Whistler, then Cats

Well, these past few weeks have been pretty busy. Cheryl and I took a trip to Whistler and had the chance to check out the bike park in peak condition. We mostly rode the bottom half of the hill, but I had the chance to check out the latest and greatest Garbanzo trails, so that was fun.

Jen and Glade came down to Seattle and took their cats which we offered to take care of while they were taking the week down in Oregon/Washington. We had a great time taking care of them, but they definitely were a bit of a handful when it came to chewing cables, and scratching screen doors. Overall it was really fun to have the cats. It was amazing how well the cats got together - they are very mellow, play with each other all day, and actually fetch - which you don't see too often in cats.

Cheryl and I were able to get a Tiger Mt. ride in with Jen and Glade before they headed off down south for more riding.

Here are some random pictures of the cats...

Cheryl trying to take Napoleon for a walk:

Here they are hanging out while Glade/Jen/Trang/Henry and I check out our new kitchen table:

Glade helped me build a work bench and fix the back porch (a few boards were rotten, so we really wanted to replace them as soon as I could). This involved the purchase of a circular saw, a square, and a few other basic things that I just didn't have.

Here's us about half way through the bench building process:

Closer...
 

And we're done:

Anyhow, I'm not sure what's on tap for this weekend, but I believe I'll be heading out of town. We'll see.

Have fun!

Summer is here

Well, after a lot of miserable weekends we're starting to see some good sun over here in Seattle. Cheryl and I have been up to a lot of random stuff lately - much of it related to the house of course, but we've managed to fit a few interesting weekends in the mix.

Cheryl even managed to write her first post in a year talking about this past weekend where Stacey and Steven came to Seattle to visit with their two kids. Yeah, we went to the zoo :)

I've probably been grilling too much, but it sure has been good to be able to cook up something quick on the grill at any point - I'm loving the natural gas hookup too. We've gone to Whistler a few times since the last post, and had a good run down the north shore mountains as well to try and test the waters there. The whistler mountain bike park is in peak condition, and the garbanzo lift will be opening this weekend too.

I managed to get a chance to race out in Port Angeles at the Fluid Ride Cup's second event of the year. I raced "Sport" and ended up middle of the pack although I think I could have done better if I had a lighter bike - maybe next time.

I also managed to get a new TV that will help make my gaming setup better.

Here's my old gaming setup:

Here's the new setup:

Here's a shot of our crew camping out at Port Angeles:

I only have one action shot of me in the race, and it's not that good unfortunately:

But my friends posted a lot more pics of the port angeles race here.

Anyhow, that's what's going on over here. Nothing too crazy. We still don't have a kitchen table, coffee table, end tables, etc, but we are enjoying the house so far.

Hope all is well!
-Aaron

Moving in

Two weekends ago Cheryl and I moved into our new place. We moved a combination of the stuff that has collected in Cap Hill over the last 7 years, and the stuff Cheryl had in storage down near Lake Union. We rented a 17' U-Haul and drove it to Lake Union to start the move where we met up with a few good friends who signed up to help out.

It rained, snowed, and hailed on us during the move. Luckily we were able to back the truck under an overhang for the first part of the move.

Overall it went smoothly, and Cheryl was very excited to get everything unpacked. Here are a few photos to illustrate how excited Cheryl was to be in the new place the first night we were in it - even before the move...

Anyhow, after we moved all our stuff in I took the opportunity to relax for a bit...

Since we moved in we've already implemented our first home improvement - a gas line to the deck for our new BBQ, but that's a post for another day.

Here are some more pictures of the house, pre and post move.

Couple of other things that have happened since the last post... I spent a week in Vegas for the NAB conference (stayed at the Wynn which was nice.). Cheryl's company was a title sponsor of the Seeds of Compassion gathering in Seattle, so we went to Qwest Field to listen to the Dalai Lama speak. We had our first guest at our house this weekend - Andrea came down from Vancouver to check out some Seattle shopping, and the house. I also helped the DirtCorps team prepare for their yearly Bent Event which is this weekend.

Anyhow, until next time!

We bought a house!

Over the past few months we've been spending a lot of our free time closing on our house which is now officially ours as of the 2nd of April!

It took us a very long time to find this house - we have been looking since Cheryl arrived last summer, and started looking diligently in November. I think Cheryl and I personally walked through ~50 homes, and our real estate agent previewed a lot more than that - finding something we liked at a price we could afford was not easy.

Here's a shot of 110 of the houses our realtor previewed for us:

The biggest issues we had with most of them were lighting, street noise, or age related issues (price and location were all within our bounds since our realtor - Ken Nicholas - did a good job of filtering new listings for us.

Apart from price, the major points we really wanted to nail were:
- Safety: No issues walking, jogging, and biking in the neighborhood at night
- Commute: No more than a 40 min commute for either of us
- Lighting: Lots of natural light
- Proximity to shops: Short walk from restaurants, a bar, coffee, and groceries
- Move-in ready: Doesn't require major work before moving in
- Noise: No major street noise when windows are open
- Size: At least two bed, 1.5 bath

At first look it seems like these points would not too much to ask for, but in our price range it was hard to find a house in Seattle that had even these base characteristics.

Finally we found one though. Here's a shot from the outside:

Here are some internal shots showing the lighting in the main room:

We're likely going to re-paint at least that blue wall sometime soon :) The house is just north of Genesee Park near the Mt. Baker district in Seattle. It's a 3 bed/2.5 bath house with a media room and unfinished basement. The unfinished basement is a decent size and has a patio door that looks out into the backyard. The backyard is relatively small, but since we're a couple of blocks from Genesee Park it's fine with us.

Here's a shot of the unfinished basement - no idea what we'll do with it:

The backyard is a registered "backyard wildlife habitat" which is one reason it has no grass. In the summer it will look a lot nicer as the trees/flowers begin to blossom, but right now it's a pretty muddy place to be.

Backyard:

There are two decks - one off the main level, the other off the master bedroom. Both of these decks overlook Genesee Park, and you can see Lake Washington to the far left. The house is on a small lot, so it's not as big as many of the other housing in the neighborhood, but it's plenty big for us. The master bedroom is pretty small, but we said at the outset in our search that we'd rather a small master bedroom than a small living room space since we don't need that much room to sleep :)

Couple of other thoughts on the neighborhood... It's about a 7 min walk to the Columbia City shops, it's a minute to Genesee Park, and Lake Washington, and the commute for me will be somewhere between 30 and 35 mins. For Cheryl it will be somewhere between 15 and 25 depending on traffic. It's also right across the street from Henry's house which is great because we already know one of our neighbors :) He's lived there for the last year, and recommended the neighborhood to us. The light rail - which is meant to be completed in 2009 - is also a short walk to us. The light rail will travel from the airport, through our neighborhood, and up through the city, so getting downtown will be really easy without a car in the not-too-distant future. It's far enough away from the house that we will not hear any noise from the light rail station as well.

Anyhow, in other news it was Cheryl's birthday this past weekend, and we went out for a great dinner at "The Met" where I had one of the best filets I've had in a long long time - possibly ever - and I've had a lot of steaks... After doing my taxes this year and buying this house it's time to start eating kraft dinner :)

Have fun!
-Aaron

Bainbridge Island in February

A couple of weeks ago Cheryl and I decided to hop a ferry to Bainbridge Island. The weather was really nice, and since I had messed up my ankle at whistler I couldn't really do much else :)

Here's some scenery from the trip over:

We had a pretty relaxing time on the island, went wine tasting, spilled a full cup of coffee at the coffee shop, and really just hung out in the sun until we decided it was time to head back to Seattle. The trip was pretty cheap - I think around $7 each, so it was a great thing to do on a slow, sunny day.

Here's Cheryl resting in the sun on the island:

Until next time!

Whistler, it's been too long

Last weekend Cheryl and I went up to Whistler, and to visit with friends.

We got to the hill early, met up with Glade and Jen, and rode until closing. The snow was great, the sky was blue - it was a good day.

Here's my new desktop background:

This was the view from the top of the Peak Chair on Whistler. We were above the clouds and looking off towards Black Tusk in the distance.

The rest of the weekend was all about visiting friends we haven't seen in a long time (this was our first weekend back in the country since summer.) Kelly was gracious enough to let us stay at her place, and she hosted a great party for a bunch of friends to come over and visit Saturday night. Sunday we went over to Port Moody to visit with Stacey and Steven, and later Sunday afternoon we headed over to Dana's so Cheryl could pet her cat... :)

I threw a couple more pics here.

Super Bowl Sunday: Great day for skiing!

Well, of course, this Sunday was Super Bowl... But it also snowed 5 feet over the week at Crystal Mt, so I definitely couldn't miss getting in on that.

Saturday was Crystal Mountain's busiest day in history, so I'm very glad I waited until Sunday to get out and catch some turns. Most people were busy preparing for Super Bowl rather than skiing on Sunday, so it was a good day to go. Given I was going to a super bowl party as well I had to get done skiing early, so I got to the hill by 8:15am. I skied as hard as I could over the morning, and was done by 12:30. It was great: short lift lines, tons of snow, great visibility - the trifecta. Later in my day the visibility started waning, so I decided to pack it in and head back to Seattle.

I realized I hadn't had a haircut in many months, so I got that done. Then I headed to Evan's to check out his new 46" 1080p TV (and the game too.)  Sooo much nicer than my 27"CRT - which we couldn't give away if we tried. I'm not really a big NFL fan, but I have to admit the 4th quarter of that game was well worth the wait. For whatever reason I felt bad for the Patriots who ended up breaking their win streak on the only game that mattered... But I'm sure they'll all be fine, I know I've gotten over it.

Hopefully I get out to Crystal again soon. So sweet.