New York, New York!



An awesome time was had this Memorial Day weekend in New York City! This past Christmas we told Ryan's parents that if they booked a trip to NYC to visit Ryan's brother Aaron, we'd do the same. That way we could see more of the family at one time! Ryan and I took the red eye Friday night and were surprisingly lucid all Saturday despite having little sleep on the plane. We started right out with brunch down the street from Aaron and Chena's apartment in Long Island City before heading into Manhattan for the afternoon. First stop was a trip to the 'Top of the Rock' aka the Rockefeller observation deck. Last time we were here we did that at night when all the city lights were on, so it was great to be able to do it again during the day. 





We finished up our Top of the Rock experience just as it was about to start down pouring, so it was perfect timing for a little happy hour! We did a little bar hopping and ended in Brooklyn for a night cap on a rooftop bar. Other than about and hour or so of rain, it was a great day for wandering around the city.


Sunday was a beautiful day, so we stayed outside as much as possible! We started out with a stroll through central park. Did a little relaxing on a blanket a little watching of street performers. We wandered around the city a little more and ended up in Madison Square Park for a late lunch. Our last site to see of the day was the site of 9/11. It was all still under construction the last few times we were in NYC, so this was the first time we saw it all completed. It was really a beautiful and powerful site. I loooove the fountains they created in the footprints of the two towers. There's still a little construction going on in the surrounding areas, but the freedom tower, fountains, and museum are completed now and it was great to see them all together.
















Monday was our last full day and it was BEAUTIFUL out. I suppose some people may have thought it was a little too toasty out, but I thought it was perfect ;) We spent the morning wandering through the Natural History Museum...mostly to see all the dinosaurs...which were awesome! We also got to get a good peek inside the attached Hayden Planetarium...which is one of my favorite building in NYC ;)






After a morning of educating ourselves...we spend the afternoon drinking on a boat! Aaron had booked us a harbor cruise for a couple of hours. It felt amazing to be out on the water on such a hot sunny day and we got great views of the skyline and sailed around the statue of liberty which was pretty awesome to see a little closer up. It was just a great time sitting in the sun and enjoying ourselves ;) After the cruise we wandered through the Chelsea market and picked up a few treats and some artwork.














After picking up some delicious Rice to Riches, we spent the evening playing games at Aaron and Chena's apartment. Ryan and I had a mid afternoon flight home on Tuesday, so we grabbed breakfast with Aaron and Chena in the morning and hung out in a local park for a while before packing up to head back home. It was great being in NYC in the late spring...a little warmer than our last trip in January. Good thing we have a great reason to visit often, I can't wait for our next trip!
 

8th Place!!!!



I did absolutely nothing competitive last weekend...but I watched 6 of my good friends kick some serious booty in the North West Crossfit Regionals and end up in 8th place!!!! The Crossfit Games (See this post and this post from last year) are like the Olympics of Crossfit. In order to make it to the games, you have to qualify through the Regional events. In order to participate in the Regional events, you have to have top scores in the Crossfit Open. The Crossfit Open is literally open to anyone in the world. You do the workouts and log your scores from home or your gym or wherever you are. The top 45 men, 45 women, and 30 teams from that move on to participate in their Regional event. This year was the first time that our gym qualified as a team to go to the Northwest Regionals!!! 



Our team was actually ranked 10 out of 30 teams to make it to the Regionals...and we happen to be great friends with all 6 of the members of the team, so obviously we had to go cheer them on!! They have been working incredibly hard to get to this point, and I'm so proud of them. They competed with the other 29 teams from the region in 8 events over 3 days and ended up ranked 8th in the Region which is HUGE for their first time competing in the event! The top 3 teams from each region move on to compete in the Crossfit Games in July, so they didn't quite make that cutoff, but they certainly proved that they deserved to be there! It was so awesome to be there to cheer them on and I'm so proud of them all! I can't wait to see what happens next year ;)

















Staycation

We did a sort of staycation this weekend. With our Marriott membership, we get a free hotel night once a year. Ours for this year would have expired today, so I figured we should find somewhere to go and use it before it expired. We drove up to Bellingham, WA Saturday morning and started out with a nice long hike. There were great views of the little towns nearby and the Puget sound. The top of the hike was a lookout over a really steep cliff...a little terrifying to get too close to the edge, but it was really pretty!











We could have made it home after the hike, but we've never really spent time in Bellingham, so we grabbed some dinner downtown and spent the night in our free hotel...with a hot tub ;)

 

Sunday afternoon we lazily made our way back down to Seattle, with a stop off at the outlet mall and a few hours of BBQing and a friends house.



Also, this weekend was Ben's 4th birthday...and today is Ryan's birthday!!

Heidi gets Hitched

It's been a while since our whole family has all been together at the same time, under the same roof. So this weekend was awesome because we all flew down to Arizona for my cousin Heidi's wedding! We flew into Phoenix and drove from there up to Flagstaff where we had rented a house for all 10 of us! When we were renting the car, the guy mentioned that we might want to think about upgrading to something a little more powerful since it was a 7000ft elevation gain on the drive up to Flagstaff. We were an easy convince and ended up upgrading to a Dodge Challenger...which made us feel pretty cool all weekend ;)

We got to our rental house round midnight Friday night and spent a couple hours hanging out in the giant kitchen/living room sipping on wine and catching up with the family. The house was awesome because it had 5 bedrooms so one for each of the couples. That way we each got our own space while still being able to hang out all together. Saturday morning a few of us got up for a quick run to test out the high elevation running. I'm not sure if it was the elevation or the heat that was worse! We lucked out with a beautiful warm sunshiney day so we relaxed in the sun at the house for a while before getting primped up for the wedding. The wedding was in the afternoon on a covered bridge at a nearby ranch. It was awesome! It was nice and casual and intimate. Dad was officiating the wedding too, so that made it pretty awesome too! Of course Heidi was gorgeous and we had a blast dancing the night away! I'm really glad Grandma was able to fly in from Michigan too!













We met up again in the morning for brunch with all the wedding people than headed back down to Phoenix to hang out with the rest of the cousins for the afternoon before catching our flights home. It was great to see everyone!

Methow Valley

This weekend we took a super last minute trip out to north/central Washington to check in on one of Ryan's projects that is going up. The snow is just now clearing up in that part of the state, so the contractor has been able to start framing the house. We drove out there Saturday morning and met with the contractor on site for a while, then enjoyed a relaxing evening at a cute little inn on a river. Ben loves it out there and gets to run all over the place.

We drove through a ton of fruit trees in bloom on the way to/from Mazama. We even stopped at a cider stand which is the closest I've come to the cider mills of Michigan. You could actually watch them make the ciders...and they had donuts almost as good at the ones in Michigan!

The house that Ryan designed is on the side of the mountain, and this is the backyard of the house. How awesome is that?!

Lots of relaxing done by the river ;)

The drive was beautiful, I love this state!

Mt Baker Weekend!

This weekend we had a little fun in the sun...in the snow! We've had this weekend planned for a while and it was the first time the whole group was available for a weekend getaway for some snowboarding in Mt Baker. Turns out it was perfect timing. This has been a weird winter for snow in Washington. The mountains opened up super early in the fall with great snow, then the snow stopped and was terrible for a few months. The last couple of weeks, it has come back in full force for some great spring snowboarding! We rented a house with 3 other couples about 20 minutes from the ski resort. We got in late Friday night and Saturday started a little slow...the guys actually got up and made breakfast and headed to the mountain a little earlier. Myself and 2 of the other ladies headed to the mountain around noon for a lesson. One of the girls had never snowboarded before, so we wanted her to do a lesson and we joined in on it! It was a good refresher for myself and the other girl who had ridden before. After the lesson, Allison and I hit took a few runs with the guys before calling it a day. It started to get pretty wet out and the lifts were closing soon anyway.

 

Sunday we headed back to the mountain and Allison and I took another lesson...mostly because it was only $30 for the lesson with the lift ticket...which made it cheaper than just buying a lift ticket. Technically our lift ticket was just for the beginners lift, but no one was checking it anyway. We had a great lesson and joined the guys on a few other lifts/runs for the rest of the day. It was perfectly warm and sunny out on Sunday and the snow was great! I had such a blast and now I really want to go again soon! It had been too long since the last time I went, and I think Mt Baker is officially my favorite mountain in Washington now. There were some great runs!



Relaxing at the lodge

Me and Allison halfway up the mountain.