The last couple of weeks have flown by! So much so that I forgot to document them. The weather has been really nice – we even got two legitimate Midwest-style thunderstorms – but it looks like fall is at our heels and will come in this week with a vengeance. I’m guessing it will be short-lived, though. We just returned from a long weekend in the Oregon wine country {more on that soon…} and we are looking forward to quite a busy week ahead!
This week we are celebrating Carrie’s 30th birthday, working hard {big news!: Alex got a VERY exciting promotion at his job… I know he won’t be happy with me for boasting about that but I don’t much care. He is an exceptionally hard worker and I know he is very talented at his job and I am grateful that his team is using this promotion to recognize his accomplishments.}. We will also be welcoming Alex’s parents who are coming for an extended visit beginning this weekend. Summer isn’t over yet – we’ve still got a lot of fun things on our docket. But for now, here’s what we’ve been up to over the last few weeks…
I am in half-marathon training mode now… I had a beautiful landscape while on my 8 mile run last week and I can only hope for the same view for this week’s 9 mile run. I have been having some issues with my IT band and hip flexors. My friend Ryan, a physical therapist, gave me some stretches and exercises to do and they seem to be helping so far.
Our good friends Ryan and Mary are expecting twins in December! They hosted a gender reveal party a couple weeks ago to share the exciting news that they’ll be having two boys!
{Gender reveal cuteness!}{Carrie and me with the mama to-be! We are excited to be hosting Mary’s baby shower together in October.}{We had a great day in the sun at a recent Sounders soccer game.}
These two crack me up more and more each day. We have become quite lax in allowing Jackson on the bed because it doesn’t seem to bother Henry too much. I am not enjoying having to wash our quilt more often, but there are worse things to whine about…
My freshman and sophomore year roommate from Iowa State came to visit us last week! We had such a great time catching up with Rachel and reminiscing about the “good old days” of college. Rachel, Alex and I all met on the same day, so we’ve got a lot of history together!
I think it’s safe to say we’ve passed the “mid-summer” point now that Labor Day weekend is on the horizon. In any case, Alex and I are coming off of a quiet, relaxing weekend at home. We’ve both been pretty exhausted with everything we’ve had going on lately so it was perfect to get to wake up in our own bed on Saturday and Sunday and not have an agenda whatsoever!
{lunch making station… it has been weeks since I’ve taken the time on a Sunday to get Alex’s lunches prepped for the week!}
We did some cleaning around the house – nothing monumental, but we spruced up the carpet and rugs with our carpet cleaner. The victory round went to the new Bona “mop” though – holy, holy cow – our floors have never been cleaner since we moved in {and probably not before that!}. Previously we had used the Swiffer Wet Jet, which we thought did an okay job. Now the Bona puts the Swiffer to shame. I highly recommend it for cleaning wood or tile floors!!!
{Alex’s lunches are the talk of the table 🙂 }
In other news, the weather has been really nice for the last week, but the temps are on their way back up. Both Alex and I are beyond ready for fall. We’re expecting to have a pretty nice fall here in the Pacific Northwest, but I am longing for cooler temps so we can park it in front of the fire with a big juicy bottle of red wine, a hearty dinner and leg warmers and/or slippers. And apple cider. And pumpkin bread. And soup. And the list goes on…
{homemade pickles!}
My half marathon training is going really well! I did a six mile run last week {without walking!} and am coming up on my seven mile run this week. If I make it past six miles, that’s my “furthest distance I’ve ever run” mark. My race is quite hilly so I’ve been mixing in hilly runs once a week in addition to a long run and another shorter run. So far I am feeling great… Now I just need to double last week’s run in four weeks and I’ll be golden…
{slow and steady, but ready to keep running!}
One of the themes of my summer has been mole removal. I have been blessed with many, many moles all over my body, and unfortunately a handful of them are ones I really don’t want to stick around, so I’ve had several doctors appointments throughout the summer to work on removing them. One of them; however, turned out to be pretty severely “precancerous” and required the doctor to go back and take out a 5mm section around the mole to ensure all of the cells were removed {which they were}. That was a bit more dramatic in the recovery.
{my stitches… I ended up finding out that I am allergic to the adhesive in one of the bandages I was using and it caused a really awful rash all over my arm! That was by far the worst part of the whole ordeal.}
As a result of the mole removal and “precancerous” diagnosis I have been educating myself on a few things, namely sunscreen and natural products. I essentially never wore sunscreen until July this year because I almost never get sunburned and I had heard mixed things about sunscreen giving you cancer, so it seemed like a lose-lose to me. Now I know that you need sunscreen to protect against both UVA and UVB rays, which in themselves can cause cancer, and I know that it’s important to look for titanium dioxide and zinc oxide as the “sunscreen” ingredients to avoid getting cancer from wearing sunscreen. Oye ve. Thanks to my new super helpful friends at EWG I am now a more informed sunscreen, household products and skincare consumer.
{my scar is healing REALLY well! I’ve been using shea butter to help with the process…}
Presently, I am feeling duped by the “big” cosmetics, cleaning and skin care industries. I’ve been extremely cautious of what I eat for several years now, but I almost feel like this is a more challenging issue to tackle than food. I had previously purchased big name products and am now horrified to read about the harmful effects of some ingredients lurking in them.
I know a lot of this issue is fear mongering and this industry’s own marketing, but at the same time I think there is a lot of sense in seeking out more natural, non-toxic products. I mean, our skin is a living, breathing part of our body – whatever we put on it gets absorbed inside our bodies. I’d rather avoid getting cancer if I can help it.
For this summer’s annual camping trip we headed east to Lake Wenatchee State Park. Our trip commenced on Friday evening when we met our friends Mary and Ryan, as well as Ali, Tyler and their two kids Vivian and Conner for a weekend of sun, dust and lake time.
The Millers and Furtwanglers met each other at our holiday party last December and we’ve had a few other social outings where the two couples connected so it was fun to have them both join Alex and me for a weekend trip. It was extra fun to have the kids there too! 🙂
{The Millers}{the Furtwanglers}
The weather was HOT to say the least. We were extremely grateful we had two canopies to provide a bit of shade over our sunny campsite. The lake provided some reprieve from the heat too.
This campground was great for families, as it had a beach and a great playground, along with running water and showers, but with all of those amenities came a lot of people and not a lot of privacy. It turned out there was a major lake access point at the campground and Lake Wenatchee is a big fishing lake, so at about 4:30 a.m. the fishing boats started to arrive…
{Lake Wenatchee}
Because of the heat we weren’t too motivated to do much of anything, let alone go for a hike. Our full day on Saturday was spent primarily down by the lake. We rented a paddleboard and traded off taking spins around the lake. Little Vivian and her mom, Ali, went out together, and then Jackson hopped on for a short time with Alex, too.
We have had such a dry, hot summer in Washington, and because of that, the wildfire danger is extremely high. There are burn bans all over the state, which means no campfires. Thankfully they allow propane fires, so we brought our new propane fire ring so we could still have a campfire at our site. It really made such a difference to be able to have a campfire, even though it was controlled by a propane tank.
Each of the couples brought their dog, so we had three canines running around the place. It’s always fun to see the progression Jackson makes year-to-year with activities that we do annually, and he did make a lot of progress in maturation from last year’s camping trip, but he had a lot of trouble settling into this campground. Jackson and Berkeley were on high alert Saturday morning, which made for a very early morning start for the Millers and us. It ultimately took five trips down to the water to go swimming before Jackson was tired enough to conk out.
We had a really nice weekend away with our friends. Our camping trips and little jaunts around Washington always make Alex and me grateful for the beautiful state we live in. The exploration is endless and our list of places to visit seems to grow faster than we can keep up with! Thanks Millers and Furts for a great weekend trip!
Alex and I just returned from a ten day jaunt around the Midwest. We bounced around from place to place in Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota and ultimately ended up staying in six cities across the three states. The primary purpose of our trip was to attend a wedding in Illinois one weekend and a wedding in Minnesota the following. We decided to turn it into a ten day trip to squeeze in some time with some family and friends during the week between the weddings.
{picturesque view in Minnesota}
The trip began in Illinois where we were attending Alex’s high school friend “AK” {Adam}’s wedding very close to the town where Alex’s parents live. We had a fun day with Alex’s parents before heading north to Alex’s hometown of DeKalb where the rehearsal dinner was taking place on Friday evening. It was really nice to get a chance to re-connect with several of Alex’s friends from high school.
{Alex and AK in front of AK’s sporty car}
The wedding took place on Saturday at Fisherman’s Inn in Elburn, Illinois. It was a beautiful venue and a gorgeous day for a wedding, albeit a bit muggy! The wedding was quite large, I think there were more than 300 people there to celebrate Adam and Katherine, but the venue did a great job accommodating all of the guests. Alex got a chance to spend some quality time with a bunch of friends from high school. I had met his friends before but this trip reminded me just how nice they all are. He really has a great group of friends back in Illinois.
{the grounds at Fisherman’s Inn}{the wedding goers! Alex sure made a handsome groomsman if I do say so myself! :)}
After stopping at AK and Katherine’s post-wedding brunch and visiting Nana {Alex’s grandma} for tea on Sunday morning we headed up to “the lake” for a few days. Alex’s parents have a lake home in southern Wisconsin and it had our name on it!
{Lake Delavan, Wisconsin}{loving the time out on the boat – we took several boat rides and got to test out the new waverunner!}{me and my beautiful mother in-law!}
{we saved our water ski day for the last morning and all four of us took turns water skiing.}
Our time in Illinois came to a close quite quickly. We spent our last night in Chicago with Alina and Alberto and got to stay in their new apartment! It was the most relaxing part of our trip because of the time at the lake, and it was also really, really enjoyable to spend such meaningful time with Alex’s high school friends. They are such genuine, considerate people and they’re great friends, too!
We landed in Minnesota on Wednesday afternoon and headed to the cabinet showroom. Yep. That was our first stop. My brother is remodeling our bathroom this fall and he wanted us to check out some cabinet options so we checked that off the list right away. The rest of the day was spent with my dad.
{we had a really nice walk around Lake Harriett in Minneapolis}{after our walk we headed over to Loring Park where Alex and I got to meet my dad’s partner and enjoy a really nice dinner at Loring Kitchen & Bar}
Thursday was my mom’s day. It got a bit ridiculous when I started scheduling everything out to make sure I fit in time with my parents, so my mom got one whole day and my dad got two half days. That’s the way it has to be sometimes!
{We headed to Taylor’s Falls, about 30-45 minutes outside the Twin Cities, which is on the St Croix River, for a hike}{we were going to kayak down part of the river but one of us got a little too sunburned on the boat in Wisconsin…}{After our hike we came back to my mom’s house for some time in the pool! It was just what we needed – a nice cooldown and relaxation time. My friend Kelsey and her boyfriend Franc joined us later on for dinner.}{I also got to enjoy my brother’s company that night, too!}
For the second part of my dad’s day we went out to breakfast, stopped by my friend Cammy’s new fixer-upper {I cannot wait to see the finished product!!} and then took a stroll through the White Bear Lake Farmer’s Market. It was a nice leisurely day before we had to head out to Lake Minnetonka for the rehearsal dinner for Sammy and Amy’s wedding.
{the rehearsal dinner took place on a boat called Lady of the Lake, which was chartered for a 3-hour cruise around Lake Minnetonka. Alex had never been on the lake before, and I hadn’t been since I was a kid. It was super nostalgic for me, and it was fun to see how much Alex enjoyed it too!}{Sammy, whose name is actually John, and Alex were nextdoor neighbors our sophomore year of college. Sammy’s roommate, Phil, was a high school classmate of mine. It goes without saying that because of their similar senses of humor, the three guys became great friends very quickly! We are so happy for Sammy and Amy and it was a pleasure to go back and attend their wedding.}
Saturday was hands-down the most crazy day of our trip. It was a really fun day filled with seeing old friends, but we bounced around from the northwest corner of the Twin Cities to the northeast corner and then back down to the southwest corner for the wedding before heading to the airport at 5:15 a.m. on Sunday morning. Ay caramba!
{Steph and Molly came over to Sarah’s house for brunch with their kids on Saturday morning. Sarah and Mike live near where we were on Lake Minnetonka the night before, so they graciously drove us to and from the rehearsal and we spent the night at their beautiful home. I hadn’t met Steph’s seven month-old son yet, so this was a perfect chance to do so!}{After brunch we trekked across town back to Mahtomedi, where I grew up, for my friend Kailey’s son’s first birthday party. I am really glad we squeezed this in. It was a perfect lake setting and I loved catching up with my girlfriends!}{this was the most relaxing first birthday party I’ve ever been to!}{we ended our evening at Sammy and Amy’s wedding in Chaska. We got to catch up with Phil and Anja, two of my high school classmates, and Phil was Sammy’s roommate when they lived next door to Alex. It was really great to get a chance to spend time with them. Yes, we had a little fun in the photo booth!}
The trip overall was fantastic and crazy. It’s never very relaxing when we go back to the Midwest, but I feel like we did manage to squeeze in a few days where we didn’t have a ton going on. I am so unbelievably grateful for the friends we got to see while we were back. It’s truly incredible and makes my eyes water a bit just thinking about how many wonderful life-long friends we both have and how easy it is for us to go a year {or several!} without seeing each other and pick things up like we saw them yesterday. I especially enjoyed spending time with Alex’s high school friends – it’s really rare and I so, so, so enjoyed them. I only wish we could have seen all of our friends and family members, but it’s next to impossible to make it work when we’re back for such a short time.
Thanks to our friends and family for a wonderful time! We hope to see you all soon {come visit us!} 🙂
The home theme of this year is to redecorate our plain Jane master bedroom and remodel our upstairs bathroom. We just entered phase one of the bedroom redecoration… our new bed has arrived! Now that it’s here and amazing we are very motivated to finish the process.
{BEFORE!}{New bed!}
Alex and I got a lot of use out of our IKEA dresser and nightstands. We bought them when we were 22, the summer we moved to Seattle. These pieces have served us well and housed a whole lot of clothes. The time has come; however, to pass these pieces of furniture on to someone else.
We ordered some really fun new nightstands, which won’t arrive until September, and we have selected a new dresser which we plan on purchasing sometime down the road. While we impatiently wait for the new nightstands we are planning on collecting some new decor and art to tie everything together and create a polished look in our master bedroom. Both of us are really looking forward to seeing how much these changes will impact the overall look and feel of the room!
{can’t wait to see what the new nightstands do to pull things together}
Hopefully we’ll finish off the bedroom/bathroom remodel by the holidays this year. We are in the process of nailing down a design to completely overhaul the bathroom and add some early 1900s charm and character while making it more functional and modern. Stay tuned for more progress…
Our fourth of July weekend was super low-key, which ended up being really nice. We were pretty lethargic due to the heat, plus many of our friends were out of town, so it was nice to have an excuse to lay low.
{our “ghetto curtains” also known as beach towels – we needed to cover up the windows in the west-facing closets as a way to keep the heat out of the house}
In case you’re wondering, it’s still hot here in Seattle, though we’ve gotten a little respite from the heat the last two days. The highs have only been in the mid-80s, which has been amazing.
{88-90 was the average inside temperature from around 3-7 p.m. all week and weekend}
The forecast suggests we only have two more days in the 90s and then we dip down into the low 80s and upper 70s for the next ten days. I’m really looking forward to our house cooling down a bit and being able to turn on the stove without fear of our house exceeding 90 degrees inside {which we were thankfully able to prevent!}.
{pasta salads, green salads and grilling have been the name of the game these last 3 weeks! do you like our fourth of july table?!}
We didn’t do a ton during the long weekend. One of the big highlights was our hike to Snow Lake on Sunday. In an attempt to beat the heat we headed east to the mountains and went for a moderate hike near Alpental ski resort {the trailhead is in the parking lot of the ski resort}. It’s too bad that there ended up being a temperature inversion which in turn caused it to be hotter in the mountains than at sea level. So much for escaping the heat!
{sunny, rocky hike up!}
The hike was gorgeous. The views were endless and I just can’t get enough of the evergreens and cedar trees that dot the mountainside here in Washington.
{pit stop in the shade… ahhhh 🙂 }
Once we made it within sight of Snow Lake Jackson had a reinvigorated sense of purpose and was determined to make it down to that darn lake. So determined that he was willing to take Alex down to get there! I really thought he was going to just high tail it off the side of the trail and make a beeline for the lake! Thankfully he saved that for once we got down lower towards the lake {you had to hike up and over a ridge and then down into the basin of the lake}.
{view from the top of the ridge looking down at the lake}
Jackson enjoyed some swimming time while we ate lunch and collectively cooled off. That dog just cannot get enough of the water!
{I think he could have stayed in the lake all day if we would have let him}
While we really enjoyed the views and scenery, I don’t think we’re going to be in a hurry to get back on that trail again. It was quite rocky, the trail was very uneven and it was very crowded. There was also very little shade, which made it a challenge when it was so hot out. Both of us were really glad we did the hike – it had been on our list for at least a year or two – but we’ll find a different one for next time.
{such a beautiful escape from the city – we are so, so, so grateful to live in such a state so full of natural beauty}
Other than our hike, we tried out two new restaurants in Madison Park and Madison Valley, two adjoining neighborhoods to ours, and we spent a couple hours in Woodinville doing a wine tasting, picking up our wine club release and scouting out different neighborhoods out there.
We started off the week, though, with a Mariners game! It was a fun little Monday night event to kick start the week…
It’s June and we’re nine days into summer. I don’t think I’ve felt like we’re in that stretch of hot summer days that don’t seem to end quite this early before. It’s too early to complain, plus it’s not really my style to complain about sunshine and heat, but we are working hard at finding creative solutions to staying cool in our hotbox house.
{Henry and Jackson parked in front of the fan}
Last week I shared that I had found some new sources and inspiration for how to consume the great produce in our CSA. I’m pleased to report that I had at least one salad every single day last week. If you know much about me, you know that is very strange – it’s unusual for me to have a salad a month let alone a day. But, lo and behold, I have started to come over to the dark side and I’ve got to say I’m enjoying it!
{checking out the goods! so enjoy having salad as a light, “no cook” meal in the heat.}{as a “no cook” idea I got a rotisserie chicken from whole foods that I can use in a few different meals this week. tonight’s menu is all about grilling, though!}
As another follow up to last week’s post, I’m pleased to report that Alex and I have gotten ourselves into more of a consistent routine, particularly with Spanish. We discussed a daily Spanish schedule with our tutor, and she really upped the homework and told us we need to spend at least an hour a day on Spanish in order to make progress.
Additionally, I feel like I’m starting to get into a rhythm with my own personal routine. My work schedule slowed down last week and allowed me some consistency. I went for three great runs last week, and this week I plan on starting to increase the length of one of my runs to start officially training for my half marathon this September. I’ll basically just run 2-3 short runs each week {2-3 miles} and one “long” run each week, where I increase the long run by one mile each week, starting with running 4 miles this week.
Over the weekend, we did find some fun ways to beat the heat. On Friday night we grabbed a quick dinner at one of Tom Douglas’ new spots, TanakaSan, before catching the new Jurassic Park movie at a fancy theater called Cinerama in downtown. The food at TanakaSan was really fun and different- we shared the Osaka Pancake, which was fantastic, and I had a Hawaiian burger, which was amazing. It was nice to have a fun date night – I couldn’t think of the last time I went to a movie! And we both enjoyed the movie – different parts, though 🙂
{just in time… I ordered new natural sunscreen and bug spray. anxious to try them both out!}
Saturday was a day of running around. We took Jackson down to the lake for a quick swim and then took care of a few things around the house.
{tested out our new griddle – turns out, it is super handy to make pancakes on a griddle rather than a pan!}{using my CSA and farmer’s market berries to make a cobbler}{a “quint” berry cobbler sounded pretty good… too bad I was a little overzealous and accidentally doubled the amount of butter in the crumble topping. oops! I have never said math was my strong suit… oh, and the cobbler still tasted good!}
Later on, we headed over to the Eastside to run some errands before meeting our friend Ali at Chateau Ste Michelle for their member appreciation concert. Ali and Tyler have been inviting us to attend this particular concert with them for four years now {they are wine club members at CSM} and the concerts are so fun! This year, a Beatles cover band was playing. Sadly, Tyler missed out because he was home sick.
{enjoying our picnic and thankful the sun went behind the trees!}
We arrived early so we could partake in the free wine tasting and get set up and start eating our picnic. Each year, though, we get shown up by fancy people with incredible picnic sets. And while we had kind of a fancy picnic, too, we were definitely shown up! Next year we will have a table!
{this was seriously someone’s picnic! can you believe they brought a plant inside a watermelon…!?}
On Sunday morning I took Jackson for a long run down along the lake, followed by a quick swim for him. Just as I was arriving home it started to thunder! Thankfully a little storm blew through and the temperature dropped and the wind picked up so our house cooled off a bit {to 78 degrees}.
{he never can make up his mind whether he wants to be inside or out!}
That afternoon we headed to Magnuson Park to attend Eat, Run, Hope, an event in support of fetal health. Several of my friends have suffered through pregnancy loss in varying forms, so this was one little way I could give back in support of fetal research. Plus, it was a great event with amazing food tastings from some of the best chefs in Seattle.
{we got to spend the afternoon with this cool dude – Conner is Ali’s 13-month old and he is the most chill child I’ve ever met!}{Vivian, Ali’s 2 1/2-year old, kept us entertained all afternoon. Viv is unbelievably cute and has an enormous personality. somehow she ended up with an arm painting instead of on her face?}
This week is moderately busy with some fun outdoor activities planned. We are in town for the 4th {I think we’re the only ones who are!} and looking forward to crossing some more of our summer bucket list items off our list.
Other than our recent trips to Chicago and Lake Chelan, we’ve certainly kept busy! The weather in Seattle has been unbelievably amazing the last several months. It sure seems like it’s going to be a HOT summer – highs in the 90s are forecast for this week {average late July/August temps are in the high 70s}.
We recently acquired some new outdoor pillows for our patio table chairs. I love setting up my “office” in the backyard when it’s nice out, but sitting with a wooden back on the chair was getting old, so now I can work in comfort outside! We also finally got some zero-gravity reclining chairs for our backyard, too, finally, which are ah-mazing!
Since early April, Alex and I have been having a once-weekly Spanish lesson with our Spanish tutor, Elizabeth. We are definitely getting more comfortable speaking Spanish, but struggle to work it into our weekly routine to practice enough to really be making faster progress.
Along those same lines, one of my goals is to get into a good rhythm this week. I was anticipating having a much more low-key work schedule this summer but that has proven to be quite the opposite. I’ve had a ton of meetings and just a lot going on, so I have been feeling like each day is so different it’s been hard to get into a good schedule. I’ve got a half marathon to train for, Alex still needs to train for his bike ride in August, and I really need to get back into a good Pilates and yoga groove. It’s amazing how un-motivated I have been since leaving my Pilates studio in March. It’s not the same bouncing around to different studios all the time – kind of a lack of accountability, almost.
Last week marked the first week of our CSA {Community Supported Agriculture – we get a box of produce from a local farm each week}! I absolutely love our CSA – most CSAs are “farmer’s choice” which means you don’t choose what’s in your box, but ours allows us to pick and choose from their crops with what we want based on what is available and in season. This year I am really striving to try new things. In our first shipment we got fava beans, cipollini onions and kale, none of which I had cooked with or eaten. We also splurged and got some dairy with our CSA too {actually, it’s not even a splurge – it’s less expensive than the grocery store} – I ordered chocolate milk, regular milk and butter. There’s really nothing like that butter! I might even add eggs to our share, too. We’ll see…
I’ve been trying to eat lighter and more real foods lately. I think up until the last few weeks most people would agree that I ate pretty well, but I still have some work to do. I think I eat too much bread and too much meat and not enough leafy greens, vegetables and whole wheat, as opposed to refined white flour. I’ve been trying to incorporate more salads into my lunch routine as a great way to get more greens and veggies, and so far it’s going better than I expected. Now my biggest challenge is coming up with “no-cook” dinners because it’s really going to be a summer where it will be too hot to cook in the house. I think I see a gas grill in our future?!
{one of my favorite “real food” cookbooks with great recipes for produce}{found this gem of a magazine at Whole Foods last week – can’t wait to try the recipes inside!}
All in all, life is good. We’ll be in town for the next few weekends, enjoying all that our beautiful city has to offer, and catching up with some friends and yardwork.
Lake Chelan has been on our “to visit” list for several years and now that we’ve been, I can’t believe it took us this long to make it happen. At 55 miles long, Lake Chelan is the largest lake in Washington and is located in the middle of the state, about 3 hours east of Seattle. The lake is extremely deep {apparently “chelan” means deep lake or something like that and is pronounced “shuh-lan” – with the “a” being like “apple”} and is surrounded on both sides by beautiful deserty mountains. The lake is pretty populated in certain areas and is also known for its cute, charming towns and abundance of wineries – it is in Washington wine country, after all.
{the resort we stayed at}
This trip was extremely impromptu and planned entirely by Alex. He and his friend Nigel signed up for the Lake Chelan Rotary Century bike ride, a very challenging 100 mile bike ride around the area. Since Alex was planning the trip he was in charge of figuring out our lodging arrangements and boy did he deliver.
{we stayed in “the pavilion” cabin, which was amazingly awesome}
I was especially impressed given the last minute nature of our trip, but he found an adorable place called Kelly’s Resort, which is a waterfront resort that has a bunch of stand-alone cabins, a beach, walking trails through the woods and it just oozes charm and character. It really reminded me of my family’s lake home in Minnesota. We really lucked out, too, because this was the last weekend of their “off” season rates, so we got a great price for the cabin.
We made the 3 hour trip over to Chelan on Friday afternoon and miraculously didn’t hit any traffic at all. Once we got settled into our cabin we headed down to the bottom side of the lake to pick up Alex’s biking packet and meet Nigel and Jolene for dinner. We settled on a cute pizza place called Local Myth and really enjoyed our dinner, though were disappointed to have been seated in the only “non-alcoholic” table {the table was on the outside of their fenced in patio area} so we couldn’t order any wine or beer. By that point it was 8:30 and we were ready for dinner so we didn’t put up too much of a fight, plus it was the only outdoor table that would have accommodated the four of us.
Bright and early Saturday morning, I dropped Alex off at the start of the bike race and he and Nigel met up and got started. The ride was very challenging – it was 85 degrees by mid-ride and being in the desert, there was virtually no shade. The ride was broken out into three loops that all started and ended in the same spot, so in theory you could do one, two or all three of the loops.
{ready to go!}
Alex’s goal for the day was to make it to the top of a massive 3,000 vertical foot climb, which was over the course of 6 miles {a very short distance for that much climbing} and averaged around 10-12% grade {very steep!}. He said the hardest part was how hot it was and how limited the shade was, but he and Nigel both made it to the top. Mission accomplished! Alex achieved his goal and that was good enough for him, while Nigel’s goal was to complete the 100 mile ride. Alex decided to call it after 70 miles, so I ran over and picked him up.
{pit stop for a victory photo!}
The bike ride lasted from about 7:00-2:30, so while Alex was biking I was back at our cabin with Jackson. I took him for a 40 minute swim right off the bat – he is such a water dog, so I figured that would be a good place to start!
{we’ve got a dock jumper on our hands!}
I was just enjoying being down on the water – the view across the lake was gorgeous. And the water itself is so clear and clean and just looks different because of that.
After Jackson tired himself out I grabbed a cup of coffee from the little coffee shop and sat out on the deck of the main lodge with Jackson and just relaxed for a bit. Then we headed back to the cabin and went for a walk on the hiking trails up the hill. I got in my 10,000 steps pretty early that day!
The rest of the day was mainly spent on the deck of our cabin, which overlooked a lot of mature evergreens, as well as the lake. I caught up on some reading and just did some relaxing until I picked Alex up.
Of course Alex was beat when he got back to the cabin, so we just hung out for a while and then got cleaned up and headed out to meet Nigel and Jolene at a winery called Tsillan {pronounced like Chelan}, which was conveniently located adjacent to Sorrento’s, the restaurant we had dinner reservations at. The wine tasting was great and we lucked out in getting the best seat in the restaurant for dinner. This restaurant was voted to have one of the top 100 restaurant views in the country and it didn’t disappoint! We all really enjoyed the food, too.
{view from Sorrento’s and Tsillan Cellars – too bad the parking lot is right there!}
On our way out of the restaurant our car had an unfortunate mishap with a decorative pillar, conveniently located in our blind spot, so hurrah, we get to get a new front bumper. The car just turned too sharply getting out of the parking space and Alex couldn’t see the pillar in the mirrors or the backup camera. Oops!
Our last day in Chelan was a short one – we took Jackson swimming one last time, packed up and hit the road. We stopped at Twin Pines, a cute little townie hamburger joint just off the highway, which was surprisingly awesome {so much for eating light…}, and then spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking and relaxing in the sunshine.
….until next time, Lake Chelan! I have a feeling this will become an annual summer trip for us.
This really is a ridiculous little update but I’m excited about it. I love bold, fun costume jewelry {as well as nice, classic jewels, too} and have been realizing that my costume jewelry storage is overflowing and also going to result in damaged necklaces. I perused the internet and settled on this fun little jewelry organizer and wanted to share it…
{this is the jewelry organizer without anything on it – the hooks below the frame are to hang necklaces, while the rod is to hang bracelets. If you look closely you can see some chicken wire on the outside of the chevron – that’s earring storage!}{I’m having so much fun having my jewelry be kept in my closet now and displayed so I can see it when I pick out an outfit to wear}
