Not Aspen, but close

For my birthday, we took a weekend trip to Mt. Baker. We stopped by Skagit County to see the snow geese and swans that are back for winter. You can see the clouds of them in the photo.

Brian rented a condo type place near Mt. Baker. Fireplace, hot tub, kitchen and quiet. We got snowshoes early for Christmas and we did some beautiful trails. One evening, Brian made pork chops with lemon thyme sauce. Yum yum. It snowed all day Saturday so by Sunday there was a foot of powder at Mt. Baker ski area! I love running down hills in snowshoes in powder.

We're off to Massachusetts tomorrow to see Brian's family.

Merry Christmas!

DC music people,
I'm still on the 930 club email list. Go see this show if you don't have any plans for Sat night!

Laura Burhenn has a beautiful voice and grew up in western Maryland. In high school and college, I dated Cole, a musician from Boonsboro, MD (real town, I swear). One of his closest friends and musical collaborators was Laura so I got to hang out with her a bunch. She lived across the street from Cole's high school. I ran into her a few years ago at a Bob Dylan show (of all places) and she said she was in a band in DC. Sadly, I haven't seen her play live since I was 17.

Listen to her here:
http://www.myspace.com/lauraburhenn
and here
http://www.myspace.com/georgiejames

Thank you to everyone who supported me for the Seattle Marathon.

Last year, the weather was terrible for the marathon. About 36 degrees and raining. I watched it for a half hour by my house before I pulled my frozen self back home. This year the weather was beautiful- clear, crisp, and (gasp) sunny and warm at the end. Well, Seattle warm, so about 40 degrees.

Emmy ran with me from mile 9 to the end. The paparazzi (Mom, Dad, Cat and Brian) found us at mile 9, 17, 23 and 25. Emmy had given them a cowbell to cheer us on. Fabulous!

I finished in 4:29. Not what I wanted. It wasn't the easiest marathon I've done and I'm trying to figure out why. It's hilly but I trained on hills and did the mileage. Oh well.

My left foot/ankle hurts now and I'm not sure why. Not swollen, not black and blue, only when I walk on it, standing is fine, not muscular. Sprained? I'll take it easy for a week and hopefully it'll go away.

I raised about $800 for Team Survivor Northwest. Thank you to everyone! We're having our post-marathon party tonight and I'm looking forward to celebrating with our team!

First Annual Tri-Sister Blog Entry.

What seemed like a spectacular idea has turned, in fact, to the greatest ever. 3 sisters, 2 parents, one 12 lb turkey, and a dash of Henry and you've got a tradition in the making.
The uncharacteristic sunny Seattle weather has allowed for the sort of exploration and discovery demanded for the inaugural visit to a new town. Dad has played tour guide on this, his second visit, showing favorites from his first. Mom has let go of the map only long enough to gasp into oncoming traffic. The newlyweds have played proficient hosts to a species of navage thirsty for more: local beer, regional wine, and the local caffeine scene.

Off to watch Apple Cup. Go UW!

Wishing Kansas the best (hi, Craig)!

The redundant trio

There's a fresh coating of snow on the Olympics. It's going to be colder this week and Mt. Baker ski area will probably open by Thanksgiving. We're planning a snowshoe weekend around my birthday.
Yay!

Bonne anniversaire, Granny!

The family is coming! The family is coming!

The Supernavage clan will be here in about 10 days. Very exciting!

I just realized last night that it also means that I have to prepare Thankgiving dinner. Or at least plan a large part of it. Hmmm. Happily, Cat and Mom are great cooks. And Emily is no longer a vegetarian.

What size turkey do I get? Any recipie suggestions?

The photo: On his way home from work, sometimes Brian passes by the Neuhaus store with their marzipan mushrooms. He picked the leaves from the yard and presented them on a platter.

While John was in town, we went to Gas Works Park. Enjoy the photos.

Frosted leaf

Frosted leaf
Originally uploaded by Ronn70

The leaves have all changed and are almost gone. It's been dry but chilly. I walked to work this morning and there was frost on the leaves and cars. Pretty but it's officially fall. I'm trying to convince Brian to go apple picking on Saturday.

John came out and visited us last weekend (thank you for visiting!). Lots of fun things! Brian even took the whole weekend off to be with John. Brunch at Glo's, hanging out at Gas Works Park, visiting the U-District, and playing frisbee in Volunteer Park. And the Red Sox won the World Series! We watched the games last weekend. We finally found THE place in Seattle to watch Red Sox games with lots of fans.

As some of you know, my boss at Team Survivor Northwest is no longer on staff. It's a big hole and the rest of us are trying to fill it. I'm now a grant writer. The writing is fairly straight forward but the budget items are confusing. Every foundation wants different information and gives each category a different, ridiculous name (like "off-site out of pocket expenses" instead of "printing and mailing costs"). I'm writing two and I'll let you know how that goes.

The running is going well. We did a big chunk of the course last weekend. The course is beautiful. You run from the space needle, through downtown, across Lake Washington (on I-90 express lanes), along Lake Washington for about 10 miles, up through an old, peaceful wooded area, around a mansion district, and back to the space needle. It is a bit hilly but nothing too dramatic. The biggest hill is much, much shorter than my walk to the bus stop every morning.

Don't forget to turn your clocks back on Sunday.

Brian went to take the recycling out last week. In the small space between our building's back door and the garage door (where the recycling is) he saw this rooster and chicken! They're beautiful and probably live on the wooded hill right behind our apartment building. But how did they get there? I heard the rooster the next morning at dawn but I haven't heard him since.

Week of October 15 News

• Red Sox won game 5! On to game 6 on Saturday, 5:00pm PST
• Fresh snow has started to fall on the Olympics. When it’s a clear, sunny morning, you can see the caps glistening.
• I did my longest run last weekend (22 miles). Brian and I did the Dawg Dash 5K (UW Huskies) on Sunday. It started and ended on the field of Husky stadium. The artificial turf is really odd. The “dirt” is made out of rubbery, coarse pellets. We think the grass is fake, but we’re not entirely sure.

Butternut Squash Soup

It's fall. Make something fall-y.

Take 2 butternut squash. Peel them and take out the seeds. Cut them into squares.
Chop an onion. Put it in a big pot with some olive oil. Cook the onions a bit. Add the squash, a healthy bit of thyme, and 5 cups of broth (veggie or chicken).
Simmer until squash is soft.
Blend/food process/magic wand it.
Add 1/2 cup (or more) half and half (or cream).
Warm up a bit.

Slurp. Eat with grilled cheese.

Take it for lunch the next day.

I must say this dish was amazingly delicious. I have eaten three times and will keep going until it is gone. Happy fall. Go Red Sox! Bri

We can dance if we want to

We went to our last Mariners game of the season last week. Being the end of a season without hope of October play, they put it a lot of new talent to see how they would do in the major leagues. The kids did quite well. The game even went into extra innings and the Mariners won!

The highlight, however, came from the Jumbo-tron. To get the crowd riled up, they play goofy songs (“Louie, Louie”, “Shake Your Groove Thang”). Then they take footage of crazy dancers around the stadium. Usually this involves cute kids, cuddling couples, enthusiastic bad dancers, and shirtless frat boys. Guess which one Brian is? Yep, he danced his butt off for a whole minute on the Jumbo-tron.

Awesome.

The Seattle Marathon is 8 weeks away! Whew! I'm up to 18 miles this weekend.

Thank you to everyone for your donations. If you haven't donated, go to Team Survivor Northwest's website and go to the Seattle Marathon/Half Marathon page to donate to my efforts.

It's turning into quite the family event! Mom, Dad, Cat and Emmy will be in town for Thanksgiving. Emily will run the marathon with me (or in front of me). And my mom has decided to do the half marathon too! It's her first longer race and she's been building up her mileage. We'll all enjoy our well deserved pizza and beer that afternoon.

We were in Yosemite National Park last week for Bruce and Heidi's wedding. We started with a two day backpacking trip in the High Sierra near Toulmne Meadows. They got married in the valley on the sandy shores of the Merced River. Bea-u-ti-ful. And they are so happy together.

Have an opinion on Barry Bonds' "record"?

Here's your chance to decide if the ball should go to Cooperstown, get branded with an asterisk and then go to Cooperstown, or just get blasted into space. The guy who caught the 756th home run ball sold it for $752,467 to fashion designer Marc Ecko. Ecko is letting people vote on his website to decide the fate of the ball.

You can vote here: www.vote756.com

We're heading to Yosemite tomorrow for Bruce and Heidi's wedding. We're both excited to go hiking, camp with friends, get a few days off of work, and road trip from Reno to the park.

Brian got me those beautiful yellow flowers this week. Just because. Yes, I am a happy wife.

Greg and Janine are married!

We had a fabulous time in Hood River with lots of friends, sunshine, hikes, bridal brunches, smiles, purple dresses, tuxes, drunken groomsmen, local fruit, a bike ride, and yummy coffee.

The happy couple is off to the Oregon coast for the week.

Congratulations!

Last weekend I brewed beer! Yeah! This was only my third batch, and only the first I've bottled. Sadly I had blocked from my mind how excruciatingly painful it is to bottle beer. There is a reason kegs are popular. Someday I will have a device to keep one cold so I don't have to bottle. So, after a long hiatus from brewing, things are getting back underway. Hopefully my new Seattle beers will soon be above par. The one pictured in bottles is a honey brown, and the one cooking is pale ale. More on brewing adventures as they happen. Take care, Bri

It's been a while. Yes, we went for our anniversary. Here are photos from Vancouver, Canada where we tried to stay out of the rain, walked along the beach, ate yummy Indian, and bought lots of Cadbury chocolate.

I have a crazy little sister. Emily is doing the Ironman Wisconsin on Sept. 9. For fun.

Wish her luck!

Oh, and she's no longer a vegetarian. All in the name of training.

Yes, it's been a while since I've blogged. Sorry about that.

I'm getting closer to my fundraising goal for the marathon. Thank you!! The running has been going well. I got new (sorely needed) running shoes. I'm up to 14 miles this weekend.
I have always run in cities. As the mileage creeps up, I forget how much distance you have to cover to reach your mileage. I'll do my long run on Thursday because I know I won't do it over the weekend. I'll run from Green Lake to Ballard to Discovery Park back to Green Lake and around the lake. Whew.

We're headed to Greg and Janine's wedding in Hood River, OR for Labor Day weekend.

Have a fun weekend!

Remember the Seafair pirates? Well today is the pinnacle of Seafair with the Blue Angels and other airplane, seaplane festivities. I'm not sure I feel great about such a display of US military prowess, but airplanes are pretty cool. They fly over our apartment and all week you can hear and see them practicing flying over the city. There is a big air show and according to the guy Alicia and I met while watching the Mariners game last night a big boat party on Lake Washington. Maybe next year we'll paddle a kayak out. Happy Summer! Brian

We’ve gone to some good baseball games but this one was awesome. The Angels are our biggest “rivals” right now in the AL West. It was a tight game, a pitchers duel. And the Mariners won!

We’ve been sitting in a lot of cheap seats lately but we’ve found the best deal. Brian found the $10 seats with the best views. It was Japanese baseball appreciation night. Everyone was decked out for Ichiro. Taiko drumming, free, ugly, MasterCard/Mariners shirts, tourists from our sister city of Kobe., and an interview of Johjima by Japanese school kids (adorable!). And Ichiro had a great game (a triple and some nice catches in center field). The Kobe Mayor threw the first pitch to Seattle Mayor Greg Nichols and managed to hit Nichols between the legs. Heehee

Note for non-baseball fans: Baseball is different from basketball. In the NBA, the majority (16 of 30) of teams make it into the play offs. Major League Baseball has 30 teams, divided into two divisions, American League and National League. Each is divided into 3 regions- west, central and east (making it 6 divisions total). For the playoffs, the team with the best record from each division gets in (6 teams) plus one wild card team from each League (2 teams). The wild card is the remaining team with the best winning percentage from each league.

The AL East is where the Red Sox, Yankees, Blue Jays, Orioles and the Devil Rays play. So only one of those teams gets into the playoffs by being the first place team in their division. The others have to duke it out with all of the other AL teams (west, central and east)to secure that one wild card spot. The playoffs begin in early October. So get ready to hear a lot of talk between now and October about win-loss records and the wild card race.

Go Mariners! Although Brian would say "Go Red Sox!"

I’m doing another marathon! I’ll be doing the Seattle Marathon on Sunday November 25^th as a member of the Team Survivor Northwest Team. And I’ll be doing it as a fundraiser.

I work for a nonprofit in Seattle called Team Survivor Northwest. We provide free fitness and health education programs to women cancer survivors, in any stage of treatment or recovery and at any fitness level. We do all sorts of classes and groups- yoga, indoor fitness, biking, dragon boating, triathlon training, hiking, running, snowshoeing, dance classes, canoeing, walking, swimming, and mountain climbing. I work with a lot of our members and these women are amazing.

Why provide free fitness classes to women cancer survivors in Washington State?

We know that:

• Exercise is an important part of the recovery and life enhancement for cancer survivors.
• Steady and moderate exercise improves functional, social and emotional quality of life.
• Breast cancer will affect 1 in 8 women in their lifetime.
• Regular aerobic exercise (like running, swimming, and biking) decreases the risks of some cancers and may impact a woman’s survival after breast cancer.
• Exercise can help decrease fatigue, depression and anxiety.
• Exercise helps build emotional and physical strength and improves the ability to enjoy and participate in life.
• Exercise improves sense of control, self esteem and body image.
• Washington State has the highest rate of cancer in the country. In 2007, an estimated 17,000 new cases of cancer are expected to occur in women in Washington.

Show me the money!
I’m setting a goal of raising $1,000. That will buy either four 3 hour cycling clinics for 30 cancer survivors or one year of fitness for 5 cancer survivors.

The Supernavage family has decided to come to Seattle for the week of Thanksgiving. They’ll be here to cheer me on and Emmy will probably run with me. As most of you know, I’m turning 30 soon after the marathon. I don’t need anything for my birthday. But a donation will help me continue to train with the group.

Can you donate to my marathon?
You can make a secure donation online at www.teamsurvivornw.org (click on the Marathon/Half marathon Training link on the left side of the page and click “Support the Marathon Team”)
Or mail a check to our office (Team Survivor Northwest, 200 NE Pacific St. Suite 101, Seattle, WA 98105).

I hope that you’ll help me by supporting my fundraising efforts. Thank you in advance for your generosity! You are truly making a difference.

Happy running!

Alicia

The other side of the Cascades

Last weekend, Brit, Barrie, Brian and I (I need to add a B and R to my name before the next trip) escaped the Seattle rain and headed over to Leavenworth for a weekend of camping. There’s an area of the Wenatchee National Forest called the Enchantment Lakes. As the name might suggest, it’s a beautiful area with plenty of high altitude lakes. It’s hard to get a wilderness camping permit so we just car camped. Next year we’ll apply for a permit! On Saturday we hiked along a river and picked blueberries. We did an amazing hike on Sunday up and over a ridge. It’s wildflower and mosquito season around the lakes. Bring a camera and the deet.

We stopped into Leavenworth for pizza after the hike. The town recreated itself as a Bavarian village a while ago (don’t know exactly when). So the whole place looks like a Disney German village. Even the Starbucks and Subway signs are wooden. Kitchy.

Alicia and I had a wonderful time during my Mom and Paul's visit from July 10-17. We had many adventures such as eating tasty icecream on Bainbridge Island, riding the monorail and having dinner on the Space Needle, taking a cruise of Elliot Bay, and exploring Capitol Hill. Paul and Mom enjoyed their eccentric innkeeper Linda, Pike Place Market, and the exciting Underground Tour (watch out for spiders). They managed to figure out Metro bus, avoid sketchy Broadway folk, and survive the super hot weather. We hope they will come back again soon. Brian

Arrgh!

Everyone loves pirates. Especially kids. Especially kids on a sunny day. Especially kids on a sunny day at the beach. Especially kids on a sunny day at the beach with free pirate eye patches, swords, and bandanas.

Saturday was the annual Pirate’s Landing on Alki Beach . We took the Water Taxi over to West Seattle. I can’t believe we hadn’t been there yet. It’s a real beach with ice cream stands, a boardwalk, sand, party houses filled with college kids, fried seafood restaurants, and 100 pirates. Pirates load onto an army boat, storm the beach, everyone cheers, and they walk around for the rest of the day “intimidating” people and posing with kids. Zach would be in heaven (come next year!). I’m sure there’s some significance but I don’t know what it is. We got ice cream, walked around, ate fried halibut, wore paper pirate hats, and basked in the sunshine.

And Brian’s feet got sunburned.

We headed out to Exit 38 on Friday after work. Only 45 minutes from Seattle! It’s a super-short hike (walk?) to Deception crags. To our surprise, for a sunny weekend, it was totally empty. The weather was perfect- warm, dry, late afternoon/evening sunshine.

It was Brian and Andrea’s first time on real rock! CJ and I set up sport 5.6 and 5.7 on top-rope for them to try. I’m happy to say that Brian had a ton of fun. A little scary for both of them but they did well (see them smiling?).

Here’s to more climbing this summer!