A John Denver Christmas Special

Merry Christmas one and all!! I just got back from a great Christmas in Columbus, GA with the Stephensons. Before we headed out of town, we got to have a mini Christmas in Seattle. My awesome family sent out so many fun goodies that there was hardly enough room under out little tree! We actually had to put the tree up on a box to make room for them all. It was so pretty to see everything under the tree! Thanks everyone for everything, it was a really awesome way to start out the holidays!

[our little Christmas tree full of presents]

[tara had lots of fun opening presents too!]

The Tuesday night before Christmas (which also happened to be Ryan's Dad's birthday) we headed out to Georgia. Luckily we didn't have the rediculous airport issues that we had last year! A girl that Ryan works with was going to take Tara for us so she dropped us off at the airport after picking up Tara...much easier (thanks Thomasin!). At the beginning of the flight, as we popped through the clouds, we got to see Mt. Ranier and a couple of other mountain peeks peaking through the clouds. It was really beautiful.

[Mt. Ranier through the clouds!]

We finally got back to Columbus pretty late...or really early in the morning. The rest of the week was filled with all kinds of Christmas festivities, family time, games, movies, football, and lots of other good times. Ryan's Mom had the house decked out with Christmas decor and lights and a big ole tree. I love Christmas decorations! We all got some kind of board games for Christmas, so there was lots of gaming going on. I also worked on perfecting my football throwing...it might still need a little more work. I have a halfway decent shot in basketball though, so at least I have that going for me! Here's a few pics of the Christmas festivities. There are a lot more that I'll probably be putting up on flickr...so stay tuned!

  [stocking hung by the chimney with care!]

[the Stephenson family...Dad, Aaron, Mom, Ryan, and Brandon]

[scrabble slam...it's intense!]

[Wags and Ryan]

[there are some special people in this family...i might just fit in!]

 

[Auburn snuggie! And we can still use our hands, how convenient?!? It even works while playing the Wii!]

[Merrrrrrrry Christmas!]

 

Happy Holidaying!!

We're getting ready for Christmas!! Tree is up, shopping is done, cards are written! Now I just need to finish up working this week and I'll be ready for vacation!!

Po

...update from an earlier post: This summer we attended a hot dog tasting party for some friends of our who were opening up a new gourmet hot dog restaurant. The new place, Po Dog, opened up in November and we have become regulars ;) I am determined to try each of the flavors...eventually. Plus, they have specials of the month, like the thanksgiving dog last month, and the chili dog this month. DELICIOUSNESS!

Spanksgiving in Vegas!

This was a very different Thanksgiving! Mom and Dad booked a couple of suites in a resort in Las Vegas since it was the closest and cheapest place for us all to rendezvous at. It worked out really well! Ryan and I got into Vegas Tuesday night before Thanksgiving. Everyone else got in on Wednesday. From then on it was pretty much non stop excitement. Thanksgiving day we all got up bright and early to take a little drive over to Boulder city (near the Hoover Dam) to run a 5k. It was mom and dad's first 5k, and it was a good way for us all to burn a few calories before consuming A LOT more. It was also a really pretty run along a scenic route on Lake Mead and went through several old train tunnels through the mountains. Despite that Jordan claimed he hasn't run in forever, he still schooled us all and got 7th place overall.

When we got back to the resort, we started up on cooking some Thanksgiving foods! I had made all the girls a cute apron with initials on them, so we all sported them while we cooked up a storm. In the meantime, the boys watched some football. While waiting for some thing too cook, we also caught a few Zzzzs to make up for getting up early for the run. Despite the fact that we were in hotel rooms, we were still able to cook up everything to make a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner, with lots and lots of leftovers as usual!

After watching some more football, we finished up watching the games on the strip to get ready for a night on the town! Ryan and Jason got pretty comfy at the craps table (which is waaaaaaay too confusing for me to actually try to bet on it! i could handle rolling some dice though!) I felt a little more comfortable with the video blackjack and even doubled my $10 (which didn't last much longer).

Friday started out again with some more awesome football!! Auburn vs. Alabama in the Iron Bowl! We started out watching in the hotel room. What an AWESOME game!! After a ridiculously exciting first half, we quickly jetted over to ESPN Zone to finish watching the game. Even though Auburn ended up losing, it was still a great game and I was proud. Alabama should be embarrassed for sure. For the rest of the evening we went around as a whole family trying to get some touristy things in. We went to the M&M store (yummmmmmmy), saw the Bellagio fountains and gardens, and ended up on Fremont St. (the old strip). It was really cool because it was all covered and they were able to project shows on the ceiling. We stayed to watch an 'illusionist' who was hilarious! the guy was german and had a great accent and his whole show was so funny because of the way he talked and how showey he made it. It was great entertainment! Since Friday night was the last night many of us had there, we partied the night away. Definitely the latest I've been out in a looong time, which called for some serious sleeping in the next day.

We got back to Seattle Saturday night and I got to pick up my pupster on Sunday. The couple watching her said she was such a sweet dog...I agree! It was a great vacation, and now it's back to work. Luckily it's only another 3 weeks of work until my next vacation...I love the holiday season!!!

Pre-Vacation Vacation

My vacation started over a week before Thanksgiving even got here! The week before Thanksgiving I spent Thursday and Friday in San Diego for a Junior Officers Leadership Training. It was a nice sunny break from what has begun to be a typical rainy winter in Washington. Although most of the time was spent indoors in lectures, it was still a nice break from sitting in the office all day. Thanks tax payers for that little vacation!

I got back to Seattle Friday night, and Saturday was ready to start getting into the holiday spirit! Saturday night Ryan took me to the Transiberian Orchestra concert. It was AWESOME!! I am so ready for some serious Christmas music, and it was super awesome to see the guys rock out 90s style to some hardcore Christmas tunes! Plus the laser light show was great too. A great night.

Sunday night Seattle played host to the MLS Cup. It would have been even more awesome if the Seattle Sounders had made it to the finals, but at least we got to watch some David Beckam and the LA Galaxy, and just some great soccer in general. It made me miss all the soccer I grew up with. I'll definitely have to get to some more of the Sounders' games next season. There's a pretty intense following for them in Seattle too which makes it all the more exciting!

Halloweenie Weekend!

Last week I took Thursday and Friday off of work. I spent all day Thursday making Ryan a sweet halloween wolf suit (which I now think I need to make many more versions of it because it is sooooo comfy and cute) then Thursday night we picked up Ryan's brother and his girlfriend from the airport so they could play with us all weekend in Seattle! Friday Ryan had to work so the rest of us worked on scaring up a few more costumes. We spent the afternoon/evening wandering around Seattle and finishing up costumes.

Sunday after some tastey pancakes, walking around the waterfront, and some disc golf, it was time for halloween costumes!! I dressed up as little red riding hood, Ryan was a wolf, Aaron was Carl from 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force', and Che-na was a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man. We started out in Fremont where we had already missed all the supposed festivities involved in 'Trollaween'. We ended up visiting the bridge troll where there were still a few costumed stragglers then wandering around Fremont for a little while. There were a lot of people dressed up and walking around, but they weren't really in any particular establishment, so we headed up to Capital Hill, which we knew would make for an interesting night. There were TONS of people dressed up everywhere. Lots and lots of flamboyant males dressed up in skanky outfits. There's a pretty prominent gay bar there, The Cuff, that had a line around the block of people waiting to get in, all males, and all uniquely sparsely dressed. It was quite a sight to see. We bypassed that venue to head to one of our faves, Oddfellows, where we spent most of the rest of the night hanging out and taking in the sights.

Sunday morning we got an extra hour...yay! We took Aaron and Che-na to Tilth, which is a fabulous organic brunch place in a cute little house in Wallingford! It was soooooo good. The rest of the day we enjoyed gasworks park, walked around Seattle Center and did the lovely Space Needle fun (yay for our annual passes!) and picked up some delicious brats from Wholefoods to cook for dinner while enjoying the awesome roof deck. After all the talk about it raining all weekend, it ended up being a really great weekend, maybe even enough to convince some more people to move to Seattle! I had to head back to Oak Harbor Sunday night so I could be up bright and early monday morning for physical training followed by meetings aaaaaaaaaaallllllll day long.

Happy Halloweenie!

Enchantments

[Colchuck Lake from halfway up Aasgard Pass]

We had a seriously intense weekend of hiking this weekend! Andrew (a former co-worker of Ryan's) invited us to join him on a trip through the Enchantment Lakes. It was a really breathtaking set of lakes and worth the trip, but it was also an extremely challenging trek to do in one weekend, especially for me.

We drove out almost to the trail head on Friday night and ended up camping in a drive up campsite off the road. Since it's been getting dark so early lately, we didn't have a whole lot to do once we got there other than set up the tents and get to bed. The site was right next to a river, so it was nice to have the sound of the rushing water put us to sleep. It also made for a nice view to wake up to in the morning! 

[Ryan, Me, and Andrew at Colchuck Lake]

Saturday was a perfect day for hiking, blue skies everywhere! We drove up to the trail head and got started. The first part of the hike was pretty easy going through some great woods and up to Colchuck Lake which was really beautiful. There were several people camped out around that from the day before it seemed. It would be a great place to wake up to as well. We walked around the lake to get to the foot of Aasgard Pass. This is where things got real dicey. I was certainly not prepared for this at all! In order to get to the upper basin of the Enchantments, we had to climb up and over the pass. This was a 2300 ft elevation gain over about a mile, all over granite rocks. It wouldn't have been too bad if we didn't have big packs on our backs and were in a bit of a time crunch to get up and over it before it got too late. Towards the top of the pass there was a good amount of snow and to make it worse, most of the path was covered in ice. Somehow or another I finally made it over, exhausted and frozen. Luckily the views from the top was worth the climb!  This was the first time I've really been on an alpine hike. There were several lakes, lots of snow, lots of rock, and very few plants since it was so high in elevation. We kept hiking around these lakes until it started getting dark. Even then we went for a little while with out head lamps on until we weren't quite sure if we were following the trail anymore and thought it would be better to set up camp and wait till daylight to continue on. It was sooooooo cold!! We found a little flat spot next to a river that would fit our two little tents and cooked up some dinner. As Ryan cooked up some food, I spent about 15 minutes guarding the rest of our food from all the little nice running around. They are relentless! After dinner we called it a night. It was so cold that night that I slept with nearly all of my clothes on.

[Aasgard Pass...I'm supposed to climb to the top of this?!?]

[We made it over the Pass!!! Completely frozen!]

[Campsite #2. Cold but beautiful!]

Since it was already dark when we got to our campsite, it was fascinating to wake up and see what we were camping around. It was so beautiful. We were right next to a river that connected two lakes. So many of the views were unreal, straight out of a fantasy book or something. Unfortunately it was also super cold, and we had to get moving pretty quickly because we had a lot of ground to cover in the second day. We kept on walking, again over a lot of rock and ice, so it was a pretty challenging hike. We passed several more lakes and rivers in the upper basin of the Enchantment before we descended down into the lower basin. The decent on this side was a lot slower of an elevation change than the ascent the day before. After a few hours we were back into the woods and it started to warm up a little bit more. By this time we were in the lower basin of the Enchantments. There were several more lakes and rivers to pass and be awed by. It would definitely be worth it to take a few more days and come back for a longer trip just to soak it all in. We spent the rest of the day at a pretty brisk pace trying to get to the trail head. We were originally planning on going about halfway into the trail and turning around to go back to our car. Instead we decided to hike all the way through to the other end of the trail. Unfortunately that put us about 10 miles away from the trailhead that our car was at. Luckily we were able to find a nice couple who was willing to give one of us a ride to the car to pick it up and come back for the rest of us. It was nice to get back into a nice warm plush car after such an intense weekend.

[What we woke up next to on Sunday]

[The river we slept next to]

[All bundled up!]

[unreal...so pretty.]

[Snow Lake in the lower basin of the Enchantments]

On the way back to Seattle we stopped in Leavenworth. It's a little german town (touristy) in the middle of Washington. It kind of reminded me of Frankemuth in Michigan. We stopped for a little dinner, but didn't walk around too much. It looked like it might be fun to come back for a night or something just to check it out a little more. It was super cheesy and over the top touristy, but looked like I could get a kick out of it for a day. When we finally made it back to Seattle, we were all exhausted and stinky, and it was nice to be home after a great weekend!

Play Time!

Liz and Andrew had stayed in Seattle all week, and this weekend was their last weekend there. Before they left I wanted to do a special dinner with them and our other Seattle Auburn Alumni friends! I had found a coupon in The Stranger (a seattle newspaper) for a little cabaret bar right in the Pike Place Market, Can Can Cabaret. After reading some reviews, I decided we should give it a try. It was a little underground eclectic bar that had a cabaret type show while you were eating. The show that we went to happened to be a bollywood spin on Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was definitely amusing. It reminded me of some shows I went to in Auburn. They have different shows every night and I'd really like to try one out that is more of a comedy or acrobatic thing. One of the best things about this place though was the food! Your ticket price comes with $25 worth of food/drinks included. They had about 6 different kinds of mac and cheese which were amazing. We tried a few different kinds, and I think that alone makes me want to go back to the place! It was sooooo good! I tried a little sample of the three cheese, the gorgonzola and pear, and the chipotle cheddar. AMAZING! It was also just a lot of fun to hang out with the awesome group of Auburnites! Liz and Andrew headed back to Atlanta the next morning, so it was good to see them one last time.

Saturday, after watching a disappointing Auburn football game (again!) we went to a game night birthday party which was a BLAST! I love game nights in general, and this was a really great group of people, mostly Ryan's coworkers. We played Scene-It, which I was pretty terrible at since I can rarely remember movies I've seen or actors' names and such. I think I redeemed myself playing Taboo though. That's definitely one of my favorites, and everyone got really into it. Girls won...of course!

Sunday we went to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which I've been wanting to see ever since it came out! It was one of my favorite books when I was little. This was also the first 3D movie I've seen, and it was sooooooo cool! I am definitely a big advocate of seeing every 3D movie that comes out from now on. It was a great movie, especially since I have the sense of humor of a 5 year old, so I thought it was hilarious! It was made even better when the credits rolled and I found out that the monkey, who spoke a whole maybe 5 words, was played by Neil Patrick Harris...awesome. Highly recommended!

We're off like a herd of Canadian Turtles!

This was a very interesting weekend! Saturday morning, Ryan and I got on the ferry bright and early to head towards Victoria, BC. I love being able to do weekend trips to another country. So, it's just Canada, but I still needed to bust out the passport! The ferry was packed with people, mostly runners, heading to Victoria for the Royal Victoria Marathon. The name of the marathon itself just sounds cool! That's why we were heading there too...my first full marathon!! We spent most of the ferry ride consulting the iPhones to keep updated on the Auburn football game. About halfway there though we went into international roaming and it would have been really expensive to keep using it. After dropping off our bags though, we headed straight to a sports bar (the Sticky Wickett...hahaha only in Canada) to watch the rest of the very disappointing game.

A few hours later Liz (a good friend from college), her fiance, and two of her co-workers showed up to join us! The whole reason for this trip was because Liz and I decided back on our girls weekend on the beach that we should do a marathon together, so this was the one that we chose to do. We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening walking around the town, checking out the sights, then loaded up on carbs at a fabulous little italian place. It was getting pretty chilly out, and we ended up getting a table outside so we wouldn't have to wait too long, so the restaurant started handing out snuggies to anyone who wanted them outside. They also had heated toilet seats which I was thoroughly amused by. After dinner we called it a night to rest up for the big runs in the morning. Liz, Andrew, and I were running the full marathon, and Liz's co-workers were running the half marathon. I was planning on waking up around 7am to get ready for the race, but at about 5am I woke up and got really nervous about what I was about to do, and couldn't get anymore sleep. It was an early morning for sure! I think I got a little more energy when I got around all the other people ready to run. The hotel we were staying at (The Fairmont Empress, which was super posh) was close to everything, so we just had to walk around the corner to get to the starting line. After a little warm up run and downing some energy bars and gummies, we were ready to go! Before the race started they had someone sing the canadian national anthem which startled me a little at first as I had forgotten that we were in a different country! It made me giggle a little. Finally we were off...and 4 hours and 45 minutes later we were done! It was perfect weather for a run and the scenery was awesome. When we started, there was a blind lady right in front of us that was running with a guide. How awesome is that to blindly run a marathon?!? In order to entertain myself the whole time, I had downloaded 'The Lost Symbol' to listen to. I think it worked pretty well and kept me at a steady pace the whole time. It all went really well until about the last 6 miles that my legs decided they didn't really want to go any further. So after a painful and slow 6 miles, we were finally done. YAY!

Ryan met me at the finish line and helped me wobble back to the hotel. I've been really bad about cooling down after long runs which usually makes me sick, so this time I just stretched out and took of my shoes to let my tootsies breath and we went for a little walk around town to keep my muscles moving. The rest of the day we all kind of did our own thing to recover from the runs. Lots of resting, eating, and hot tubbing. It felt soooo good and relaxing!

After a good nights sleep Sunday night, we all 6 piled into Liz and Andrew's rental car and headed to the  Butchart Gardens (one of the big attractions around Victoria). It was huge and had a ton of different flowers and plants. Definitely worth a visit. We were all super sore from the day before, so it was a little embarrassing when we had to let significantly older people pass us because we were going to slow down the stairs.

Ryan and I headed back on the ferry Monday night, while the rest of the group stayed on one more night. Unfortunately Ryan had to go into work when we got back late that night and pretty much pulled an all nighter to get some stuff done for Tuesday. What an end to a vacation. I had taken Tuesday off as well, so I had a nice relaxing day to spend in Seattle before heading home. It was an awesome weekend, and it's nice to know that all my running lately finally paid off. We'll see if I get enough energy to try that again anytime soon!