Sunday, January 8, 2012

Life Happens

True to the title of this blog, life has happened in the last several months (wedding, honeymoon, new niece, other vacations) and keeping up on this thing was very low on my list of priorities. I do miss it though and hope to get back into it now that things have settled down. Most of my very few readers can keep up to date on our lives via facebook, but it would be nice to have it chronicled in blog format.

Today, however, I have other items on my to-do list that I've been putting off (such as taking down the Christmas decorations). Stay tuned for legitimate posts and perhaps a new blog name...

Monday, May 2, 2011

Snowshoeing at Paradise

Yesterday we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went snowshoeing at Paradise, Mt. Rainier. We went last year too, but I forgot what a great work out it is! My heart was thumping 3 minutes into it, I kid you not. But I eventually found a rhythm and with frequent mini-breaks to eat snow (aka nature's candy) and Phil's encouragement, we made it up the steep steep hill (see third pic below) to Panorama Point where we had a picnic and napped in the sun.




steep steep hill

view from Panorama Point


Mt. Hood...or Mt. Adams, I don't know which comes first

Mt. St. Helens



me and my ice fetish

have you ever enjoyed such a view while eating pb&J?

Mt. Rainier...looks like a hop and skip to the summit eh?


You would think the climb up the steep steep hill would be the scary part, but its the slide down (or scooch down if you're a chicken like me) that is terrifying.




Nevertheless, we made it back down alive and with only very minor injuries (blisters from boots and hiking poles, sunburned lips, noses, and pretty much every inch of Phil that was exposed because his skin must soak in more UV than mine). Next year we'll remember to reapply the sunblock every hour on the hour. The altitude and sun-reflecting snow is a killer!

All in all, it was a beautiful day trip and it felt so nice to get outside and do something other than run for a change :)

Monday, March 21, 2011

1Q 2011

That's right....a quarterly blog update. At least until we start taking more pictures again. Even when Phil does get a break from school, we've just got out of the habit of taking pictures. It's been a busy few months! I won't rehash all of it because its too much, but here are some highlights:
  • Celebrated Mom's birthday at Stanley and Seafort's (lived 10 miles from it for the first 18 years of my life but I'd never been...its delicious!)
  • Celebrated our 4th anniversary at the Roosevelt hotel in downtown Seattle (yay Groupon!)
  • I went to Vancouver with Sally to visit Alysha and Colin -- learned how to play Settlers of Catan, ate some delicious food, and shopped of course! Phil stayed home to study :(
  • Had Phil's parents here for a visit -- took them to see the wedding venue and did miscellaneous other wedding related errands, went to dinner with my parents at Stanley and Seafort's (it made an impression on us!), Sunday brunch at Ivar's
  • Celebrated baby Hudson's first birthday with Suzie and family...I can NOT believe it's been a year already. And baby Hayden turns one on Wednesday!
  • Phil finished another quarter of school...about a year and a quarter left I think! Well...and then maybe another degree...
In addition to these activities, Phil and I have been training for the Rock N' Roll marathon which is on my Dad's birthday, June 25th. My parents caught the exercise bug and signed up to walk the half, so we're all having a lot of fun with it. Well, I don't know if "fun" is the right word...but we all feel really good about ourselves ;)

And then there's lots of wedding planning going on, but quite frankly, doing it is exhausting enough...I'm not about to dedicate a blog post to it also.

And because I'm paranoid and old fashioned and whatever you want to call me, I've had zipped lips about some exciting news...I'm going to be an Aunt in September! Melanie is 14 weeks preggers and things are going great so far. As most of you know, Mel and Luke have had a difficult time in this department in the past, so please keep them in your thoughts and prayers!


That's all for now. Here's one of very few recent pictures of us. Thank you Stella (Suzie's mom) for getting this one at Hudson's birthday party this last weekend :)

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Holidays 2010 and general life update

Hey peeps! I figured I better get a blog post in before January is over. I've really been neglecting this blog, even more than usual, in order to work on our wedding website and do other wedding planning activities.

We had a busy December and spent the holidays in North Carolina with my sis and bro-in-law and then New Jersey/New York with Phil's family. My parents joined us in New Jersey as well to check out the Northeast winter and get to know their future in-laws. Here are a few pictures from our vacation:









January has been fairly busy as well. Phil has two classes again this quarter and when he's not studying, he's interviewing Princeton applicants. He's also been helping me with some of the more logistical aspects of wedding planning, such as figuring out where to block hotel rooms. I've got our wedding website just about finished and I'll post a link here once its presentable. We're also researching honeymoon packages, which is turning out to be fairly simple since we want to take basically the same trip our friends took for their honeymoon last September. They gave us the name of the travel agent they used and I gotta say, travel agents are under-rated. The convenience is unbeatable!


Work is awesome, I love my job in HR. I'm learning so much every day and its just so much more interesting to me than supplier management. I am glad I have that background though because it helps set me apart from other HR folks. The group is already seeing me as the "analytical" one, which is weird for me. But its okay...I'm learning excel like the back of my hand and it feels good to contribute already.


Phil and I are celebrating our 4th anniversary this weekend. It's hard to believe its already been four years, yet at the same time it seems like its been forever (in a good way). I'm already looking at pictures from our first year together and thinking "holy smokes we look young." Time flies when you're having fun!


New York - February 2007


New York - December 2010

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Stream of Consciousness

Hello. My name is Katie, and I'm an ice-aholic. I'm not sure exactly when it started. It may have been when my parents got a new fridge with an ice maker that produces crushed ice. It may have started when my coworker randomly brought a cup of ice back from the cafeteria (for her crystal light) and it just looked so...dang...good. Or maybe when my other coworker got me hooked on "two shots over ice in a tall cup" at Tully's. I guess it doesn't really matter how it started. Bottom line, I can't get enough of it. I don't think it's pica (iron deficiency), because getting more iron doesn't curb my craving for it. ...crunch crunch crunch...I'm sure my coworkers love me. Its just so refreshing. And bad for my teeth, of which I'm sure the dentist will inform me at my next visit. But I can always just get dentures right? Sigh...new year's resolution perhaps.

I started my new job in HR two Fridays ago and I LOVE it. So far anyway. Mostly I've been doing training, job-shadowing my peer mentor, and attending meetings to get spooled up on my customer. Until I really get into the daily operations of the job, I guess I shouldn't say I love it. But I do feel like its going to be a better fit for my personality and my strengths. Crossing my fingers.

I had to get a Blackberry for my new job and I got it set up today. I'm not a fan after using my iPhone for the last 4 months. Apple products really are idiot-proof. Blackberry...not so much. Had to ask my coworker how to type a period. Had to call the help desk to sync the darn thing. And I still can't figure out how to open encrypted email on it. Guess I'll be calling the help desk again tomorrow.

Went Christmas shopping yesterday. That sucked. Didn't find much, but at least the mall wasn't crowded. Did find a couple gifts for Phil (hardest man to shop for EVER because he buys whatever he wants/needs and forbids me to get him anything more than like, twenty bucks). Also found some pickle ornaments for my family. Random German tradition (or not?) you can read about
here. Suckiness of shopping was a mere memory after joining my mom, Megan, and RJ at Bahama Breeze for dinner. Good to see them during their layover in Seattle (en route to North Carolina to see Melanie and Luke).

Wedding planning...meh. Think we're booking the caterer on Friday, then I'll probably take a break until January. Well I might go shopping for my Chinese wedding dress while we're in NYC in a couple weeks. Next order of business in January is save-the-dates, or STD's as one of our friends recently referred to them. Teehee. Then we should probably get our honeymoon booked. Never too early to do that. THEN I'll worry about details (flowers, centerpieces, favors, clothing for the wedding party, booze, programs, accomodations.......)

Phil and I signed up for the full Rock 'n' Roll marathon in June. We just did the Seattle half marathon a few weeks ago (picture below). I'm trying to keep running a couple times a week through the holidays so it isn't as hard to start seriously training in January.

Do I look like I'm dying? Because I FELT like I was dying.

That's about all that's on my mind at the moment...I'm not a very complex person.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Weddings

Phil has recently been doing homework on his laptop in the dining room, thus freeing up the desktop computer, which has all our pictures on it. Thus, I have no excuse not to blog. Thus, time to catch up.

This summer and fall, many of our family and friends tied the knot. Between the end of July and the beginning of October, we got to go to FOUR weddings. Phil was in two of them and I was in one of them. This made for a very busy summer (I think I had either a wedding, a bachelorette party, or a bridal shower all but two of the weekends during this time frame), but I heart weddings and enjoyed every minute of them.

1) First up was my cousin Andrew down in Salem, Oregon on July 31st. He married the beautiful Laura who was literally the girl next door...well across the street, but still! Their wedding was at a golf course in Salem and we had a fabulous time. Our whole family pretty much loves to dance and dance we did!


From left to right: RJ (bro-in-law), Megan (sister), Mom and Dad, me and Phil, cousin Julie, Uncle Roger




2) Next up was my dear friend Sally Jane Lymangrover who married Ryan Connors on September 4th. Sally and Ryan got married at Sanders Mansion in Auburn, WA. Phil didn't attend this wedding with me (he was touring China with his fam), thus I don't have many pictures to post. I ganked a few off facebook and one of my adorable parents dancing which I took with my phone.

From left to right: High school friends Alysha, Sally, Suzie, and me. And yes, that is the same dress I wore to Andrew and Laura's wedding. I also wore it to Sara and Ryan's (see below) rehearsal dinner. Wore the CRAP outta that dress this summer!



3) Sara Garcia and Ryan Roache, our friends we met at the lazy B (Boeing), got hitched on September 18th, and both Phil and I had the honor of being in their wedding party. The wedding was at The Plateau Club (country club/golf course) in Sammamish, WA. Though we did have some rain that day, Mother Nature, or God, or whoever, was super nice and brought the sun out for their pictures and kept the rain at bay until after their outdoor ceremony was done. It literally started raining 5 minutes later, but we were all inside drinking and dancing and being merry :)

A shot from the rehearsal, just to get one more look at that blue dress ;)

From left to right: Julie, Aimee, Sara, me, Christie, Jess



From left to right: Ryan, John, Luke, random guy in white, Jeff, Christie, Julie

Quite possibly my favorite picture of the summer because A) you can really see how much we are enjoying our dresses with the pockets and B) who am I kidding, my ladies (and yes, I mean that in two ways) look fabulous.

4) The last wedding of the summer/fall was that of John Rodriguez and Beth Engel. John is another Boeing friend and we were so happy he met and fell in love with sweet Beth. They got married October 2nd at Willows Lodge in Woodinville, WA. Their venue was gorgeous and OMG, the dessert buffet...there are no words for how fabulous the dessert buffet was. So fabulous, Phil and I have decided to have one at our wedding!

Another blue dress...what can I say, I like blue






Whew! One might think we'd be sick of weddings after all that, but I don't think I could ever get sick of weddings. What's not to love? Happy families, people in love and committing to the rest of their lives together, pretty dresses and flowers, yummy food, free booze, dancing, cake. I mean seriously, is there anything better? I love them so much, I'm making Phil crash one with me this Saturday. We're actually crashing some random couple's wedding. It's business though...we're checking out a caterer who doesn't do tastings but invites prospective clients to crash weddings she caters. Let's hope the bride and groom don't notice us going through the buffet line :)

Monday, October 4, 2010

East Coast Trip Part Eight: Jersey Shore

Ah, finally...the Jersey Shore post. Sadly, we have very few pictures from this part of the trip...well pictures worth posting anyway. For some reason, Phil thought it was a good idea to take about 100 pictures of me in my bikini and zero pictures of me on the boardwalk, eating pizza, at the bar, or doing anything besides looking pale and bloated from the previous 10 days of eating and drinking my way up and down the East Coast. So I really have to rely on my own memory of this last weekend of our trip.

So we rolled in to Point Pleasant (the more family friendly Jersey Shore town about 20 minutes North of Seaside Heights, where the show is filmed) around 6 pm Friday night and got checked in to our motel, which cost a pretty penny but was right on the beach and was actually quite nice. The room smelled slightly of smoke but apparently you just can't avoid that at the shore. At least it was clean and the bathroom actually seemed recently remodeled! And the air conditioner worked amazingly well, so who can complain?

We headed down the boardwalk to meet Phil's friends for a drink. His high school buddies, Sean and Steve, and their girlfriends, Lacey and Lisa, were also staying at the shore that weekend. After a drink (or two), we headed back to the motel so the girls could get ready to go out and we could do a little pre-funking (for my non generation y readers, that means drinking alcohol purchased at a liquor store at the hotel to avoid paying so much for it at the bars). We played some cards and then headed back down the boardwalk to a low-key bar that had tables right out on the beach and was the perfect venue for a new drinking game I believe Lacey taught us. I don't remember the name of the game, or the rules...and not because I was drunk, just because it was 3 months ago. It was quite fun though :) After the bar, we got the first of many slices of the best pizza I've ever had in my life. Sigh...I miss that pizza. Then we headed back to the motel to rest up for Saturday.

On Saturday, we enjoyed the beach (the motel had a private area of beach roped off so that was nice...not as much riff raff). The waves were giant though, due to some questionable weather (just my luck) and there were rip tides, so I only waded in just a bit. The waves were seriously huge...like, taller than me. For lunch, we headed down the board walk and I tried ice cream and waffles...three scoops of ice cream in between to freshly made waffles. So delicious! And then I watched the boys try to win football jersey from a claw machine. They actually did pretty well and won three or four. Shortly after that, Phil drove me down to Seaside to see what it was all about. During the day its actually pretty quiet, but there is still a lot of good people watching there.

Saturday night we got all fancy, did more pre-funking, then headed to a more clubby kind of bar on the board walk. It was really hoppin, and by hoppin I mean annoyingly crowded with fist pumping guidos and just what you'd expect to see on the Jersey Shore if you've ever watched the show. It is exactly like the show. Fights on the board walk...guys primping in front of the mirrors longer than the girls..."cougars" trying to find a man...Ed Hardy t-shirts...tattoos...sunglasses worn inside the bar...scandalous dresses and every guy looking like he had a busy day of GTL (gym, tan, laundry). It was fun for about twenty minutes and then I got really fed up of being pushed and shoved by the crowd and we decided to leave. We got some yummy boardwalk snacks (some kind of doughnut holes if I recall...whatever their italian name is) and sat on the beach outside the bar so we could still people watch. It was a great night :)

Sunday morning, we headed to the beach one last time to enjoy the sun. Phil snapped a few decent pictures and then it was time to say goodbye to the gang. We got one last slice of pizza (soooo good) and then headed back home to Densville.



That night, we went to Phil's family's favorite new Chinese restaurant in the city, where the owners treat Sonny like a king because he always gets so much food when they go in. It was quite tasty and was a great way to cap off a wonderful vacation. Though I was so full after dinner I could barely walk, we headed down to Rockefellar Park (west of Ground Zero) so we could attempt to walk off dinner and the guys could smoke a cigar (check out the Three Stooges below).


And that was our trip! We headed back home to Seattle on Monday where I promptly began dieting ;)