Hawaii was awesome.

Stories and more photos to follow...

One week to go...

Is it over yet? I'm on every Democratic and environmental email list possible. Some funny person also put me on the McCain/Palin and Maryland Republicans lists too.

This is a snippet from one of today's "funny" emails.

The McCain health plan builds on the employer-based system.
Employers will have the same incentive to provide health insurance as they do today since they will continue to deduct the cost of health insurance they provide to employees.
For example, a 25-year-old employee in the 25 percent tax bracket with a $2,500 tax credit could purchase a policy in the individual market for the same amount. Why would people choose fewer benefits for more money?

Really? Because last time I researched health care plans in WA, they're at least $350/month for basic coverage. That's $4200/year/person in a small business. I don't think health care companies are in the business of working with individuals to ensure the best care at the lowest price. And employers are jumping at the chance to pay for their employees' health insurance. I guess we'll continue with the stellar rate of 35% of Americans under 65 as uninsured or underinsured.

Seahawks game

Someone from work had two tickets to the Seahawks-Packers game a few weeks ago. And gave them to us! The Seahawks lost (predictably). It was our first NFL game.

We're huge baseball fans so we brought sandwiches and knitting for the quiet moments. Silly us.

The energy in Qwest Field is amazing.



Not, like, say, sugar plum, amazing.

Like blood-crazed mob at a gladiator bout, amazing.

Danskin Triathlon!

I did my first triathlon last weekend. Even though I heard thunder when I woke up (rare for Seattle), the weather was perfect for the event (70's and sunny). For our women, it was an amazing event. All but one woman finished adn they were all smiles at the end! For me, I went in my age group (not the survivor wave) and thought I'd catch up with some of the women. But most of them beat me! The swim in Lake Washington was beautiful but my goggles kept filling up with water. The run was way easier than I thought it'd be.

I did it in 1:30:25.

Alrighty. You asked for embarssing photos. Here they are. The bottom photo is a training photo. We often swam in Lake Washington off of Seward Park.

We had an adventure filled weekend!

We headed up to Mt. Baker on Saturday in the rain. We arrived at the trail head with all of the climbers and gear. It's a beautiful hike with waterfalls and dicey river crossings. It's about 3.8 miles one way to base camp with 2400' elevation gain. Christian loves his GPS unit! Above tree line, the wildflowers are out and the glacier was blue-blue. However, also at tree line, the rain turned to sleet. Brrr. We were sopping wet from head to toe. We didn't stay there for long for fear of hypothermia. We hiked down to the car, talking of warm drinks. When we got to the car, we realized that there was still one bag of gear to carry up, including two sleeping bags and climbing gear. It got lost in the shuffle in the morning. We had to take it up. Christian and Brian decided to make the second trip up to base camp. They raced up the mountain to stay warm and made it back before sunset (phew!).

Cold, wet and tired, we decided not to camp in the rain and instead drove home. On the way back to Seattle, we stopped in Bellingham at Boundary Bay Brewing for some burgers and fries. Yum yum. After hitting the evil Everett traffic (at 12:30am on a Saturday!!!), we made it home really late.

On Sunday, we slept in and relaxed and cooked and watched the movie "21" (not as good as the book, Bringing Down the House).

I went to the farmer's market yesterday right before they closed. I got a bounty of organic raspberries and blueberries for cheap!

What to do with them before they go bad? I made a berry pastry. The crust is pretty easy- butter, flour, water, sugar, salt.

The key is fresh berries. And trying not to eat it all in one sitting.

Mt. Baker

The Team Survivor Northwest Mount Baker Climb starts on Saturday! We have a team of 7 women who will be summiting the mountain. Most of the women climbing have never done anything like this before. It's not a technical climb but still a trek. They'll hike in Saturday to base camp, do snow school on Sunday, and summit early Monday morning.

Megan, Christian, Brian and I will be "sherpas" for the trip, hauling up gear and food for base camp. Once we've hauled the gear, we'll be free to explore the area. We went to Mount Baker in December but haven't been in the summer. I'm excited for the marmmots and wildflowers.

We have internet!

Our home internet service has been down for a while. We now have a new modem. Note to Clearwire users: don't buy the modem, just rent it for the extra few dollars a month. It does break pretty often.

Sorry to be slow on the blog for a while. Here's what we've been up to:
- backpacking trip with Brennon and Vaughan to the Enchantments
- TSNW's annual golf tournament
- trip to Portland with friends
- Brian's birthday baseball game
- James and Andrea's rocking 30th birthday party

We'll keep you updated a little more frequently now.

Brian started full-time at the City after graduation. He took one personal day in July and we headed to the Oregon Coast. Beautiful (see photos above)! Thanks Janine for your advice.

Brian graduated this weekend!

After two years of hard work, late nights, worrying about his thesis and researching mega-projects, BRT and transferable development rights, he's done. Judy came out to see the graduation and spend some time with us.

Photos to come when our internet connection doesn't suck.

Brian went to Vancouver and all I got was a hard drive full of transit photos.

To make a long story short, Emmy flew to Seattle last week and we drove together to Boise, ID so she could do the Boise Half Ironman. The drive through WA and OR was beautiful. Boise is a pretty cool town-rolling foothills, river through downtown, bikes everywhere, nice weather, small town.

Here she is doing the race!

I love whole-milk yogurt. Super-creamy and sweet. We get the kid-size containers and eat them as treats. Kind of like petit gervais.


Yum.

Let's see, what's new? Brian starts his new job in a week and continues to work on his thesis. Hopefully it'll be over by the beginning of June. I'm doing the Danskin triathlon in August (women's only, sprint triathlon, I will not call it a "tri"). I biked to work today in the rain for the first time. I'm a weather wuss and experiencing the wet, cold commute did not help. However, I did go swimming indoors this week and loved it. It's relaxing and easier than I thought. I hadn't done laps since high school and it's like riding a bike (in 85 degree water, not 40 degree rain).

Oh, and yesterday I flew a plane. Yep. A member of our board is a fabulous, down-to-earth, woman who owns a little plane. It was beautiful and sunny yesterday. She invited a co-worker and I to go for a flight from Paine field (next to Boeing in Everett) to Bremerton for lunch. We flew along the Puget Sound. As we got to downtown, she let me fly from there to the tip of the peninsula near Bremerton (have to fly past Bremerton to avoid flying over the Navy yard there, national security). I got to move the little steering wheel, tip the wings, gain and lose altitude! It's really surreal and feels kind of like a toy. We did hit some turbulence and I don't recommend tiny planes for Cat. We got to Bremerton, taxi'd over to the terminal where there's a diner, had fish and chips and came back to Everett. Awesome!

I got a job!!

Yes! It's true, despite not quite being done with school, and my ever annoying thesis, I am now officially a transportation planner. I have been hired by the City of Seattle as an Associate Transportation Planner on the Transit Team. I am part of the Policy and Plan Implementation Team, which means I get to help with fun projects like Metro's bus rapid transit Rapid Ride, and connecting Seattle neighborhoods with more transit.

I will also be doing what's called transportation demand management (TDM), which basically means fun marketing campaigns to persuade people that they don't need to drive their cars, especially alone, especially to work.

This picture is the building I will work in, the Seattle Municipal Tower. It is the fourth tallest building in Seattle at 722 ft. (the black building next to it is the Columbia Tower Alicia recently wrote about. My cube will be on the 38th floor. Thanks to everyone who's helped me and given me support on this crazy adventure!

Well, now back to the thesis. I will start writing something this week. Wish me luck. Brian

Lost

For the past few weeks, we've gone over to a friend's house to watch "Lost." It's true, we're fans. We started watching on DVD a few years ago and have gotten sucked in. If you've never seen it, it's about survivors from a plane crash on a tropical island with mysterious creatures, supernatural happenings and other inhabitants (the "others"). If you've seen it, why did Sayid reveal Micheal to the boat captain as a traitor? Doesn't Sayid later become a traitor and work for Ben too?

It's a quiet weekend here. Brian is really bearing down for the last few months of his thesis. He alternates between being stressed and super-stressed about it. Graduation day is June 14. Phew!

Hello

I'm a lame, slow blogger again. Sorry.

We did the Big Climb on Sunday. Seattle's tallest building is the Columbia Tower (79 stories more or less). It's the big black building in the photo (on the right). Every year, they open up the stairwells and let crazy folks walk/run up. It's a benefit for Leukemia research. I've been doing the Howe/Blaine Street stairs for a while now and really like it. So we decided to jump right in.

The fastest folks do it in 6-7 minutes. They let one person up the stairs every few seconds. Brian was ahead of me. We both finished in about 14 minutes. Not bad for trying to pace ourselves (1st woman- 7 min, 2nd woman- 10 min). It was waaay easier than I thought it would be. Turns out that floors are smaller than I imagined.

Tons o'fun and not sore the next day.

SPAM

It's bad enough that I get viagra and hot Britney pics messages at work. Now I'm getting SPAM'ed comments on the blog. If you see something that doesn't make sense in the comments ("nice too see you have blog. click here!"), don't click on it. I may have to set up the comments so I approve them before they're officially posted. I don't want to- Freedom!- but may have to.

While Brian was away this weekend, I took the time to replant my "garden." Last summer, I had planted basil, parsley, oregano and chives. Aphids attacked and I was left with oregano and chives. The chives were in rough shape though- most of it dried up and Brian started referring to it as my clumps of grass.

Here's my new garden! I couldn't find any starter herbs so I did one tray of lettuce, some tulips and some hyacinths.


Oh, and we're being run out of our apartment by spider plants. Good grief.

Brian and I went on separate snowshoe adventures this weekend. He went up to Mount Baker with some friends (that's Christian in the photo).

I went to Snoqualmie to lead a group of women for work. We did a moderate trip up to Hyak Lake and had lunch at a warming hut on the ridge. It snowed the whole time! Even with our recent warm weather, there's still over 10 feet of snow there.

Let's hope we can get at least one more snowshoe adventure together before the season ends!

I got into the Danskin Triathlon for August 18! It's a women's only race in Seattle. There are many, many Team Survivor Northwest women doing it. I won't get to race with them (can't go in the survivor wave) but I'll be there through out the day. It's a fairly low-key race even though there are thousands of people. It's not *quite* up to the Ironman competitiveness level. More like women learning to ride a bike or swim for the first time in order to do the race with friends.

Updates updates!

Whoops. I've slacked on blogging again.

- Emmy came to visit over President's Day weekend. Lots of fun. We got haircuts (I got bangs!), made homemade sushi (love Uwajimaya), hung out at Gas Works Park, saw a crazy show at Cha Cha and I made her walk up 1000 stairs.

- Speaking of stairs, I'm planning on doing the "Big Climb" on March 16. It's a benefit for lukemia research. You take the stairs up the Columbia Tower, the tallest building building in Seattle. Some people do it as a race but I'll just walk up. It's 700+ vertical feet or about 1300 stairs.

- I had my yearly checkup. This year, because I've hit a milestone, she did a blood test. Turns out I'm anemic. So I'll eat tons of red meat, take supplements and get re-tested in 2 months. That explains the passing out after giving blood and weird heart palpitations.

- Brian is almost done his research for his thesis. Next step: writing the thesis.

- I'm headed to Boulder at the end of March to visit Emmy. Let's see if I can convince her to move to Seattle. hee hee.

What's new with you guys?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Baby Panda Bear
Originally uploaded by Swamibu

Brian has been teasing me lately. I love cute, baby animals. Puppies, bears, orcas, gorillas, kittens, they're all adorable.

There have been a slew of articles in the Seattle Times lately about heroic/endangered animals. He knows I'll love them and points them out. Like the story of a dog swept away by an avalanche and found a few days later wandering around 5 miles away. Or the one about the new baby orca in the Sound.

Whatever. Happy Valentine's Day! I love you all.

I've been taking an intermediate knitting class at local yarn shop. I've made my first sock! Lookeee! (Photo to come, camera batteries need to be charged...)

I made lots of Christmas presents too. Lookeee!

Oh, I am by no means a great knitter. But it's fun and easy to do while on the bus, watching TV, waiting for things to cook, or watching the rain. My new project is a pair of legwarmers. I'll wear them with skirts because I can't find any wool tights for adults.