Just the Beginning

Kristen and Me

Last weekend was the start of some serious weekend craziness. To preface this weekend, I didn't get home before 10 most nights this past week, so the week itself was pretty exhausting with random socials and frisbee games to go to at night. Friday night we started out with an impromptu dinner. We were planning on meeting up with my sister-in-law Kristen for her sister's karaoke birthday party a little later that night, but we thought we'd grab some dinner across the street first. Turns out we weren't the only ones with that thought, so we ended up running into Kristen and her sister and a few friends for a pre-party dinner! After that we headed across the street to the Rock Box. It's styled like Japanese kareoke where you can rent out a private room to just sing with each other, so we had our own little room with quite a few birthday party people! Kristen and her sister both did a few songs along with several of Katie's other friends. Next time I'm determined to have a few songs ready to do my own rendition ;)

Birthday Girl Singing a Song!

Saturday morning we got up bright and early to meet up with a few of Ryan's Crossfit buddies to head out to South Central Washington for the Spartan race. As a spectator it was especially awesome for me to be driving away from the Seattle rain and into 80s and sunny for the afternoon! The race was about 4 miles longs but the big deal of it was all the obstacles. I hung out with one of the other guys' girlfriends spectating and we could only see a few of the obstacles from the starting area, so I got a few shots of those, but there were a lot of other things involving large amounts of mud throughout the rest of the course. All of the guys sounded like they had an awesome time working together to finish and were super dirty but super motivated to do it again as soon as possible.

The Pre-Race Spartans (still clean)

Ryan climbed the rope to ring the bell

Ryan (followed by his crossfit coach) running to the next obstacle

4 of the guys on their team going over the net

on to the next obstacle

getting dirty again

they all made it!

my hubby ;)

As soon as we got home from that event we headed over to birthday party number 2 for the weekend! This time it was at our friends' house that have an outdoor pizza oven, so every once in a while they have a build your own pizza party. If it wasn't so tedious to use and maintain I would seriously consider investing in a pizza oven as well, the product is divine!

Sunday we spent most of the afternoon cleaning up the house and doing some yardwork in preparation for another little dinner party at our place. Kimberly came into town Sunday evening and will be in Seattle all week for work (boo for the work, yay for being in Seattle!). So she came over along with Kristen and Katie for a little Sisters (and Ryan) cookout. Earlier that afternoon I harvested a bunch of rhubarb and made my first rhubarb crunch from my garden!! It was delicious and so much more rewarding knowing I had grown the rhubarb myself too! Since this is just the first year of my plants, they were pretty small so I barely had enough for a crunch, but hopefully I'll get a few more harvests this year and even more next year! It was a fun dinner and great to see Kristen and Katie, and I get to see lots more of Kimberly this week and especially next weekend for our next adventure!

RHUBARB CRUNCH

Combine with pastry cutter:

2 c. oats
1 ½ c. flour
1 ½ c. brown sugar
¾ c. butter

Put half of mixture in 9 x 13-greased pan. Pat to form crust. Cover with rhubarb mixture. Top with remaining crumb mixture. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes

Rhubarb mixture:

8-c. rhubarb (cut in 1-inch pieces)
1 ½ c. sugar mixed with 1-t. cinnamon