Posts Tagged ‘Uncategorized’

Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming….check, check, check, check.

We made it to Spearfish, South Dakota late last night and found a hotel room to crash at. After 13 hours of driving (or, riding, in my case) and 800 miles, I was eager to get some good sleep and realign my back.

Highlights from the day of driving include, but are not limited to:
-Crossing the Clark Fork river 15 times.
-Winning another bet against our friend Erin for not seeing any signs for hamburgers for over 30 miles.
-75 mph speed limits!
-Getting to listen to the K-State football game while driving through Montana State country, the team we were playing and eventually beat 69-10. It’s not often that K-State games are broadcast out in Seattle, so that was a pleasant surprise.
-Being a couple weeks too late to attend the Testicle Festival in Montana. Thank goodness!

We’re getting ready to hit the road again and make it through South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska and 7 miles into Kansas, where I’ll finally feel like we’re ‘home’.

I write this from the front seat of my car, Goldie.  Just for safety’s concern, I should clarify that I’m in the passenger seat, NOT the driver’s seat. 

Todd, Goldie, my dress Bella, and I are making the long haul back to Kansas City for our wedding (also our luggage and about 5 boxes of wedding stuff).  Yes, my dress has a name–she has a personality all her own and she’s taking up most of the back seat.

Our road trip will be a quick one, as we’re eager to get back and get things ready and rollin’.  We left Seattle this afternoon and are currently driving to Todd’s parents’ house in Idaho where we’ll have yummy greek food for dinner and spend the night.

Tomorrow we’ll drive through to Rapid City, South Dakota and then Sunday we’ll drive to my parents’ house in small town northeast Kansas and then rolling into Kansas City on Monday.  I’m excited that we are able to include stops at both parents’ and spend a little bit of time with them before things get too excitingly hectic. 

Should be fun.  I’ll probably post more during this trip than I have the past month    Enjoy.

These past couple of weeks have left me with very minimal time to do any worthwhile blogging, but I figured I’d leave an update now, lest I don’t get around to it any other time within the next week.

Someone once told me that 3 of the biggest changes you’ll experience in a lifetime are:
1. Getting Married
2. Moving
3. Starting a new Job

Well, I’m doing all 3 of those (kinda) within the next two weeks. I’m not STARTing a new job, but I am quitting my current job and figuring out what to do next with my occupational life.

Tonight, we’re moving my stuff out of my apartment and into Todd’s. I am sad about this, as I’ve loved living in my Eastlake studio the past year. It was the only year in my life that I lived completely by myself. No parents or siblings or roommates. (not saying I liked it MORE than living with others, it was just different) The location was perfect to jump on several of my favorite running routes, and I was just a 3 block walk to Lake Union. I’ll miss it.

But its bittersweet, as I’m moving my things to start my married life together with Todd. For that, I’m uberly excited and it makes moving a little less painful.

As one can imagine, it’s a little stressful around these parts, but thankfully work is not busy any more since I’m phasing myself out of there, so I get to do the majority of my wedding communcation during work hours

Just looking forward to getting everything finalized and seeing our family and friends together for our wedding!

The real countdown is on.

30 days until the wedding. One month.

Which means 22 days until we load up the car and drive back to Kansas. Oddly enough, I’m really looking forward to that part. I think it will be a great pre-wedding stress reliever, driving through beautiful Washington, Idaho, Montana,Wyoming…South Dakota…Iowa…Nebraska…well, the beautiful scenery kinda starts to dwindle halfway through the trip but still, I’m looking forward to it. At least we won’t be driving a 17 foot UHaul pulling a car trailer, like we did on my move to Seattle last year.

No UHaul = faster driving, the ability to listen to music of our choice, less gas (not to mention, having to physically squeeze the gas pump handle while the truck filled up for 10 minutes) and not feeling like the engine is going to explode going down the mountain roads.

In the meantime, I keep running, packing up my apartment, and trying to enjoy this time while its here.

How I have not heard about this sooner, I don’t know, but my friend Aubrey sent me this link today. Rock ‘n Roll Marathon is coming to Seattle!

Next June. I’m marking it on my calendar now.

I’m extremely excited because ever since Rock ‘n Roll San Diego, I’ve always wanted to run another RNR marathon to redeem myself from the shin injury. Right now, I’ll aim for the full marathon, but if Aubrey runs the half, I might join her in that. Regardless, this makes me very happy.

Time keeps on ticking ticking ticking….

Lately, I’ve found it difficult to find any time to do anything that I really need to do. My to-do list grows everyday and I can’t seem to get anything checked off. 39 days until our wedding, which means 31 days until we drive back to KS, which means I need more than 24 hours in a day.

I’m trying to focus on keeping myself healthy, getting rest, not getting stressed out, but it’s getting more difficult every day. I’m not happy at my job, so I’m stressed about what to do next. I’m maxed out with planning, but I should enjoy this time since it only happens once. I found myself recently succumbing to everything and sobbing my way down the street. I hate it when I’m in a weird funk. It’s not fair to Todd and it’s not healthy for me.

I do somehow manage to keep finding time for my gym classes and my running. It’s the best stress reliever I have. I’ve built my way back up to 5 miles, though at this point, I have no goals of running any races before October. There is a 10K in nearby Woodinville wine country in 2 weeks that I would like to do, but it’s also the morning that our friends are throwing us a couples’ shower. So I pick the shower fun over the 10K run, of course!

This past weekend I wrangled Todd into going with me to watch the Blue Angels perform. We took the bus to the Mt. Baker neighborhood above the I-90 tunnel and had some great views over the performance over Lake Washington. At some points, they even flew so close to use you could see the pilots (I think one winked at me). It was awesome! We caught some of the Sunday show while we were doing some shopping in SODO, so it was neat to get a different vantage point. I want to be an acrobatic pilot now.
Can’t wait until they’re back at SeaFair next year!

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!