Stairs

Last weekend we did our stair climb that I mentioned a few posts back! When we first signed up I was a little nervous having never done something like that before. The first few weeks I tried to do a little training on that stairmaster at the gym. That made me even more nervous...that machine is tough! Turns out it's actually tougher than the real thing! I had no idea what kind of time I could get or how to pace myself on something like that. The stairwells were really small too so it was tough trying to pass people which we had to do quite a bit of since we were actually trying to get decent times. In the end I made it up the 1311 steps in just over 13 minutes. Ryan finished in about 12.5 minutes. Both of us got to the top thinking we probably could have pushed a little harder for better times and weren't really even all that pooped. I think it was a pretty good first try though, maybe we'll do it again next year and do even better!

We signed up for the event with two of my favorite middle school buddies, Sarah and Leigha. Photos are courtesy of Leigha's iPhone, thanks! I think we all had a great time and I'm so proud of everyone for finishing it! Go team!

Swish Swish in Winthrop

This post would have come a few days ago if Comcast was a little more awesome and didn't decide to only provide us the internet on certain days which apparently did not include the first half of this week. 

Last weekend we got to bust out our new skis again! Actually we went on a bit of a business trip which included hanging out with some pretty awesome clients of Ryans. We met them out in Winthrop (about 5 hours east of Seattle) to visit a site they had purchased a few months ago and are working with Ryan to design a vacation/retirement home. Winthrop is an awesome little town right at the base of the mountains with all kinds of outdoor activities. Last time we were there it was a little later in the year so we did a little hiking. This time everything was still covered in snow so we went skiing. Friday evening when we got out there, we took the clients over to the Rolling Huts to show them a few local examples of modern architecture and get an idea of what kinds of materials they were interested in. The clients also have a boxer and we had brought our dogs out, so Ben and their boxer had a blast chasing each other around.

Saturday morning Ryan and I met up with the clients for a few hours of cross country skiing. They have also just been getting into it, so it was fun doing a few little casual loops around the area on a beautiful day at the base of huge mountains. Later that day we met up with some other friends as well and all went on a site visit to the clients' site on the site of a wooded mountain. It's a great lot with lots of potential for sneaking a view of nearby ridges in the mountain. I can't wait to see what they come up with!

Saturday was also St. Patrick's day so I had to be a little festive dressing in green and letting Tara show off a little leprechaun hat ;) That night we made a big dinner while Ryan worked with the clients going over potential idea for their site. It was a great time with new and old friends!

Sunday we headed back towards Seattle with a little stop off mid way in Leavenworth for a little more skiing. By this point my muscles were aching from the day before and the snow was starting to melt a little so we just did a quick loop and headed home. 

In the Navy

I have officially put in my request to separate from the Navy! Pending approval, I should be back to my old civilian self in January of 2013. Having said that, I realize I don't have that many photos of myself in uniform doing Navy kind of stuff. This past week I got a few good ones!

Every couple of months all of the officers get to spend the day together doing something fun/educational. This time we went on a tour of some of the oldest dams in the state, the Cushman Dams. Here's the group that made it out for that day of fun that just happened to be a gorgeous day with some great views ;)

This weekend we also had a big celebration for the Birthday of the civil engineer corps at the Seabee Ball. One of the officers' wives snapped this shot of us, so thanks to Michelle for that! It was actually a pretty good time, but it drives me crazy that I have to wear a sensible suit uniform when all the other ladies get to get all dressed up in ball gowns...not fair! Ryan looked smashing in his suit too!

Whistler, BC

We finally made it up to Whistler for a little fun in the snow. I can't believe it's taken us this long to make it up there and now that we went, we're definitely hooked! It was so much fun! We got up there late Wednesday night and did most of the fun on Thursday. It was a perfect day, sunny skies, and not many people on the mountains since it was a weekday. We spent the whole day snowboarding, and the mountain was amazing. There were so many runs from the very top that we went all the way up there and it took a good amount of time to get all the way back down. I love that, being able to spend so much more time riding down the mountain than riding the lifts up it. 

For some reason after about 6 hours of snowboarding, we though it was a great idea to do some night cross country skiing. As I mentioned before we're pretty sold on that sport as well, so we ended up getting our own skis before this trip. It's perfect timing since all of the end of season sales are going on now. We have a couple more cross country ski adventures planned in the next few weeks too. We ended up getting the skate skis, which are a little more difficult than the classic skis that we had rented the last time. It was an interesting time trying to figure them out, and maybe not the best idea after snowboarding all day. Needless to say we (and especially I) were really sore the next day! In fact, I was too sore to really try to do much of anything the next day. It wasn't that great of a day out either, so I passed up the mountain while Ryan gave it another go.