Birthday in Portland

Joy, fresh from seeing whales on the coast!




Hot Lips pizza. Mmm.



Camera happy




Hanging out in Bobby's condo (furniture is on the way!)

South Fork Snoqualmie River

I went for a nice little hike on Sunday with Darcy, her husband, and the dogs - Queets and Soma.

Check out the video Darcy made of the hike!

With a soundtrack, no less.

Unfortunately, it was too cold to swim (overcast, cool day + cold river), but I did give it a try.

Queets had a blast, as usual.

In other news, I got a haircut today! I'm really excited about it, I should have done this a year ago, but I was clinging to my long hair. I got it cut short (like the chin-length bob I had in/after college). Love it!

Home sweet home

I got home from DC late last night. It was a great trip all around -- good work-wise (lots of meetings, fun seeing everyone in the office, happy hours, and got lots of stuff done), I spent lots of quality time with Joy (who is looking fabulous at 5ish months pregnant!), and even got to kayak on the Potomac after work one day.

On Thurs morning I went for a run from Joy's house in Columbia Heights to my old house in Adams Morgan. It was fun to see the old neighborhood and reminisce about living there ten (ten!?) years ago.

Joy, Cheryl and I had a great dinner one night at a thai place on U street. Really fun to catch up. The conversations we were having about The Future (babies, etc, etc) reminded me of conversations we'd have the summer before college. Thinking about the great unknown and excited about everything to come.

It's great to be home - I missed John and Queets! We're having a very mellow, relaxing weekend. I love that the Olympics are on - can't wait for swimming and gymnastics!

Busy week!

We had a great time in Portland last weekend with Bob and Sara. It has been a busy week -- John and I celebrated our 4th (!) anniversary on the 30th, and I'm getting ready to be in DC all next week.

Here are pics from last weekend...John at his office, Bobby at "the Leaky Roof" restaurant, the windsurfing and kiteboarding scene in Hood River, and Bridal Veil Falls in the Columbia Gorge (the people at the falls aren't us, just random people)

Bob arrives in Portland!

Bobby should be in Portland by now! He and Sara did the final leg of their drive today, from Utah. I talked to them when I was on the bus coming home from work (stuck in baseball traffic - the Mariners/Red Sox crowd was spilling out of the stadium and held up traffic for 40 mins! I got home an hour late! This city's traffic management and bus routes are pathetic. And we think we're progressive! Don't get me started.)

Anyway. John is already down there for work, he left this morning. I'm going to take the train down tomorrow evening. So we'll have Fri, Sat and Sun to have fun, have some good dinners (thanks Mom and Dad!) and also a little outdoor adventure. We might go to Hood River, maybe do a hike. We'll see.

The main goal is to show Bob and Sara a good time since this is Bob's new home (and hopefully ours too, one of these days!)

Lake of the Angels

We had an incredible hike yesterday to Lake of the Angels in Olympic National Park (headwaters of the Hamma Hamma River on the east side of the peninsula). It was a long day but totally worth it. I think it's the steepest hike I've ever done (only 8 miles round trip, but straight up) and I'm feeling it today...

(scroll down for more pictures)

Actually, it was longer than 8 miles b/c the road to the trailhead was blocked by a huge landslide. So we parked and walked the rest of the way up the road to the trail. A good warmup, because once we got to the trail we started gaining elevation pretty quickly. Parts of the trail were a little hairy - climbing/pulling yourself up over roots/rocks. Fun!

Eventually we emerged from the forest up into the subalpine. Lots of great wildflowers (avalanche lily, glacier lily, paintbrush, lupine, shooting stars). Since we had such a long winter, a lot of the flowers are just starting to emerge and there's still lots of snow up there. The sound of water was constant -- the streams meandering over the soggy, spongey ground and also the thundering of the waterfalls pouring off the cliffs.

We thought we were close to the lake...but no. Quick re-fuel of almonds and chocolate and then, more climbing. Hiked up a snowfield, then up trail again, up, up and finally got to the higher basin. At the lake, we found a big rock by the water and broke out our lunch. Almost immediately we were greeted by a bunch of mountain goats. I've only seen them up close like that once before, on a hike with Bobby in Glacier Nat'l Park in MT.

The goats just seemed very curious. They weren't aggressive. The babies were the cutest. Now, for you conservation sticklers out there, I know MG's aren't native to the Olympics, they were imported from the Cascades. So technically they shouldn't be here. But...did I mention how cute the babies were?

One of the best parts of the day was my quick swim in the lake. It was so hot and we were covered with mud and dust and mosquito bites, so the water felt wonderful. It was so clear -- and cold (pure snowmelt), so I didn't stay in for long.

We hung out on the rock, watched the trout swimming around, watched marmots through the binocs, took more pics of the mountain goats when they came back (even more of them this time) and then started back down the trail.

All in all, a beautiful day. We stopped in Olympia for dinner, and got home at midnight. Looking forward to more sleep tonight!

Here are some pictures:

Michael at the landslide/road closure


Foxglove along the road (we were surprised by the big flower on top - have any of you wildflower experts ever seen a foxglove flower open up like that?)




Hiking up...



And up...



Jill, Michael and Elise



Rewarding view of Mt. Rainier as we continue up the trail to the lake (look closely and you can see it)



Waterfalls (that white blur you see in the distance)



Michael and Jill find frogs in the streams



Stream in meadow flowing under the snow



The lake!



Jill at the lake



Mountain goats (I think I took about 87 photos of them. Here are just a few)

Two babies



2 adults, one baby



Adult and baby (it was cute, sometimes the adults would give the kids a nudge when they were reluctant to cross the stream)



Contemplating their next move (MGs are very agile on rocks, but they don't seem to enjoy getting their feet wet)

John's home!

John got back from Portland last night. It's good to have him home! When I told Queets we were going to pick up dad at the train station, he started howling and got really excited (he knows the word "dad"). John surprised me with a present - he bought me an adorable sun dress from Lizard Lounge. Totally on a whim! He's so sweet and thoughtful.

Today is going to be a mellow summer day with a couple errands. I've been desperately needing new glasses for several years now, but I've been putting it off b/c I only wear them when I'm getting ready for bed, or when I wake up in the morning. I pretty much always wear my contacts. But the glasses I have are lame and starting to fall apart (I literally think I got them in MD before I moved to Seattle!) So, today I'm going to hopefully to to the glasses store and pick out a new pair.

Next store to the glasses place is my favorite used bookstore, so I'm also going to hopefully find some good paperbacks. Here are some books I just finished, and recommend:

1) Something Borrowed, by Emily Giffin -- if you're looking for "chick lit" this is great! The perfect beach book. I couldn't put it down.
2) Boomsday, by Christopher Buckley -- great political spoof. Funny. By the same author who wrote "Thank you for Smoking"
3) The Road, by Cormac McCarthy -- grim, but also hopeful and pretty amazing.

This evening we're heading to a BBQ at our across-the-street friends Jay and JoAnn's house.

(I just had to get up from the computer and go outside because the crows were making a big commotion. We've been feeding Queets on the back porch because he makes a mess and gets food (wet + dry) all over the floor, which if you don't clean up every last speck, attracts ants. But now we need to remember to bring his bowl inside when he's done eating on the porch, because if you don't it attracts crows! They'll swoop down, squawking to all their friends, and try to eat the food he didn't finish.)

Anyway, I talked to Bobby last night. He and Sara are gearing up for their road trip! They'll be taking a cool route, driving through the Southwest, stopping, among other places, at Roswell, New Mexico! Should be interesting, I've never been there. They'll get to Portland mid/late next week, and John and I will meet them there and stay through the weekend. July 27 is Bob's 30th b-day so we'll have lots of festivities.

Can't believe my little brother is turning 30!