I think I ended up cooking the cake a couple of minutes too long so it was a little too dry to roll well. It cracked a couple of times, but looked fine after the frosting went on. Also the filling I used was a plain vanilla recipe but I added strawberries to it so I think it made it too runny and not fluffy enough so the layers were pretty thin. Either way it was yummy and I'll definitely be up for trying a cake roll again. They're so fancy looking and something different from normal desserts.

We finished out the night with a few bottles of wine and a game of trivial pursuit...which quite frankly I was pretty impressed that we were even able to get a winner with trivia questions from the 80s! It was a fun challenge though!

Sunday after a little brunch at a local hot spot up the road we got in a little more work around the house. I can't even tell you how much better the back of our house looks now! We would have kept going with the demo work but the trash truck that we were filling up got a little too full so we decided to call it a day after that. With a few hours to spare before Jordan had to get to the airport we got all packed up and headed out for some wine tasting! We hit up 2 wineries and tasted some delicious wines. A nice was to relax before we had to drop of Jordan at the airport and send him home! I hope we get some more visitors soon and I definitely need to start planning our next SF trip to see everyone again! Love my family!

[Novelty Hill Winery] 

[Mark Ryan Winery]

Big Climb Seattle

What we'll be running up!

Ryan and I have been recruited to join a team of friends in climbing 69 stories of stairs to the top of the tallest building in Seattle. That would be 1311 steps to climb...ahhhh! The climb benefits the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) and we're looking for donations to help us help them. It would also get us motivated to kick this building's stairwell in the booty! If you're interested you can go to our individual donation pages to make a much appreciated donation to this cause! 

Pamela's Participant Page


Ryan's Participant Page

The Story of my Shoes

I like to shop, big surprise, right? For the past 6 months or so I've been on the hunt for a cute pair of grey booties (ankle height boots). Unfortunately, or probably fortunately, I also like a good deal and find it difficult to purchase something without one. After much searching for my grey booties in the fall I had all but given up on finding them at a reasonable price. A week or so ago I was browsing on Old Navy for some cute dresses since Old Navy is almost always a hit for a good deal. The Old Navy website is also connected to the Gap, Banana Republic, and Piperlime websites so I browsed through those as well, mostly looking at the clearance items for a steal! The front page of the Piperlime shoe clearance happened to show a little bootie on it, so I figured I'd give my search a go again and typed in grey ankle height boot. A few items popped up including a super cute one for a great price, yay! Better yet, they were only available in 2 sizes, 5.5 and 9.5 and I'm a 9.5!! I was sold and finally made my purchase of my little grey bootie happening to also get an additional 20% off online purchases that day and free shipping! Could I be any more excited?!? 

My purchase finally showed up on my doorstep when I got home from work Wednesday night. I busted open the box and loved what I saw! With great restraint I decided to put the shoes down and wait until I finished my run for the night before trying them on...it sounded like a good incentive for a quick run. Unfortunately by the time I get home from work and ready to run it's already dark outside, but I strapped Ben into his little harness and we went for it. All was going well until about 2 miles into my run when in the dark and along the uneven sidewalks of Queen Anne I completely wiped out. I must have jammed my toe into an uneven break in the sidewalk and flattened myself out on the sidewalk right in front of a couple getting out of their car, how embarrassing! They kindly offered me help as I tried to shake it off and keep going. Immediately my toe began to throb and both my knees stung. I am super grateful that it was a little chilly out so I at least had running tights on and gloves to protect my hands. I tried to shake it off and run another mile to get back home. At this time I assessed the damage finding out that my toe had already began swelling and after I took my shoes off and relaxed I could hardly move it anymore. I also had 2 rather bloody knees that had bled through my tights. After a quick shower and bandaging up I returned to my shoes, still super cute. I tried to put them on and what a tease?!? By that time my toe was far too swollen and stiff to be shoved into 4 inch heels...UGH!!! Not only was I in large amounts of pain, but I couldn't even wear the shoes I had been waiting on for a week!

[this is actually on Sunday, 4 days after my fall, so not nearly as bad as it started out...I figured I'd spare you that scene]

I spent the rest of the week (other than working) icing and stretching out my toe until I was finally able to move it enough to run again on Saturday. After that and with a small amount of pain I was able to put my shoes on. Perfection. I love them. Not only are they exactly what I was looking for visually, but they're actually incredibly comfortable too. It was tough having to wait a few days to slip those babies on, but well worth the wait!

Newness!

Just a few new things we've gotten in the past week!! A brand new washer and dryer!!!! I love my little laundry room, and we just put up some cabinets above the washer and dryer too, it's perfect ;) We also finally got the new car for the year!! It's not quite the little speedster that the GTI was, but it fits the dogs and all our outdoor gear in it a lot better!! We also got some new picture ledges to show off some of our fabulous wedding pictures. Our house is still seriously lacking in decorations, but we're getting there. Finally, after taking down all of our Christmas decorations I decided that out front door was far too bear, so I whipped up a wreath for it. It's still a work in progress, but definitely better than nothing. I can't wait for more newness that this house brings!

Snow Day!

Today was our first official snow day! Thank goodness work got shut down because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to get my car out of it's spot without hurting several other cars on the street. Those giant hills in Seattle are killer with snow all over them! It's crazy watching the news showing people actually trying to maneuver the hills with little success. So instead we spent the day in Queen Anne, mostly bundled up in the house but we did take Ben for a long walk around the hill. He had lots of fun playing in the snow.

With the pretty snow Ryan also got to get a few awesome shots of one of his houses that is finishing up right now.

We like to Party!

We had our first party in the house this weekend! It was actually a belated birthday party for me. Since we were having people over it was good motivation to finally get things a little straightened up. We still have a lot of work to do to make the house done like hooking up the sink, stove top, hood, and get out washer and dryer, among many other little things. Either way we had enough working to have people over and actually cleaned up enough (moved things into the basement) for it to look half way nice. So here are a few post party pictures to see how nice our little house is looking!

We also had out first fire in the fireplace! I looove fires! It was so nice and cozy! We still have a little more work to do on the fireplace too, but it's nice to have it in full use now ;)

Christmas in Georgia

How is it 2012 already and how did that Holiday Vacation go by so quickly?!? This year we spent Christmas and New Years in Georgia with the Stephenson family. I started vacation out nicely with a bright and sparkly mani/pedi since I actually got to go a week and a half without having nail polish that conformed to uniform standards! We flew out Christmas Eve and the vacation was continued perfectly with upgrades to first class!! We got to the airport a little early and got through all the lines so quickly that we had plenty of time to hit up the Delta sky lounge and load up on free food and drinks before our flight. I was presently surprised by the quality of their bloody mary! The airplane that we were in was typically used for international flights so it was even more roomy than usual. Up in first class I actually had to get up out of my seat to reach the seat in front of me. It was a great way to spend a 5 hour flight. We had also downloaded ‘The Help’ movie on the iPad so I finally got to watch that! We got into Atlanta late Saturday night and Ryan’s dad picked us up and brought us back to Columbus.

[first class!]

Christmas morning we were all pretty lazy and rolled out of bed for breakfast. We hung out at the house for the day and had a nice Christmas dinner in the evening. By that time we still hadn’t gottento find out what Santa had brought us under the tree!! When everyone was gathered up after dinner we opened presents. So much fun stuff!! I got an awesome underwater camera that I can’t wait to find an excuseto use! It also works as a normal camera, obviously, but I can’t wait to test out the underwater feature. I wonder if people would beweirded out if I brought it to the pool at the gym…I might just have to try that ;) I also got some fun clothes and an especially awesome down parka that I’ve been wanting for a while now so I don’t freeeezeall the time!

 [stockings!]

 [Christmas dinner]

 [Aaron and Chena]

 [Brandon]

[Mom and Dad Stephenson...and Wags]

The day after Christmas we had the King family Christmas party (Ryan’s mom’s side of the family). There people from Georgia and the surrounding states (Tennessee and Florida) all gathering at Ryan’sGrandparents house. Of course there was lots more food. We tried to work it off a little bit with some football playing. We also got to doa fun gift exchange. Everyone had brought a white elephant gift and we each started with our own. Ryan’s Grandpa read ‘The Night Before Christmas’ and every time he said the word ‘THE’ we passed our gift tothe next person till we ended up with a new one at the end of the story that we got to keep. All the kids got a pretty big kick out ofit (and I may have too)!

The rest of the week we had lot of family time playing all our new games, playing some ultimate Frisbee, and of course watching lots of football. One night we went out and watched ‘The Girl With the DragonTattoo’ which I was pretty pumped to see after reading the book. I can definitely tell that reading the book first helped me follow the movie a lot better, although there were a few things the movie left out. Itwas definitely a pretty good (slightly graphic) movie. I need to start reading the next one now!

 [Brothers]

[Ultimate Frisbee]

Monday (Jan 2nd) we headed up for Atlanta since we were flying out early the next morning. Ryan’s little brother lives there now, so we planned on just staying with him which made the commute to the airportin the morning waaaay easier. Since it was our last night there (andhappened to be the night before my birthday) we did a little celebrating with the family. We went out to a great seafood placewhich actually has left me really craving oysters now. Of course I had to get my complimentary ice cream sundae to go with a few more giftsfrom Mom and Dad Stephenson. After dinner Ryan’s parents headed homeand we took that time to meet up with a few of my favorite Atlanta friends Laura, Liz, and Andrew! We all met up at a little bar for afew drinks and a few rounds of darts. I was so excited we got to meet up. I always get frustrated when I go through Atlanta and don’t have time to visit everyone there so I’m glad we at least found a few hoursto hang out before we left town again. It also made a great start to my Birthday!! We headed back to Aaron’s house afterwards and spend acouple more hours of a mini birthday party with him and his girlfriend. So much fun hanging out with them!

 [Birthday dinner!]

[Laura and Liz!]

In the morning Aaron got up extra early to fix me an awesome French toast birthday breakfast! They took us to the airport after that and we started out journey home. Although most of our vacation it was inthe 70s and sunny, somehow when we left it was in the 20s in Atlanta and there was even a flurry of snow as we sat in the bar. After that it was nice to come home to a balmy 50 degrees in Seattle. It was aslightly exhausting day (I spent most of this flight halfway covered by the large man next to me) so after we picked up the pups we wereready for some relaxing for a few hours. Later that evening I got to celebrate my birthday some more with presents and a great dinner at a place I’ve been wanting to try for a while right up the street ‘How toCook a Wolf’. It was great! It’s been a great start to 2012!