Life in Washington!: Fun Things. Fun Things Everywhere.

It’s….. May? Well, the old saying is true, “Time flies when you are having fun”. There has been no shortage of fun in WA since the last blog post. I’ll let the pics do most of the talking, but a brief update:

We soaked in the last few months of winter with some good skiing. It was a strange snow year where the majority of snow fell in the month of February. And did it fall! Stevens Pass had 10 FEET of snow in 10 days. Crazy! Unfortunately, I was traveling during this time so I could not shred the goodness. All is not lost though! Up until February people (myself included) were terrified that we wouldn’t have any water in the river this Spring due to the lack of snow. February’s epic blizzard saved us!

I’ll get to the boating in a minute. We spent the last few months of winter staying busy (even when we weren’t skiing). We had plenty of visitors and lots of projects around the house. I spent the last few months working on a new backpacking tent- what a pain in the ass that turned out to be. I’m happy to report it turned out well, but this tent spawned more than a few curses.

Anywho, if you asked me at the tail end of winter whether I liked Leavenworth, I would have said liked living here. The skiing is easy to get to, it’s very scenic, and we had made good friends. Fast forward to mid-May and I FRICKIN’ LOVE IT HERE!

We moved here during the Fall so we didn’t get a chance to explore what the area had to offer before the snow and cold weather came. Well, let me tell you that this place has everything that pertains to fun things outside (which Jenny and I are kinda sorta into). The warm weather came in and suddenly I found myself kayaking and rafting like 3 or 4 times a week…. in early April! The Wenatchee river runs right through town and we can be at the river put-in in roughly 5 minutes. It’s insanely easy to get on the river, which we have been taking full advantage of.

After a few weeks of rafting on friends’ boats we decided to take the plunge (stupid pun!) and get a raft. We went big and bought a 13.5’ paddle raft, which will accommodate friends, and allow us to go on multiday raft trips (WOOO!!!). Simply put, the raft is awesome.

Not only do we have a raft and a river at our doorstep, but we are lucky enough to have awesome friends that LOVE to boat. When you add those three ingredients a good time is going to be had.

When we were living in Seattle, I didn’t realize how much I missed spending time on the river. Obviously, I missed the river, but getting to spend so much time on the river this Spring made me realize how starved I really was for some good old fashioned raftin’. I can’t fully articulate my feeling towards rivers, but I will say I feel very privileged have gotten to, and continue to spend a large amount of time on rivers. Please come visit WA and we will take you boating. Mmmkay.

Where was I? Oh yes, lost in a long rant about rivers. Besides boating, Jenny and I have been training for our Half Ironman triathlon coming up in August. We have been running and biking all over the place. Our favorite ride goes up Icicle Creek, which is where the Enchantments (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enchantments ) are tucked back in. It’s a hard climb up, but the scenery is so stunning that you forget you are slogging up 1500’ vertical feet (the ride down is FUUUUUN). Check out the bike pics below.

As a wise pig once said, “that’s all folks”. I hoped you enjoy reading about the last few months. I’ll do my best to keep the blog updated a bit more often. Thanks for reading and enjoy the pics. Much love to everyone. Seriously come visit.

Quick link to that finished backpacking tent I mentioned above: http://imgur.com/a/1w3jL

Every Spring pretty much every ski resort has a "gaper day", where people dress up in old 70's and 80's gear and go skiing and drink beer (usually more beer drinking than skiing). This was me and Jenny this year.

The ladies dressed accordingly. Who puts a question mark on a full suit?! Amazing old ski gear.

Me and Dan showing our style.

Excellent weather for Gaper Day

A Hilarious Disaster.

Lookin' good!

Funny story: we were watching a half pipe competition and this 60 year old guy walks up to us with a shotski and a backpack full of booze. He demanded we drink as much as we could while he was competing in the competition. He then proceeded to start throwing backflips in the halfpipe. Unreal. Hats off to you, sir. The icing on the cake of a great Gaper Day celebration.

Luke and Rachel came up for Steven's Closing day

Closing day at The Pass- See ya next year!

Here's a boat I bought on craigslist for $200. I mean, cmon. I had to! No, it does not have a floor, but it is patched now.... so it's got that going for it. We are calling it Suzanne.