Norway Road Trippin

After a nice baby wipes bath we jumped in the car, we named him Fartsgrensen because we saw it on a poster and thought it was funny- turns out it just means speed limit. As a reward for the exhausting hike we pulled into a cute town and both got our own pizzas and coffee. It was glorious. Then we hopped onto the Aurlandsfjellet scenic road. The beginning was a little tough, road was too narrow to accomodate buses but they did it anyway. Trouble came when 2 buses needed to pass each other going opposite directions and a lot of reversing ensued. The road had views down into the fjords and surrounding landscape. Lucked out and pulled up to a ferry, one of many on this trip, just as it was closing its gates and they kindly let us on. 

   

Jumped over to the Sognfjellet scenic road which had so so many tunnels. The Norwegians are tunnel wizards there were tunnels all over, some were 7 miles long or more, there was a tunnel directly onto a bridge, directly back into a tunnel one had a round about in it going different directions! The road wove through cute towns and wild terrain. 

these 3 sheep laid on the road and just
baa'ed at every single car that passed them,
I baa'ed back at them but they were not amused

In Norway you can camp on any land, public or private, for free as long as it's uncultivated. So we drove until we were hungry picked a spot with some gorgeous mountains and plopped ourselves on it. Finished our pizza from earlier in the day along with some wine as the sun dipped. Also got to see a bunch of cows that descended upon the little area as we brushed our teeth, I love that all the animals have bells. Since it never really gets dark it's hard to gauge what time it is so we started playing a game and winded up hanging out until about 1 am.

Visit from Californians

 

Joshua and I have visited San Francisco to see them and they were excellent hosts. This past weekend we got to try to return the favor. Friday was super stormy and dark but we lucked out and it cleared up for the rest of the weekend. So we spent it mostly on bikes, not shockingly with these 2 boys.

 

We toured Ballard and Fremont, stopped at breweries, tried Paseo sandwiches (greasy amazingness) and headed to Capitol Hill that night to wander around. Finished the night at Kings playing lots of skeeball and getting shooed out as the bar closed but just before they unplugged the game Andy got 410! He finished the night off right for us.

Very slowly the next morning we had brunch and wandered the farmer's market. Then we hopped back on our bikes and began eating our way through the day- first at Pike Place, then at the Seattle Food Truck Festival where we listened to music and ate things like fried Indian tacos and fried pb&j, then back to Ballard where we ate totchos (tater tot nachos) and topped it all with some late night gelato.

 Lovely visit and very glad we got to show them around and hopefully repay the amazing job they did hosting us a little.

Oh my Heatstroke

I know Cincinnati, you're hot & humid in the summer, but I thought I escaped you. I ran to the opposite side of the country where humidity in summer is a max of 30% and some summers I don't even have to wear shorts. I enjoy the sunshine and warm weather and don't sweat through a shirt the second I walk out the door, I can even leave my hair down!

Not this summer, Seattle you're killing me. Yes I'm being a giant wimp. Accepted & I'm still going to whine.

2  weekends ago 97!Most places in Seattle and almost all apartments, including ours, don't have air conditioning. We hung out at our place after we dropped off the ladies until we were laying on our floor and had no other solutions to evade the heat. Of course that meant we ended up at a brewery with a cross breeze. It was delicious and much easier to want to have a conversation there. Seattle if you give me cold beers and cross breezes I'll try to stop whining.

But dinner, oh cooking in the summer is the worst. I invited a friend over for dinner Monday and strolling through the store felt hot just looking at things to cook. Then in a moment of genius most people have already had I thought salad bar! Grabbed a bunch of fun veggies and mini head of lettuce, naan, and feta spread and walked home happy to only be chopping for dinner.

It turned out delicious, filling and easy. Again, I'm sure most people already do this but I like to make things harder than they need to be so this felt like a real win for me.

Super Moon!

 

Super moon!

 

Sunday we biked over to our friend Liz's place to have dinner on her absolutely stunning patio space. She had it all set up with cute plates and coordinating wines. We enjoyed wine and cheese, salad and more while the sun went down. Then we pulled the couch closer to the fire pit and checked out the 'super moon.' Apparently the moon was the closest to the Earth it will be all year. Maybe my expectations were too high but it looked mostly normal size to me. Nonetheless we had a suberbly lovely evening sitting outside all night watching the city and chatting about nothing. Plus a good chill night ride home always tops off an evening perfectly!

Mt. Pilchuck

 

We've almost hiked Mt. Pilchuck multiple times, but there was always still too much snow or we caved to our love of Mt. Baker and drove past it. But this past Sunday we finally went for it. The sky was so blue and so clear, we could Mt. Baker, Glacier Mt, Three Fingers Mts, Mt. Rainier, and lots of little ones in between. The hike is super popular so there were tons of people crawling all over the trail, makes for great people watching at the top.

 

We found a great rock shaped with a perfectly angled backrest to hang out on while spying on mountains for lunch, took a quick peak up on the fire lookout up their, and headed back home. It was lovely and I'm so glad we finally made it to Mt. Pilchuck.

 

 

Swimming in Seattle

 

 

We live near Greenlake which has an awesome 3 mile path around it,
coffee shops nearby, cute docks jutting out into it and also swimming
areas with diving boards (high ones)

We've never swam in Greenlake. We've been there so so many times but only ever dipped our toes in. A few Sundays ago after our training ride (35 miles with some big hills ugh!) we put on our suits and set out to conquer swimming in Greenlake. It was a little cold and I may have squealed loud enough that a man next to us started laughing at me but we did it! We were very proud of ourselves for finally getting around to it, we said we're really Seattleites now. We even swam out to the dock in the middle and I jumped off of the high board. I looked over the edge and freaked out momentarily but finally went for it (Joshua can't put his head under water without an ear thing, long story, so that's why he didn't jump off)

hubs water wallet

 

We laid in the sand and attempted to get tan lines and felt like we were on a beach vacation all day. It was really lovely. We topped it all off with face size margaritas and rode our bikes home feeling very accomplished :)

 

photos taken on my dad's film camera that I've stolen and will never give back
Also this was a few weeks ago I was lazy getting my film developed (didn't scan in as well as I'd hoped)