One Year Down; A Lifetime To Go!

This weekend was our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!! I can't believe it's already been a year! It has definitely been quite an adventure this first year and I can't wait to see what the next year holds. Since this was also a holiday weekend (President's day) we decided to celebrate with a little weekend trip to the other side of the mountains. We headed out Saturday morning to end up in Cle Elum where we were staying in a fun little winter resort. We had rented cross country skiis before we left Seattle, so we took a couple of hours to ski along some of the resort's trails. It was so much fun! I think we're convinced that a new set of skiis will be in our near future. 

It was pretty snowy and cold by the time were were done with our first little ski trip so we warmed up in our room and headed out to the spa. They had some fabulous outdoor salt baths for us to relax in! It was still snowing, so it was really fun to be sitting in a hot salt bath while having snow fall on your face. By that time it was dark too so it was just lit by a big fire at the front of the little pool.

Sunday was our official anniversary...yay! After checking out of the resort we headed further east to Quincy, WA where our main destination was Cave B winery on the Columbia River. It was a gorgeous location, and the wine wasn't too shabby either ;) In fact it was good enough for us to join their wine club!! We were convinced because the February shipment (which we got to take home with us) had a special member's only wine that we could only get if we joined. We got to taste a little bit of it and it was good enough to make us want to join! While we were there with the beautiful scenery, we also got our 1 year anniversary photo. I saw this idea on Pinterest and loved it! So each year we'll plan on taking a photo with our photo from the year before wherever we are for that anniversary. So this year we took a photo with our wedding photo at the Cave B winery overlooking the Columbia River! Now we have a tradition to keep up for next year too!

After our wine tasting we continued onto Lake Chelan for the night which was dark by the time we got there so we just wandered around the town for the night. In the morning we got some spectacular views from our hotel over the lake. It was so beautiful. I can definitely tell why it would be a hot spot in the summertime for lake activities. 

We were just staying there for the night to check it out and headed out in the morning towards home with a little stop off in Leavenworth for some more cross country skiing. Again, we are totally sold on this sport and can't wait to do some more!

This was a great weekend to celebrate a great first year of marriage. I still can't believe I've been lucky enough to be married to such an amazing man for a year now. I love him even more now than I did when I said 'I do'. That's such an awesome feeling. I can't wait to see what kind of adventures we get into in the following years. Never a dull moment with this man ;)

We're Gonna be some Super Models!

A few months ago I bought a living social deal for a photo shoot just because it was cheap and fun and I always like having good pictures of us! A few weeks ago, just in the nick of time before it expired, we set up our photoshoot! We decided on the Pioneer Square area of Seattle to get some good views of downtown and old buildings in the background and it was close enough to the waterfront to scurry on over there for a few shots. Anyway, here are a few of my favorites! Also, Mom, I'm in love with that faux fur vest you got me for my birthday!!

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!