What's this white stuff in Seattle??? Might as well try biking in it!!!

As most of you know I was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. Ian although spending time living all over the world was born in New Jersey and spent his first 8 years there. Since then he has spent plenty of time in Tahoe during the winters. Therefore neither of us are strangers to snow unlike the city we love so much; Seattle. For the past couple years Seattle has been getting more and more snow during its winters, and despite the increasing frequency with which the city gets snow, it doesn't seem to be handling it any better. To be fair we did get a good couple inches this winter accompanied by some ice storms, but I can tell you before arriving in Seattle I have never had school cancelled for a couple inches of snow...but believe me I wasn't complaining when I got to spend a week at home with Ian, Britt and Ian's parents who were staying with us this winter when snow fell on Seattle.

And what better way to see a city that has been shut down by a snow storm them on mountain bikes?!?!? So that's exactly what we did, we jumped on our bikes and cruised through Ravenna park, around Green Lake and U-Village. It was an amazing way to spend a snow day, and I am pretty sure Ian and I found another winter sport to add to our ever growing list!!!

With school cancelled for another day, Ian and I headed to the Woodland Park Zoo to check out the animals in their own winter wonderland. 

As the snow started melting we were able to make our way to Ballard for trivia night accompanied by Ian's parents Holly and Alan, Britt and Avery. I would like to say that my extensive medical education was what helped us secure the win, but that would be a lie. A combination of geography knowledge from Ian's world travelling parents, music history from everyone (except Britt and I) and 90's tv trivia for the tie breaker and we left with 2nd place and some free beer and coozies!!!

Snow snow come and stay, please snow again another day!!!

Much love
xo
I&K

Not a white christmas after all...

Christmas 2011

After Britt spent the winter of 2010-2011 in Tahoe, raving about the skiing and all the pow-pow!!! We decided a white Christmas sounded perfect. My parents rented a house on Donner Lake in Tahoe and Ian, Britt and I packed up the Subaru with our ski gear and headed to Cali, yes were leaving some record amounts of Washington snow but surely the Sierra's wouldn't let us down. We had a great trip, lots of great food, wine and Christmas cookies, time with friends and family, kinect dance offs, chocolate tastings and boardgames, ice skating, trail running and hiking. Oh wait...did I forget to mention skiing? NOPE, I didn't forget it just that there wasn't any. There was a record LACK of snow in the Sierra's last winter and we were there!!!

Early morning run above Donner Lake

 

We did get in some fun hikes, one day we went up the backside of Squah in tennis shoes, the very trail we usually back country ski on. Britt, Ian, my dad and I were joined by Jerry Riessen, the newlyweds Greg and Brooke Riessen, and some new friends from the Riessen wedding earlier in the summer. My mom rode the gondola and met us at the top of Squaw with wine, cheese and crackers, so all in all it was still a great day on the mountain. We did get one day of skiing at Mt. Rose, the same Mt. Rose Ian and I had biked to the top of earlier in the summer. It was the only place with a couple decent runs that wasn't still asking full price for their life tickets despite having only 1/16th (if that) of their mountain open.

 New Years was spent at the Riessen family home, with great food friends and ice skating around a bonfire. It was a fabulous way to ring in what has proved to be an amazing 2012!!!

Much Love
xo
I&K

Stinky moves in!!! (aka my little sister).

Ian and I were trilled when Britt decided to pack up her Subaru and make the drive from Cali up to Seattle to spend the winter with us. Ian and I flew down to San Fran to spend a wounderful Thanksgiving with the Riessen's and my parents in Tiburon. Ian once again out did himself with his holiday pies and homemade eggnog and then the three of us (Britt, Ian and myself) piled into Britt's Subaru and headed north. I have to say it took a little getting use to having Britt here, but once we all figured it out it made for one of the best winter's in Seattle yet. Britt saved Ian from some early morning winter runs by being my training partner (did I mention I had signed up to race a full Ironman for August 2012!) and she acted as Ian's sous-chef, saving me from ever having to enter the kitchen (except to help sample!). It was great for the three of us to spend time together, it really cemented Ian and I's relationship with Britt, and we now know wherever we end up we will always plan on having "an apartment above the garage for Britt to grow old" (Friends reference ;) We had some wonderful adventures together while Britt was here, one of the most notable being Britt's birthday adventure.

All Britt wanted to do for her birthday was go on a hike oh and Dairy Queen ice cream cake, seemed reasonable enough and Ian and I figured we could make that happen. Britt found a hike she wanted to do so we jumped into the Jetta and headed out, little did we know that;
a) we would be driving several miles on a fire road to get to the trail head
b) there would be snow!

Regardless it was a beautiful day and a great hike.

But things changed when we got back to our car and found a trail of oil in the snow leading up to our car. Turns out unbenounced to us we had punctured a hole in our oil can on the drive up to the trail head. The car started just long enough to get out of the parking lot and start down the hill but promptly stopped running and we cruised to a halt when the road started to take an uphill slant.

FYI - AAA will NOT come and rescue you if you are on a unknown fire road!!! SO what else was there for us to do, but PUSH.

For 4 straight hours Ian, Britt and I pushed/pulled our car inches at a time for miles with 1 person at the drivers side w/ the door open so they could leap into the car and pull no the E-break following each effort, Ian in the back using the foot holds we painstakingly created with sticks in the ice that ran down the middle of the road, and one of us in the front of the car with a strap around our shoulders. When we finally realized that we were not making very good progress (we are all pretty suborn, so it took awhile for us to come to this conclusion), we called for help in the form of one Mr. Avery Dahl.

Avery jumped into his car and headed out. We managed to get our car up the final hill and were able to cruise down with the help of the E-break as our only means of breaking and made it off the fire road and onto the county road were Avery arrived with hot coffee, a warm car and an abundance of energy, the very three things we were severely lacking at that moment. We waited for AAA to arrive and take the poor little Jetta back to Seattle. We all made it back to Seattle safe, a little sore and a lot hungry so we went to our favorite Indian restaurant Bangel Tiger ate until we couldn't move and then managed to make our way home to some birthday Dairy Queen cake!!!

Britt stayed with us until mid-May when she headed back to Cali to start another season of being a bad @$$ white water rafting guide for All Outdoors. Ian and I really miss having her around, and for awhile every time our neighbours beat up (sorry Britt) old Subaru would pull up I would jump up and think it was Britt coming home. Her and Ian did manage to pull off a surprise return to Seattle trip, but more about that later.

Seattle misses you Stinky...come back anytime!!!

Much love
xo
I&K



Loving Seattle in the fall.

Fall 2011

Fall is always a beautiful time in Seattle, and the fall of 2011 was no different. We tried our best despite my crazy school schedule to enjoy it as much as possible.

I love improptu get aways, and a quick weekend at Avery's cabin was just that. We headed up on Sunday afternoon, the boys fished while I studied. We collected the last of the seasons blackberries and then enjoyed a fabulous dinner on the deck watching the sunset before enjoying an outdoor movie.

Our bounty!!!

Hood Canal fishing

And no fall season is complete without a UW homecoming football game.

 

Much Love

xo

I&K

Love and bicycles, California style!!!

 

August 27th, 2011

 

 

Our last big adventure for the summer of 2011 was a road trip to San Francisco, we loaded our bikes into our little Jetta and headed down to our favorite city (after Seattle of course) to celebrate the wedding of one of our favorite couples; Greg Riessen and Brooke DuBose. Our first stop was Tahoe for Greg's bachelor party. I wasn't officially there and tried my best to "hid" upstairs for most of the weekend. The bachelor party was a success, and I even managed to get some studying in. Ian and I stayed a couple extra nights at the Riessen's place in Tahoe after the bachelor and the rest of the party headed back to the city for an amazing few days of road and mountain biking and some wonderful meals right on hidden lake.

 

We road biked from Lake Tahoe to the top of Mt. Rose, all 8900ft.

The next day we rented full suspension mountain bikes and this time drove to the top of Mt. Rose and rode down along the Flume trail which had the most amazing views of Lake Tahoe and then back up.

 

 

 

After a long day of biking we headed down to Lake Tahoe, I was shocked by how beautiful the water was, aqua blue and crystal clear!!!

 

 

It was my first time being in Tahoe in the summer, and this bumper sticker pretty much says it all ;)

I wanna be a local!!!

 

From there it was on to San Francisco. Our good friends Stephanie and Kyle Larson were travelling in Europe and we were sad to miss them while we were in town, but lucky enough to stay at their fabulous apartment in the Marina district. It is a great location that allowed up to walk around the city and meet up with the always energetic Berling brother, Seth and Parker and have a chance run in with the beautiful Julia Riessen and her adorable boyfriend Christian for a wonderful dinner in the city followed by drinks (of which I can't say I remember all of ;) The next day we fit in a bike ride leaving from the Marina over the Golden Gate bridge to the top of Mt. Tam and back through Marin to end in Tiburon.

View from the top of Mt Tam

 

We made a pit stop at the best bakery in all of San Fran; Caffe Acri which is owned and operated by Jerry Riessen's beautiful sister Katherine, where we had a sneak tasting of the wedding cake and some fabulous coffee.

Perfect post-bike treat :)

We jumped on the ferry to head back to San Fran, but not before grabbing some fresh bread and stinky cheese for the ferry ride back.

Sorry fellow ferry rides for the stinky cheese, at least it covers up the smell of the stinky bike riders ;)

We got all cleaned up and headed to a truly wonderful rehearsal dinner hosted by long time family friend of the Riessen's, Greg's godfather, Simon Snellgrove. It was a great reunion with old friends and a chance to make new ones. I always love weddings and the events surrounding them, getting the opportunity to spend time with the people that are so special in your friends lives is so rewarding and so often Ian and I find that the people who are special in our lives have the most amazing friends and we are lucky to have an ever expanding circle of friends because of that.

The day of the wedding Ian and I were tasked with picking up the desserts; cupcakes from Cups and Cakes and chocolate pôts de crème from Bi-Rite Creamery. I decided that after six years either the Riessen family doesn't know me at all or they trust Ian implicitly to allow me anywhere near the desserts and expect them to arrive unsampled to the wedding (my guess is the later ;). As part of our dessert pick up we made a pit stop at the every famous Tartine Bakery. Ian couldn't find parking so he sat in the car for 45min while I waited in line to be rewarded with amazing coffee, sandwiches and pastries. Its been over a year since we had these wonderful treats so I don't remember the details but I do know that I would happily wait for another 45min to try them again!

The desserts made it to the Marin Headlands safe and sound for the wedding. The wedding itself was magical, the ceremony was outside on the grounds of the old army barracks converted into an artists residence. Everything about the day was so perfectly personalized to Brook and Greg, from the family dog Chance's inclusion in the ceremony to the family style meal and heart filled toasts throughout the evening that brought laughter, tears and joy to everyone in the room. Ian gave a fabulous toast truly from the heart. We danced the night away but still made it to brunch the next morning at Servino's resturant in Tiburon to once again toast the wonderful couple and say our goodbye's to new and old friends before starting our drive back to Seattle.

The adorable bride and groom!!!

Fun wedding photobooth


We split the drive home into two days, stopping in Mt Sahsta for a night of camping at Lake Siskiyou in our 1-year-anniversary present to ourselves; a vacation home...aka a tent! We ended up at this awesome camp site, it had a huge waterfront with inflatable water toys (which Ian said I was to old for...), deer everywhere (which I kept trying to feed...) and an outdoor movie!!! We had our absolute favorite picnic meal of bread, cheese and wine under the stars before spending our first night in our vacation home.

Chasing deer!!!

Lake Siskiyou in Mt. Shasta

The drive back to Seattle marked the end of an amazing summer for Ian and I and the beginning of my second year of medical school.

Much love
xo
I&K

If your 1/2 iron does that make you aluminum?

August 14th, 2011

I raced my first 1/2 ironman last summer, thats a 0.6 mile swin, 56 mile bike and 13.1 mile run. I signed up with my good friend Kim Lortan and we were lucky enough to have our wounderful husbands Ian and John, and friends Eric and Sarah Rose there to support us. Ian not only rode the bike course and ran 1/2 the run course with me the week prior to the race to prepare, he also played the role of support crew on race day. Waking up at 4am to get coffee ready and driving up to Lake Steven's for my 6:35am start time. The race was a lot of fun, the water was calm and the weather was great. I finished in 5:47 with a 36:53min swim, 3:01hr bike and 2:04hr run. The course brought you threw town 7 times w/ the bike in and out, and then run being a x2 loop course with town and the crowds in the middle of the loops. Ian was there every time I went by cheering me on and taking pictures!!!

I finished the race not quite as strong as I hoped, placing 14/52 in my age group, this made me realize that training for long distance racing is much different then training for rowing. I hadn't really followed a training plan in preperation for the 1/2 Ironman, I just went out a biked/swam/ran with Ian or Kim whenever possible, trying to get as much distance as I could. Ian and I talked a lot about what needed to change to make my next long distance race more sucessful and we realized I needed to train with more intensity, more short sprint and hill workouts but all in all it was a great experience and I definatly got the Ironman bug. More to come on this!!!

bike - 56 miles

run - 13.1 miles



DONE

I couldn't have done the race without my lifelong training partner or my #1 supporter, Ian!!! Looking forward to many more races and adventures!!!

Much love

XO

Blog on....trying to catch up!!!

I am a little behind in my blogging...ok a LOT behind, 15 months behind to be exact but a day home sick and I am working to catch up starting where we left off in the summer of 2011. I decided to break up the post like I would have had I done the "real time", so there are lots of new post coming soon!!!


To make this post a little more exciting I included this photo by the one and only Seth Berling, taking this summer on Seattle's new waterfront ferris wheel.