seattle

Autumn in Seattle has been sunny and relatively warm, perfect for enjoying the city and its lovely scenery. So when Todd told me he was leaving work early on Monday, i said “we’re going on a field trip!!”  No brownbag lunch required.

I’ve wanted to go to the Olympic Sculpture Park with him, but our weekends have always been busy with other things.  And everytime I’ve been there, it’s just been me running through, so I’ve never taken the time to stop and enjoy the park.

He got home at 5:00 (after an hour on the bus) and we headed out for our field trip.

First stop: Uptown Espresso.  

Next stop: 

We spotted an open bench on the edge of Elliot Bay and sat and watched the sun set behind the Olympic Mountains as we discussed our days.

The park closed a 1/2 hour after sunset, so we’ll have to make another trip back to take time to look around at all the art.

After a couple more stops browsing furniture stores and trading in old video games, we walked back home for dinner, which ended up being ‘make your own meal’ night.  Beef & bean burritos for Todd, spaghetti for Katie, ice cream for all.

I get to enjoy a 10 mile run on a lovely fall day.

He gets to sleep in until 10:30.

I decided to go back to my old ’stomping ground’. Its been awhile since I’ve ran the Lake Union Loop and up through UW on the Burke Gilman trail. It was nice, the sun came out and all the vibrant leaves made for a colorful start to the day.

We’re off to tour several apartments today. Should be fun.

Now that I have a little extra free time on my hands….no wedding planning or projects to fuss over, no full-time job to be bored at all day…I’ve taken this opportunity to get back to my love of training for races.

The annual Seattle Marathon is coming up quickly at the end of November, and since I enjoyed the 1/2 marathon last year, I really wanted to run it again this year. This will be my 7th half marathon, but the first one that I’ll be running a 2nd time. My training won’t be as gradual as I would like since I just basically started training about 8.5 weeks out, but I’ll make it work as long as it doesn’t kill my legs.

So far, so good.

This past weekend was sunny and lovely, we got to drive the convertible with the top down 2 days in a row!–- A rare statement for October in Seattle.

But I especially took advantage of the wonderful fall weather to do a long run yesterday afternoon. I’d planned on going 6 but decided to just push it a little further and run to meet up with Todd at a coffee shop he was going to be doing some work at. I like to call it the ‘lake-to-sound-to-steep steps-to coffee’ run.

It ended up being 7.7 miles, surprisingly at an 8:28 pace. And that was including all the annoying stop lights along the way and the painfully steep stairclimb through Pike Place market you see there right before mile 7.

Ugh.

But those stairs are so worth it after running along my new favorite spot. This is the second run I’ve taken down through the Olympic Sculpture park and along the Puget Sound through Myrtle Edwards and Elliot Bay parks.

It humbles and amazes me each time–- that we live in such a beautiful city and yet are just a quick run away from nature’s grandeur. The sun was hovering just above the Olympic mountains and lit up the water like fire. It makes a long run so much easier when you can watch the boats sail by and the waves crash on the rocks. I wish I’d had my camera.

I finished up at Uptown Espresso where Todd was, then we walked home, stopping at the grocery store for a couple items so I could make tacos for dinner. What a great way to finish out a lovely weekend.

I realize I mentioned several times that I would follow up a couple of my posts with pictures. Well, I lost my camera USB cord and just found it last night, so here’s a recap of some of my summer so far, in pictures.

Todd with his parents- riding the Seattle Streetcar

Todd with my parents— our wooden boat ride on Lake Union

Me- sailing the ship. (this is the only picture where I’m not eating my hair.)

Aye Aye, captain!

A view of my apartment from Lake Union (or near proximity of my place)

my pieced-together panoramic view of GasWorks Park

My awesome birthday present from Todd, a Mac Mini. I named him Cooper. And pretty birthday flowers from my NY friend Kaddie.

Kayaking fun!


Followed by some yummy mexican food at Agua Verde cafe

Agua Verde Paddle Club

Oddly, in all these photos it is cloudy. I think it’s because they’re from June, which was an oddly cool/cloudy month. Apparently I don’t carry my camera on sunny days….oh, and I guess it didn’t help that I had no more storage space left on my memory stick.

Additionally….I ran 3 miles Monday and 3.5 miles this morning with no foot problems.
We’re heading back to Kansas early tomorrow morning for several bridal showers and final wedding vendor meetings. Should be lots of fun, though I’m kinda dreading the heat!

We have passed the two month countdown to the wedding. It’s starting to get real. And very busy.

Thankfully, the invitations are out of my hands now, and I’m excited to say that I’ve already finished one project for someone after they saw the invitations I made. A PAID project, I should add. I like to think of this as a small stepping stone on my path to someday having my own design business.

I hate it when I go too long without blogging. There’s too much to try and have a full recap and nothing seems as special as it was when it recently happened. So, I’ll just pick up with this past weekend and move forward from here.

Having my longest running hiatus since my stress fracture, I was beginning to think I was slowly morphing my way into being one of those people who don’t run. It was a frightening thought. But I didn’t want to further injure myself, so I waited. And waited. I learned to love the boxing and strength training classes at my gym, but still felt guilty being inside when the summer in Seattle is so perfect.

Saturday, after 5 weeks of waiting, I ran. I ended up going about 2.5 miles and my foot did not hurt. Congratulations, self.

Saturday was also the annual Microsoft Company picnic, so Todd and I caught a bus to the campus and hopped on a charter bus to the picnic site at the base of Mount Si. This is no picnic site like you’d find in a park. This is acres upon acres of free games and food and entertainment. It turned out to be a great day and while we had fun, it’s probably our last company picnic for several years.

Sunday was fun day. After church we took a drive in the convertible to my favorite cherry stand by Snoqualmie. $1 per basket! Yummy yummy cherries. $7 later I was a happy girl.

But by far, the best part of the day was the slip-n-slide soiree hosted by our friends Ryan and Aubrey. There were about 15 of us frolicking around enjoying the sunny day. But this was no ordinary slide, this was a surf-n-slide, with a small surfboard you were ‘supposed’ to slide on. While that didn’t fare too well for most of us, we found other ways to entertain ourselves and finished the day with some tasty bbq. Oh, to be young and carefree again……

It’s June here, and when the rest of the country seems to be sweating their way through summer temps, us Seattleites have been pulling out our already-boxed-up-until-next-winter sweaters and finding ways to convince ourselves the sun will come out tomorrow. or the next day. or the next. or maybe in July.

I was on my lunch break, sitting on a bench reading a book when a strange light shone down on me, creating an odd warming sensation on my head. It seems so long since I’ve felt this presence, it took me several seconds to realize….the SUN!

The sun is out and it’s a good day in Seattle.

On a less sunny note….my alma mater was hit by a tornado last night. The city (ok, more like ‘large town’) of Manhattan, Kansas, and the Kansas State University campus suffered an extensive blow. Storm damage on campus alone is believed to excede $20 million.


from wibw.com

I’m thankful that it is summer semester and not as many students are in town, but looking at the pictures I have seen posted online, I can only be saddened that the place I called home for 4 (and 1/2) years is now in shambles. While they’re resilient and they’ll rebuild, I’m sure thoughts and prayers would be appreciated. And if you’d like to help with a donation: K-State Tornado Relief

Busy busy bee….that’s me.
June is here! Without a doubt, my favorite month of the year.

It’s the transition from spring to summer— when the days are long and the cool breeze blows in through the open windows while I’m sleeping. It’s prime-time strawberry season. My #1 favorite berry. Yes, that’s correct, I have an entire list of my favorite berry rankings. Perhaps I’ll share that with you someday. And of course, it’s my birthday month! No additional explanation for excitement needed there.

As I mentioned in my last post, it’s been a busy couple of weeks, with my friend Cat and my parents all visiting back-to-back.

Some favorite highlights of mine include our multi-restaurant ’sushi crawl’, going kayaking in Portage Bay, Espresso martinis at Chandler’s, my first Mariners’ game (and my annual eating of a hot dog), sailing in a 19th century wooden boat on Lake Union and having both Todd and my parents in town to meet for the first time. And that’s only the short list— I’ll try to round up some pictures to post later.

I love having visitors— showing them my beloved adopted city and even experiencing new things myself— but I’m in serious need of some ‘katie time’. I need to enjoy it while I can before wedding prep chaos takes over.

Then I’ll be crazy bee. I’m sure all around me are looking forward to that. MuahahaHAHAHAAA!!