Ironman, Family & Turkey!

We are back from our Arizona trip! We had a wonderful sunshiny time! Of course, I had to get sick with something the day before we left and was sick mostly the whole time we were gone, but it was still a great trip. The first few days in Arizona were spent checking in Colin's bike, watching him do a practice swim, buying Ironman gear and just mentally preparing for his race! Sunday was the big day and it went amazingly! He finished the swim 5 minutes slower than he was hoping at 1 hour 5 minutes, but then killed it on the bike with a time of 5 hours 37 minutes (more than 20 minutes faster than he was hoping to go)! We missed seeing him on his first bike loop since he was going so fast. We parked it for his run and saw him 3 times! He had a marathon time of 3 hours 47 minutes! only 12 minutes slower than his Seattle marathon time. Giving him an overall time of 10 hours 43 minutes! I couldn't be more proud of him!! No, I did not go sign up to do the Ironman but a smaller triathlon might be on the horizon for me sometime in the future :) I was a horrible photographer for this race, so we did buy a CD of the professional pictures taken. It was worth it!


Best Photo I snapped of Colin starting out on the run!

After the race we spent a night in Sedona with Colin's parents. It was beautiful! The weather was great (mid-seventies) and the scenery was amazing. We headed back to Mesa to spend Thanksgiving with Colin's grandparents and Aunt & Uncle. It was fun, lots of food and good old fashioned games!!



We got home Friday night and then spent Saturday wine tasting with my family. Then Sunday we had a second Thanksgiving dinner with my extended family. I've probably had enough food to last me the next few weeks!! It was a little challenging to get up for work this morning! My clock is definitely not on the 6:30am wake up time! This week I am looking forward to getting back to running a little more. Colin and I are doing the Jingle Bell run this Sunday, it's just a 5k but I haven't been able to get much running in with this dang cold. I've been utilizing the Nike+ and oh my goodness, I LOVE it! Yes, I work for Nike, but this is the best thing ever!

I also was able to squeeze in a little holiday decorating this weekend! Looking forward to getting a tree :) this is definitely the best time of year! I just love Christmas! Here are a few apartment pics of what I've got so far.



Planning to put our tree to the left of the fireplace, we'll probably venture out for one this weekend! (Those curtains are new and way, way too long. I'll be hemming this weekend, maybe sooner since they are driving me crazy!)

Only 1 more week until we leave for Arizona for Colin's Ironman!! This also means a vacation for a week and Thanksgiving! So I cannot wait. I think Colin & I are both ready for him to be done. Training for something this long takes up a TON of time! It will be nice to have a weekend where we aren't planning around 6 hour rides and 3 hour runs!!

Last week I was given a little promotion at work. I am now a Lead for our team! Which is awesome. I love my job!!! Everyday I love going to work! Like today for example, it barely even crossed my mind that it was Friday and a holiday where half the country didn't have to go to work. I lived for the weekend at my last job. This was my prayer when searching for a new job that I would be content where I was. God has blessed beyond belief!

This last weekend was filled with some fun fall festivities! Friday night we had a game night with some of our good friends- Sarah & Lance and Geraldine & Bryan (Sarah and I have been good friends since 1st grade!) It's always fun getting together with old friends :)

Saturday night Colin and I organized a group outing to the Sauvie Island corn maze, with our church group. It was so much fun!! We went through a few times and even got pretty lost.



Colin and I joined a winery! After visiting this winery with every guest that comes into town we finally decided we should just become members! It includes free wine tasting for us and 2 guests at any time (any takers ;)) and every few months we get a shipment of wine and the winery hosts a pick-up party. For this month we enjoyed a hay ride tour through the vines and tried the different wines along the way. When we got back to the tasting room we tried the wines that came in our shipment along with a food pairing. It was pretty fun! And it couldn't have been a more perfect fall day!

Leaves are a fallin

How did it get to be fall already?! This summer went by insanely fast. Probably because we were so incredibly busy! But secretly (even though I am a hot weather girl through & through) I'm kind of liking the rain, yep I said it.

My job at Nike has kept me occupied, I'm starting to feel like a workaholic. There have been a few late nights and weekends, but at least I love my job and love the company I work for (also, loving the overtime pay since I am currently paid hourly)! And I guess this is the time to do that since we don't have kids yet.

Our Financial Peace group has been awesome so far. We obviously love the teachings and have been following for a while, but it's so cool to see other young people get excited about it too! We have about 14 people in the group. Yep, all crammed into our apartment!! It's fun though.

Last weekend Colin and I took a glass blowing class. Thanks to my mother-in-law for the Groupon! It was fun! We made stemless wine glasses, mine turned out a little sad looking. I didn't get enough air when I blew into the glass so it turned out really small and super thick. Also, we had to sping the glass in the fire while the instructor added the color and I wasn't spinning fast/consistenly enough (my arm was getting so tired!) so the color ended up really globby. Colin's turned out perfect. He's the artist in the fam :)



We look like we're enjoying ourselves. that's a good sign!

Also, now that it's starting to rain, it's getting close to the end of gardening season. This was our first year doing a vegetable garden and I had no idea how much we would actually harvest! The other thing I learned is that we are not used to eating that many vegetables!!

One weeks worht of harvest!

Life is good :)

Things have felt pretty busy around our household, the summer has been filled with work, family visits, church events, and physical training (for Colin, not so much for me). We spent last weekend camping at Crater Lake with some good friends from church. It was awesome, the weather was great. I had never been, and that's kind of sad considering I was born and raised in Oregon!


Colin used his photography skills to take this awesome pic of the lake. The water was unbelievably blue!




Some exciting news, Colin found out last week that he is finally getting hired on full time/permanently with the City of Portland! Hooray! We are pretty excited about it! We were planning to be a one income family again for the third time in the 3 years that we've married! Sheesh! So we are pretty happy that we can continue with our financial goals of paying off our debt! This fall all the small groups at our church will be going through Financial Peace University (the Dave Ramsey class) and we are so excited to get to facilitate one of the groups! We love sharing about how much of an impact it has had on our lives with others and it will be a great motivator to keep us going!

We have some fun things coming up, November is Colin's Ironman in Arizona (pray for his training!) it is the weekend before Thanksgiving and Colin's grandparents live down there and his parents will be flying in for the event, so we will be staying a week and spending the holiday with family! I've never been to Arizona, definitely excited to mark that state off my list :)

I've also never been to Nevada and in December we are heading to Las Vegas with our friends, Andrew & Michelle, for Andrew's big 3-0 birthday. It will be quite the experience, but we are looking forward to it.

Well, that's all I've got for now. Life is good :)

The summer is off to a busy start! Our weekends have been filled with fun times with great friends! And our weekdays filled with hard work; it is so exhausting to learn a new job!! So far the job has been great, I feel like I am finally starting to get things and I am not having to ask so many questions. One thing I love about working for Nike are the opportunities to learn about athletes. Last week they had the first viewing of a documentary that was made about Joan Benoit Samuelson, the first woman to win Olympic gold for the marathon. She came out and spoke after the movie- she is amazing. She's in her mid-fifties and still runs 80 miles a week. They also had a few other runners who are hoping to make it to the Olympics come and speak as well, Kara Goucher, Dawn Harper and David Oliver. So cool! Definitely got me inspired to run. I am actually going to be running a half marathon with a friend in just a couple weeks (we'll see how it goes, considering I've had like 4 weeks to train). This last weekend Colin ran the Seattle Rock & Roll Marathon....it was his first marathon and he did awesome! He finished in 3 hours and 35 minutes!! It is a good start to his season because in November he will be doing a Full Ironman Triathlon! He was able to get a free entry through the Prostate Cancer Foundation by raising money for it. So go to the link below and donate! ;) It will be a crazy summer of running, swimming and biking in store.

Finished Product

from the frames pictured in my last post we decided to make mirrors out of most of them and then add pictures to a few. I think it turned out pretty good!