Pre-Kitchen Madness Vacation - Seattle and Whistler

When my Uncle Kyle told us he would be competing in Ironman Canada in Whistler this year, Andrew and I decided immediately that we wanted to take the trip to watch. My Uncle just moved into a beautiful new house with his wife, Neda, so we convinced my parents and sister to come along for the trip. Going through my pictures on the plane home from Seattle, I am so happy it turned out to be such an awesome vacation. 

We got in late Thursday night, I was all wound up from work and traveling (poor Andrew), and the whole house was fast asleep. Since we were on east coast time, it was early to bed and then very early to rise. We were all up by 6:00am so I took advantage of it and went for a long run around the lake right across the street from Kyle and Neda's house.

View from my run 

We had no plans for Friday and decided that we would spend the morning at the Museum of Flight. Honestly, I wasn't too excited about it but it ended up being a really great decision. Everyone enjoyed the museum, especially my Dad and Andrew.

The museum was more interesting than I thought it would be - we spent over three hours learning about the history of flight and touring the planes. Andrew was in his glory when he had an opportunity to sit in some of the old fighter planes, making me realize how important it will be to him to get his pilot license one day.

Happy boy

After the museum we headed to Pike Place market to grab lunch and be typical tourists. It was uncomfortably packed so we quickly grabbed fresh veggies for dinner and headed home to meet up with an old high school friend for drinks and eat an amazing homemade dinner.

We spent Friday night prepping to leave for Whistler early Saturday morning. Neda had t-shirts made for our cheer squad so we got crafty making the large men’s shirts a little sexier and picked out a few Burningman costumes to bring with us.

Andrew being sexy

Fun Burningman costumes

On Saturday morning we were out the door by 8:30 am to head to Whistler, a four and a half drive from Seattle. Since Vancouver is about halfway between Seattle and Whistler, we had planned to stop there for lunch with a restaurant recommendation from an Accenture colleague. We did not anticipate the hour long wait at the Canada border so we amused ourselves with music and taking pictures.

Crossing the border into Canada, we lost cell phone service and contact between the two cars we took up. We were surprisingly successful at following each other into Vancouver but ended up in a very cracked out neighborhood for lunch. We had made a right instead of a left to find our lunch recommendation and the half mile difference between where we ended up and where we were supposed to be was more impressive than the difference between Philly neighborhoods. Luckily, we found our restaurant and had a really excellent lunch.

Lunch in Vancouver

Our time in Vancouver was very limited so I can’t give it a full review, but it was just ok from what we experienced. Lots of homeless people but up and coming, with cool pockets of neighborhoods. I won’t hate on it too much since it reminded me of a mountainous Philadelphia. The views from Vancouver to Whistler were beyond beautiful. Unfortunately, pictures from the car can't even begin to do the scenery justice.

Whistler is the first real mountain resort town I have ever been to and we were all very impressed. The whole area was clean and beautiful, promoting an active lifestyle. During the summer, the ski slopes are turned into mountain bike trails so Andrew was in his element. 

We were all pumped up to be in Whistler and there for the race, so after dinner we studied the course map to figure out the best places to watch while Kyle raced for approximately 11 hours.

Race morning we were up at 6:00am to meet up with Neda and head over to the swim start. Kyle recommended that we take bikes with us to Whistler, the best idea of the trip. Our little bike gang rode over to the swim together as we walked past hundreds of people walking the 2 miles to the lake. We got there in plenty of time and the scenery could not have been more beautiful. It was a brisk morning and we were all very happy not to be getting ready to swim the 2.4 miles in the steamy lake.

After watching the mass swim start, we were off to see Kyle on the bike. The first opportunity to see him was about 8km into the race so we rode our little bike gang through the mountains to scout out our location. We didn’t manage to get any pictures of Kyle on the bike, but our little cheering squad was quite the entertainment as we made up cheers to support the bikers.

We had three hours to burn between the first triathlete sighting and the next, so we decided to head out on our bikes about 5 miles to the secluded Green Lake to continue our cheering. The lake was beautiful so we made the best of our time by swimming in the glacier-fed water.

Swimming in the freezing water (below 60 degrees) was one of the highlights of the day and got us motivated to continue cheering. We kept ourselves entertained by dancing to music and learning new tricks on the bike.

 
The three hours went quickly so after seeing Kyle crushing it on his final few miles on the bike, we headed back into Whistler to do our final cheering for the runners.  At this point it was 2:00pm and hot and the runners were looking tired after the 112 miles on the bike. We saw Kyle at about mile 4 and he was looking very strong and in good spirits.

After seeing him, we decided to take a food break and make our final cheering location on the bleachers at the finish line. By the time we reached the finish line, we had had enough sun, so we couldn't imagine how the triathletes were feeling. It is always so inspiring watching the athletes cross the finish line after a full day of intense racing. You can watch as their spirits are lifted by the crowd cheering them on at the final stretch, so we cheered and danced our hardest of the day.

We were expecting Kyle to finish any time between 10 hours and 45 minutes and 11 hours and 15 minutes but we were totally caught off guard by him running past us at 10:47. He had an amazing day of racing and we were all so excited to be there to support him.

After the race we were exhausted and hungry (cheering is hard work) so we did a lot of relaxing and eating. We headed back to Seattle on Monday morning exhausted but happy after a really great time in Whistler. We made the most of our Ironman spectating and were excited to get home to eat an Iranian meal by Neda’s parents.

On Tuesday morning I woke up for a final run around Green Lake before Andrew and I headed to the airport – Andrew to Philly and me to Charlotte for my final few days with my team. The next few weeks will be crazy busy, as I start a new project right outside of NYC and our kitchen demo begins! Thanks Seattle for an awesome summer trip, we will be back again soon!

Summer Weekend in the Iladelph

This weekend was our first in a long time at home in Philly and we had no plans. We saw that SteveO from Jackass was playing at Helium Comedy Club Friday nights so we decided to go see him with Dan and Kathleen.

The opening acts were decent but SteveO kind of sucked...and he seemed like a total jerk. It was a fun night out together but I wouldn't recommend SteveO as a comedian.

Our kitchen floor tiles came in faster than expected so we got a call mid week that we were able to pick them up on Saturday morning! Since the tiles are 24x24, we only had to order 48 tiles to cover our 200 sq. ft kitchen. The tiles are huge and heavy so they came in packs of four, meaning only 12 boxes. We didn't think anything of packing them all into the Civic but the look on the guys face when we told him we didn't have a truck was priceless.

We were able to load all the tiles in the Civic in one trip but the poor car was at least six inches closer to the ground than normal. Luckily, it was only a half mile drive home.

We were so excited to actually have the tiles that we opened up a box and laid them out on the kitchen floor. We are so used to having our old, nasty kitchen floor, it really is going to be amazing to have beautiful floors.

Merrill is completely narcissistic so he loves the gray floors that perfectly match his fur. Timmy is Timmy, so he enjoyed playing around the floor while we took measurements.

This week also marked the beginning of my mom's huge kitchen transformation. After three days of installation, the cabinets are almost completely installed. Next steps will be the soapstone countertops and all the fun decorating. It really is beautiful so far...

This weekend we are off to Seattle to see my Uncle Kyle compete in Ironman Canada in Whistler-our last weekend before the kitchen madness begins :)

Country Kitchen-ing

Going to my parent’s house in Kutztown is always refreshing, but this weekend, after a few too many crazy summer nights, it was especially relaxing. This time of year in the country is beautiful and my dad’s gardens are producing more fresh fruits and vegetables than we are able to eat. Our Friday night dinner consisted of fresh potatoes, green beans and lettuce straight from the garden… absolutely delicious.

Nom.

As my dad would say - the view from here.

We woke up Saturday morning to the sound of contractors finishing up the electrical and plumbing work for my parent’s new kitchen. They are undergoing quite a project – moving the entire kitchen from it’s current location to our previously underused living room, a much bigger and beautiful space.

Current Kitchen

Mary making moves

Spacing out the new lights

My mom moved the furniture from the old living room and made the sunroom into a really comfortable, cozy place. I was surprised by what a great extension of the kitchen it has become.

New sunroom

Seeing my mom’s project coming to life gave me the inspiration I needed to make moves on our kitchen project. We are getting close to crunch time (three weeks before demolition and floors go in) so some of the big decisions need to happen. We headed over to our contractor's house with the new tile we selected for our floor to pick out paint and hardware for the cabinets. Out of the selection of 50 whites, my mom helped me pick Peony White, which should (hopefully) complement both the Coarse Carrara counters and the floors.

New tile and paint!

We decided to hold off on selecting the hardware right there on the spot. I have a really bad habit of just making decisions and moving on, and my mom urged me to think about this a little more. We like the horizontal bars for the drawers but I think I want to have round handles for the doors, something a bit more modern.

Horizontal-style Pulls

Both mine and my parent’s new cabinets were sitting in the warehouse, so it was very cool to see our designs come to life. My mom’s are complete since they will be installed next week and they are absolutely beautiful – it really made me excited for mine!

My parent's new island!

My parent's cabinets

Woot woot! Our kitchen!!

I left my contractor's house feeling excited but overwhelmed about our new kitchen, so it was time to eat. The contractor’s (and Andrew) love working for my mom because she completely spoils them with elaborate lunches. Andrew spent the morning riding his bike up Hawk Mountain so he took full advantage of the spoiling, eating multiple BLTs and huge helpings of homemade macaroni & cheese. Quite the life.

Andrew ready to eat

After lunch my mom and I headed to Lowe’s to check out faucets and back splash tiles. I ended up buying a fancy (compared to what we currently have) stainless steel faucet...one more thing off the to-do list.

New faucet. Big deal.

We spent the rest of the day in Kutztown relaxing, resting up for Sunday’s bike race and feeling accomplished from the big kitchen weekend. We were up early Sunday to head to the race in Bethlehem which Andrew won...

Stud.

...and narrowly escaped the nastiest crash I have ever witnessed. 

This week we will be ordering our tile (cross your fingers they come in within the next three weeks) and should receive our new stove hood and the chandelier for over the kitchen island. Three more weeks to go!