Unlucky weather

When I was growing up, my mother swore that Friday the 13th was actually a lucky day for her. Since I usually don’t even notice that it’s Friday the 13th, I can’t really argue the point. Well, at least as far as the weather was concerned, we were definitely unlucky up at Xantusia. There were gray clouds, wind and rain. (Hmmm, kinda sounds like Seattle weather, not Southern California weather, doesn’t it?!)

We decided to head up to Punchbowl for a run/hike. We figured the trail would be fairly protected from the wind and shouldn’t be too bad. What we didn’t count on was the little pellets of frozen rain that would sting our faces and force most of us to walk/run/hike with one hand protecting our face from the onslaught. We did have cover when we got to the trail, but the girls who were walking/hiking were definitely not going to want to be out there longer than 30-40 minutes, so we cut the run a little bit short. I stayed back with Gail so that no one was on their own, and I’m afraid I got us a little lost on the way back. But we found our way back to the parking lot and took a quick photo to commemorate the experience:

We don’t look nearly as cold and wet as we actually were. We headed back to the house with the plan of going down into Palmdale to swim at their awesome pool. Monty called the pool to make sure they were open and unfortunately they had thunder down there, so had to keep the pool closed for 30 minutes. So, we called again and the same thing had happened, which pretty much meant swim wasn’t happening. So, no swim. Definitely no bike. We already went for a run. What was a house full of stir-crazy triathlete chicks going to do? There’s only so much chihuahua torture you can do:

Luckily, we’d planned a gear swap/gift exchange where everyone brought either a little gift or piece of gear they weren’t using any more. There was quite a spread:

We then drew numbers to select an order for people to pick things. We had so much stuff that we got to go through the rotation three times. Yours truly scored a bottle of wine, a cool bag and some sweet Las Vegas socks. It was such a great idea, I’m going to have to put one together at home next time I have a bunch of gear to get rid of. It’s like shopping but without having to spend a bunch of money.

Then we had a little outbreak of sunshine (and a gorgeous rainbow):

It was too late to go for a ride and we’d already started drinking margaritas, so what to do? Andy came up with the crazy idea of a “margarita mile” (well, it was only 0.8 miles to the bottom of the bottom of the driveway and back). Just about everyone came out to participate in the run portion at least:

And we’re off!

Emmy was the winner and actually chugged her margarita at the finish line. What a trooper!

Rounding out the podium was Andy, Christina and Mrs. Monty:

Mrs. Monty wasn’t looking so good:

Here’s yours truly heading for the line for fifth place:

All in all, I’d say the First Annual Slowtwitch Womens Margarita Mile was a rousing success!

Shortly after we went in for dinner it started raining again, so our timing was perfect! Later on, the rain actually became snow! I never thought I’d see snow up here in April:

(Thankfully, these were neither my running shoes nor my bike.) I guess Friday the 13th has some lucky qualities to it after all…

Take a hike!

M’s birthday was this past week and rather going out for a birthday dinner on a Wednesday, she decided she wanted to go for a hike. It was a typical Seattle weather, gray and rainy. But that meant we had the trail pretty much to ourselves. And the scenery was still beautiful:

And there were giant ham sandwiches at the turnaround point:

And of course, wacky antics on the trail:

Hopefully, M enjoyed her birthday hiking and we didn’t ruin it too much with our tomfoolery. I’m still not the biggest fan of hiking, but M & J do make it fun.

Weekend exploits

This was an action-packed weekend, which I would like to sum up with a series of pictures. We kicked it off on Friday evening with a trip to Costco with M, where we met this guy:

We finished up our evening by cashing in the last of T’s gift certificates from the Adventure Run for some free pizza. Now, onto Saturday, the 20 mile run:

That’s really all that needs to be said about that. (Actually, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting, save for some super terrible side and stomach cramps for the last few miles. That sucked.) While I was running for a crazy long time, T was logging some overtime helping the grocery department of his employer unload/inventory some of their back-log of samples. Here’s what he brought home:

But he made the mistake of telling me that the guy he’d been working for had expressed his disappointment that he hadn’t taken more and told him he was welcome to come back tomorrow. (Which meant that I could go back too!)

Which brings us to Sunday. On our way over to T’s company, we stopped at Peets to grab some coffee. Where I saw this:

Sigh.

Despite T showing me pictures, I was unprepared for how much stuff was in the conference room. There was a huge table covered in stuff. There was stuff under the table. There was stuff piled on the floor next to the table. It was insane. I had a great time picking out all sorts of crazy stuff. There were tons of weird healthy products that I curious about, (but not enough to actually pay money for.)

Combined with the stuff T brought home yesterday, here’s what I needed to find a place for in our kitchen:

I spent the remainder of the day rearranging our kitchen to accommodate all of our loot. We now have a little pantry section of our laundry closet and some very organized cupboards. And best of all, we’re good for vegan crackers for quite some time… ;-P

 

Cheers!

So, after our day of fun, we had a few hours to chill and get ready for the party. It was pretty convenient to be staying at the same place as the party, talk about an easy commute! Everything looked beautiful, especially the newlyweds:

And of course, many beverages:

This punch was delicious:

The lovely bride:

Erin had asked her married guests for a wedding picture, which she printed out and hung on this clothesline. It was really adorable and fun to see all of the different photos:

The calm before the dinner is served…

This place would be trouble later on (foreshadowing!)

But for now, it was entertaining the menfolk…

M & J clean up pretty nicely, I must say (even if J does have a drinking problem, tee hee!)

Then we had to take the mural for a spin, before it got too dark to take decent pictures:

Jenn & Bryan arrived and we had a good time chatting with them and meeting some of Erin’s other friends and family. Then we were joined by Erika, a woman I know from tri camp and her husband Bill, and she was ready to party down! (Again, foreshadowing… )

There was a ton of delicious food, some not too embarrassing toasts and some wine.

Then there was more delicious food, including some ridiculous desserts and why yes, since you asked, some more wine. We moved into the tent, as it was getting a little chilly out.

We tried to get a tri-camp ladies picture, but the Hipstamatic wasn’t quite up to the task:

But I did get a great shot of the brides new cowboy boots: super cute, right?

As the wine kept flowing, the pictures got a bit more… entertaining. There were these great Winnie the Pooh stickers that M & I had to grab and stick on as bracelets. (Funny story about that later… )

The kids also had these great foam swords and somehow we ended up with one. (There’s probably a story there, but I didn’t hear about it… )

Then the obligatory bad dancing:

It was at this point in the evening that the Hootch Hut happened, where some shots might have been done and a little too much may have been consumed by yours truly (cough… understatement of the year… cough… ) T was in charge of my phone/camera at this point in the night and I really wish I knew the backstory to this photo:

Let’s just say the evening ended with some praying at the feet of the porcelain god and the desire to sleep on the bathroom floor. Poor T is a very good husband and didn’t let me sleep on the bathroom floor. He took very good care of me. Who’d have thought that he’d have had to deal with drunken bathroom shenanigans from his 41 year old wife of almost 15 years. (Which just goes to show you that marriage is always full of surprises! Take notes, kids… )

Oh, and the funny story about the Pooh sticker I mentioned earlier: I woke up with it still on my wrist and expressed surprise that it was still there. To which T replied that I’d been very insistent that he not take that off. It cracks me up for some reason.

 

Syttende Mai

Although much of my ethnic background is Norwegian, I must confess that I am fairly ignorant about the customs and culture of my psuedo-native land. So, when M invited me to a parade in our highly Scandinavian neighborhood on the 17th of May, I figured it was just one of those wacky Seattle things. It turns out that the 17th of May is sort of a Norwegian version of Cinco de Mayo and is apparently kind of a big deal.

We walked down to the parade route and were shocked to see tons of people lining the streets:

I must confess that after being traumatized by junior high marching band that I’m not a big fan of parades. There’s usually a lot of standing around to watch random crap, but Ballard kicks the people watching up a notch. (Plus, M & I always enjoy a healthy dose of snark with our people watching… ) We were in a spot looking into the sun, so my pics weren’t too great. Luckily, M backed me up with her mad photo skillz. So, without further ado, I give you my favorite moments of the 2011 Syttende Mai Parade:

This kid is rad:

We saw a surprising number of antique strollers, but only one mom was smart enough to put a modern car seat in hers, so we didn’t have to worry for the safety of the baby’s spinal cord in the bouncy old-fashioned stroller:

This marching band was playing Quiet Riot’s “Cum on Feel the Noize” (although I’m sure their sheet music was the radio-friendly spelling of the song title… ) which was super awesome, but made me feel very old. (That song was popular when I was in marching band. In 8th grade… )

Other marching band gems included “The Final Countdown,” “You Can Call Me Al” and “Beat it” (which I also played in junior high band!) Now I feel ancient, especially since the junior high kids look like babies…

We were also treated to the dorky stylings of the Ballard High School robotics club:

The animals of the parade were just as awesome. There was a Swiss Mountain Dog that was happily eating candy off the ground while his poor oblivious owner waved at the crowd. She’s going to be so surprised by the terrible diarrhea from her surprisingly hyper dog…

There was also a younger Smokey Joe look-a-like with this adorable Newfie:

There were also a special (unknown) breed of horse that they were leading vs. riding and the worst job in the parade:

There were even some floats. This one had a fire-breathing dragon and a Norwegian spitting fish:

In the spirit of multi-cultural inclusion, we got to see the Scottish highland team (complete with bagpipes):

We were also treated to the comic stylings of the Swedish pancake flipping team, who actually flipped a pancake from frying pan to frying pan:

And a person dressed as a pancake being chased by a person dressed as a frying pan (not pictured)

But the biggest surprise of the parade was the unbelievable number of middle school children on unicycles. There were no less than five different groups of them, but this one was the most impressive…

And our final photo from the parade was the hippie school with their hula hoops and streamers. (Not to mention sandals with socks… ) M & I spied a young boy in an orange shirt in the front row that we think is T of the future (Love you, honey!)

Happy Syttende Mai, everyone!

Gotta love the bus!

This morning, I walked out to my bus stop to see my bus already there (about three minutes earlier than scheduled) so I had to run for it, convinced all the while that it was going to drive off just as I got there. (As it happened, it started to pull out and then saw me and stopped which was soooooo nice.) As I got on, I was pleasantly surprised to see a seat in the front row. Score. I sat down and noticed this unusual sight:

That’s right. It’s a dog in a stroller. I couldn’t resist snapping the above picture and e-mailing it to M & T as a “ha ha, look what I have on my commute” joke. Then the bus had to slam on it’s brakes to avoid hitting a car and Stroller Dog went flying up the aisle. As the owner retrieved the stroller and picked the dog up to comfort it, I had a chance to glimpse the fabulous ensemble it was wearing: pink t-shirt, fleece vest and fur-lined hoodie:

It also turned out that the dude across the aisle from her, who I’d assumed was a wino, turned out to have a Lhasa Apso wearing an argyle sweater.

Why did no one tell me it was “Dress your dog up and take him on the bus” day? I’d have put Wally in a suit and brought him to work with me!

Multi-purpose husband…

He cooks, he cleans and sometimes he acts as a human trash compactor:

But when your neighbors don’t break down their boxes in the recycling bin and then it doesn’t get picked up for some reason, what are you going to do? Not recycle? I don’t think so!

Yard sale!

We’ve been working hard to get rid of excess crap that’s been cluttering up our house. In fact, T’s summer job has been selling said crap on Craigslist with some success. But the sheer volume was making us think that maybe a yard sale might be a good way to go. M had some stuff she wanted to get ride of as well and since she has a much better place for yard-saling, we decided to have the sale in her ‘hood.

I will confess that I was not wildly enthused about doing the actual sale. There’s something about sitting around with all of your crap haggling with strangers just doesn’t sound appealing. Go figure. But the prospect of having friends to hang out with did make it seem much more bearable.

The forecast was in the 90′s and M proposed we set up the shade tent that we sometimes bring camping. She’s a genius.

While the boys lugged the tables/boxes of crap out of the house, M & I went to hang the final signs. Here’s me fighting with the stapler:

Caught in the act!

It was pretty shocking how early people were driving by. We were frantically trying to get things out of boxes and set up as people were coming up. It didn’t help that there were 9 garage sales within a few block radius, so people were definitely targeting the neighborhood, even with the heat.

Here’s the boy, hard at work:

The shade tent was roundly declared to be the best idea ever. It gave people a chance to browse stuff out of the sun and us a chance to stay relatively cool. M had made some awesome iced tea and J figured out how to make homemade “Country time lemonade.” It tasted exactly like the drink mix, it was sort of insane. J rigged up some music through their TiVo, so we had some nice background music.

Because we had a ton of little odds and ends, I really didn’t expect to make too much money. I was just happy for things to be leaving the house. Our biggest ticket items were 10 bucks! But when I sat down to count our money, we’d made a little over 300 bucks, not counting the handful of change. It was pretty shocking. (And given the current state of our finances, a most welcome one at that!) Plus, we took a ton of stuff to Goodwill and now have a very manageable number of items to try and sell on Craigslist. Talk about win/win!

Space needle souvenir

As part of our big Space Needle adventure, they do that obnoxious thing that tourist attractions have all started doing where they have you pose in front of a green screen and then try to sell you digital photos of you in front of a digitally placed background of whatever it is that you are visiting. But this time, they actually give you a free digital copy of your image AND let you pick from a selection of backgrounds.

I was so entertained at the cheese-tastic possibilities, that I had to take some screen shots t0 share with my tens of readers. Enjoy!

Look! We’re on a ferry!

Now we’re standing in front of the weirdest colored city skyline I’ve ever seen. Sunset after the nuclear holocaust perhaps? Or maybe we’re just standing next to a really big hippie van?

And now we’re… floating in space?

And finally, my favorite. This has to be the creepiest picture of Mount Rainier ever. All it’s missing is a unicorn or a rainbow or even better a unicorn AND a rainbow. Or a rainbow-colored unicorn…

The Saturn shines again

Today was the boy’s last day of summer school, which meant he had to bring his final project home from his Furniture Design class. I’d commissioned him to build a replacement for the IKEA plant bench that served as our entertainment center for the last four years, so I was excited to see what he’d come up with.

This also meant that he was going to have to figure out how to bring it home in the Saturn (for which I think he should have gotten extra credit!) I was almost more excited to how he’d managed this than I was to see the actual piece of furniture. And it did not disappoint.

It was very tough to figure out how to get it out of the car, but we managed. It’s really a shame they don’t make Saturns anymore. I think our various “hauling escapades” would make for a really amusing ad.