Maui Wowie!

What an awesome week we had last week!! We went to Maui for a wedding week for one of Ryan's cousins. It has just started to get into winter weather (rain) in Seattle, so it was perfect timing to jet off to 80 degrees and sunshine for the week! We got there and checked into the hotel Saturday evening and hung out at the poolside happy hour until the rest of the wedding group arrived. You can't beat starting out a vacation sipping drinks with this view:

Sunday we all woke up bright and early thanks to all the time zone changes. I actually had to force myself to stay in bed until it was actually light enough outside to go for a run. We spent a few hours running and doing a little crossfit workout by the water before getting ready for a pool day. The resort we stayed in had 4 different pools. Two were by the bar that were open for everyone, one was an amazing infinity pool that was just for adults, and the last one had a sweet play structure and water slides for kids! Luckily we had a small child with us so it wasn't too weird that we were fully utilizing the water slides. It was great fun!

Monday was the official wedding day! Ryan and the guys took off in the morning to do a little hiking and cliff jumping. I spent most of the day hanging out at the pool with the bride before it was time to get ready. Once I was ready, I got the be the pseudo photographer for the rest of the ladies as they got ready and the bride had her hair and makeup done. We also had to get the little flower girl all done up for the big event. Just before sunset we all headed over to a 'secret beach' were the ceremony was held. It was a super cute little ceremony right on the water with all of us standing around them as the sun was setting. I can't wait to see all of their official photographs because the sunset that night was UNREAL! One of the best one I have ever seen. Perfect timing for all their wedding pics. Even my iPhone pics turned out amazing!

After a night of celebrating, we took it easy Tuesday morning until it was time for our next adventure...zip-lining! It was a fun thing that the whole family could do together which was awesome.

Tuesday was also the groom's dad's birthday, so we celebrated afterwards with a little mexican fiesta! Love me a margarita!

The night ended with a very sleepy little girl who needed Ryan to carry her back to the room...how cute ;)

Wednesday was another relax day at the resort. I really liked this resort, I felt like there was a ton to do there, it was gorgeous all the time, and people brought us drinks anywhere we went. I could get used to this!

Our last full day was a crazy fun filled day of excitement! We started out bright and early with a little snorkeling trip. I'm so glad we got to fit this in especially since I now have my sweet underwater camera! We started out at a little crescent shaped island off the coast. There were lots of fish and even a couple of eels at the bottom of the ocean. From there we went a little closer to the shore where there were sea turtles EVERYWHERE! I was actually a little nervous I was going to run into one at one point. It was so cute swimming with them!

The final shebang of the week was the whole group going to the Luau Thursday night! We had a big ol' roasted pig and lots of delicious drinks and a couple hours of entertainment. So much fun and a great way to top off the trip!

We hung out by the pool for a few more hours with a few of our group. The pools were soooo pretty at night too! Friday morning we all met for one last breakfast before packing up to head out. We definitely lucked out having the shortest trip to and from Hawaii. I love that it's faster (and often cheaper) to go to Hawaii than to the east coast from Seattle. I definitely want to make this a more often trip. Also, if you can believe it from seeing all the pictures that I did post, when I got home my camera card got corrupted and I seem to have lost about 200 pictures. I recovered about half of them, but there's still a lot missing. I'll keep working on getting those to show up again, but at least I have all the ones that I have! I guess I'll just have to go back for some more. 

Now it's back to work and back to 50s and rain again. Can't wait for our next trip!

Pumpkin Picking!

Sunday afternoon I hung out with 3 of my middle school buddies and went pumpkin picking!! Although it might be a little premature for pumpkin carving for halloween, I was super pumped to pick up a few pumpkins for some fall decorations at our house! Before we did the actual pumpkin picking, we wandered through a couple of corn mazes. It was such a beautiful day out and so much fun to wander aimlessly through corn towering above our heads while catching up!

Our next wandering was through the pumpkin patches! There were so many to choose from! We filled up our wagon with our selections end ended our trip at the little farmers market at the entrance.

photo courtesy of Leigha ;)

Also, Leigha might have the cutest baby ever. Max was so great the whole time we were out!

Another Weekend...

Just a few fun pictures of what I've been up to the last week. This past week in Crossfit we worked on maxing out our weights on different lifts. Since it was my first time doing that I PR'd on all of them, but I think I did pretty well overall on them considering it's only my 3rd month of this stuff! Here's me maxing out my deadlift...205#!

Sunday I had my first mountain biking experience. Ryan and his buddy took me out to a nearby mountain and I tried out Ryan's old bike. We only went on the easiest trail this time, but I started to get the hang of it pretty quickly and it was a lot of fun! I won't be doing any crazy jumps and time soon, but it was fun just going up and down the mountain. 

Momma in Town!

I got an extra long weekend this past weekend to spend time with my little mom! She flew into town Wednesday night pretty late. Thursday afternoon I introduced mom to Crossfit! I love that Crossfit is something anyone can do and you can easily modify each workout to fit people of all different fitness levels. I got a good quick workout in and mom got to learn about muscle strengthening, which is super important!

Friday was a big day. We drove over to the north side of Mt Rainier and did the Noble Knob hike. It was a beautiful sunny and 80 degree day which was awesome! As we got to the top of the ridge we also got some great views of Mt Rainier. It was a little hazy at the peak though so it was a little tough to see. Ben had lots of fun running around like crazy too.

When we got home we cleaned up and got ready for a fancy dinner out! Our fall wine shipment had just come in and the place we go to pick it up is a nice little tapas restaurant/wine bar. We figured since we needed to go pick up our wine we should go get some food too. It was also a good excuse to get mom all dressed up ;)

After our dinner we got to pick up Lauren from the airport! She got in pretty late and we had all had a pretty long day, so we went back to the house for the night. Saturday morning the three of us road tripped it down to Portland for the night. Again it was an amazingly beautiful day out, so it was awesome wandering around the city. We started out walking along the waterfront. I love the portland waterfront. If we had more time I would have loved to just lay down on one of the huge grassy lawns and read a book. We wandered through the Saturday markets which was full of all kinds of art and food and ended up at Voodoo Donuts which is a famous little shop full of bizarre little creations. We got a half down donuts to take back to the hotel. After dropping off donuts we found a little bar/cafe to grab some lunch in and sit out on their patio for a while.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around the city including a lengthy stop in to Powell's bookstore. We ended up at the Portland City Grill on the 30th floor of one of the buildings downtown (thanks to Leigha's suggestion!) for happy hour and to get a great view of the sun setting over the city.

We spent the rest of the night eating donuts, drinking wine, and playing games in the hotel room. So much fun! Sunday morning we headed out of the city to a big waterfall about half an hour away. We took the mile hike up to the top of it and had some great views of the Columbia River. 

We hurried back to Seattle Sunday night so Ryan and I could make it to our Lindy Hop Dance class. Lauren headed back to SF Monday morning and Mom and I spent the day getting her hair did, shopping, and wandering around the neighborhood. This morning in the wee hours I took Mom to the airport on the way to work. It was a great little vacation, I always love visitors!