Mountain Bikin'

After returning from a fantastic vacation, I had one last week off before returning to work. I tried to balance having fun with accomplishing some chores I don't usually get to while working.

We've gone on three mountain bike rides over the past two weekends, and I've been working on gaining confidence with my clip-less pedals. Our first of the rides was to Dakota Ridge, which I felt was way out of my ability level. I ended up walking my bike for a large portion of the ride and ending the ride a bit frustrated. Later in the weekend, we went to Alderfer/3 Sisters and I felt it was more within my range - still challenging enough for me to push myself, but not too hard that I couldn't do anything. I had a lot of fun on a long smooth section with several water logs where I could practice my jumps.

We were short on time today, so we drove to the top of Mount Falcon and rode several of the trails up there. Eric let me borrow his bike for a big chunk of the last two rides, and I found myself feeling much more comfortable and attempting sections I wouldn't have on my bike. I'm thinking it might be fun to get a better bike for myself, but I'm still not ready to commit to spending the money.

We've also made some progress with our yard. Not only did we receive approval from the HOA to rebuild our deck, we built most of the retaining wall. It's nice to be in the "put back together" phase where we can start to see how everything will come together. Once we finish the wall, we will build the patio and have the deck redone. The final step will be to put in grass and redistribute the rocks. I'm looking forward to when we can have an outdoor BBQ in our completed yard.

Flyin' High

From Hawaii, I went on to Washington to visit my sister. We had a great time hanging out. We went to Olympia from the airport and went for a walk around the capitol.

The next day, we went for a ten mile hike on the Lower Quilcene Trail. It was a beautiful hike, and I felt pretty accomplished.

We went to Seattle for a DEXA body scan, which was an interesting experience. We both received similar advice of adding strength training into our workouts. On the way home, we stopped at Mora Ice Cream for a treat. Despite the look of the picture, we both had single scoops, just split with two flavors.

We tried to alternate activity days with restful days, so we spent some time at home the next day watching tv, playing on our phones, and dancing with the Xbox. My sister also made some amazing homemade lemon drop martinis.

One of the most exciting parts of the trip was learning how to trapeze at Emerald City Trapeze Arts. I learned the knee hang on my first day, and after one missed attempt, successfully made the catch at the end of the class. I was offered a buy one get one deal at the end of class, so we set up two more for my trip. During the other two classes, I learned heels off and the whip. I loved it and would definitely do it again (and again, and again).

From trapeze class, we went to the dragon boat races where we met up with one of our cousins, her daughter, and her nephew. It was nice catching up and watching their team win.

My sister was housesitting, so we took an overnight trip to Port Townsend. We had drinks, saw a movie, ate an amazing halibut dinner at Silverwater Cafe, and ended the day with a cone from Elevated Ice Cream.

After our night in Port Townsend, we took a day trip to Silverdale, and ended the evening with some Xbox dancing and a movie.

During another trip to Seattle for trapeze, we stopped at Pegasus for some morning snacks and coffee. After trapeze, we walked around Pike's Place Market and had some pretty impressive cupcakes. That night, my sister made Mai Tais, which were way better than the ones in Hawaii.

For my last night in Washington, we met up with two of my sister's friends at AJAX Cafe. They have hats all over the wall, so we had fun trying on a variety of hats. We had a great dinner and enjoyed the evening.

I had so much fun and I'm glad I had tons of time to relax during my three week trip.