Pushing the Stumpy to the Max

So glad Jarred refused to spend much money on his bikes. He got this bike last fall for $700. I think he'd upgrade to a bike with bigger suspension (ie- a bike that allows him to jump off bigger rocks) but he's too cheap. Thank God (or whoever controls our destiny). This photo was taken on a ride in Fruita called Moore Fun. Our friend Doug warned me I would hate the ride. I actually really enjoyed the ride, the trail had good flow and beautiful views. I was ok NOT riding some of the harder moves and totally content smashing myself amongst the bushes to take cool photos of the boys. This section even scared the boys. I didn't get great photos the first time because the sun was directly behind them and they were not too excited to head back up the trail to ride this section again. The things people will do to look cool!

WE LOVE SPRING BREAK!

It was high time Jarred and I actually went somewhere for spring break. Who else gets a whole week off a mere two months after having two weeks off? Jarred has been pushing to head down to Moab, Utah and Fruita, Colorado for a week of mountain biking for awhile. I'd been obsessed with horses and houses but in the back of my mind the trip sounded great. Since we actually got moved into our new place before spring break, we were able to make the trip. So last Friday, we packed up the big Ford, our bikes and the tent and headed down to Fruita. Fruita is this po-dunk town that looks like it offers little until one drives out past the town. In the dry, sage filled hills behind Fruita and on the plateau's above the Colorado River, exists some of the "sickest" mountain biking in Colorado. The best way to describe the trails is swooping. The guys who built these trails had fun in mind. The entire time we were in Fruita we rode trails that flowed, had great drops (some very scary for weenies like me) and awesome views. We couldn't get enough of this place riding the trails were like doing crack (actually better because the only downside was crashing which is a small price to pay for such a great high). I think our all time favorite trail was Horsethief. To get to the trail we had to hike-a-bike down this series of rock drops that few people ride. I wasn't sure about the ride at that point, as my intent was to keep all my limbs in tact and skin on my body during this trip. The rest of the ride was a hoot: fast, technical and fun. Our friend Ryan Bradley and his girlfriend Emily met us in Fruita. Ryan, also a teacher, works in Colorado and was all too happy to show us around. After three days in Fruita, we drove down to Moab, Utah. Upon arrival, Moab appeared less desirable because the wind was blowing about 45 mph and the town was filled with Jeepers (little did we know it was Easter Jeep weekend, one of the biggest jeep weekends of the year). Men with bellies, big tires and gas guzzling off-road vehicles suddenly surrounded us. Considering my bike has about 100 mm of travel, I felt a little out of place.

Moab proved to be equally as fun. The entire week made me feel like I’d been on one great roller coaster ride after another. Every ride had exciting terrain and Moab had the added beauty of red rock. The other novelty was riding over the slick rock. I’m not sure why it’s called slick rock because it’s the stickiest rock I’ve ever ridden on. Riding on this rock was such a treat after riding over (and cursing) wet roots all winter. The weather in Moab proved to be sketchy. We endured wind, snow, rain and finally sun. We were warned about the rain but figured we were in the desert; we ride in the rain all the time. Moab gets as much rain in a year as Washington gets in a month. By far our favorite ride in Moab was Porcupine Rim. After sleeping in a tent all week the ride was brutal on the body as it consisted of 10 plus miles of downhill, not fast swoopy downhill like Fruita, but jolt the bolts off your bike downhill. Fun but a full body workout. Porcupine was the last ride we did before heading out and although we were ready for another week, it was nice to give our bodies a rest by spending the next 15 hours in the car! The minute we left Salt Lake City, the snow hit and didn’t stop until we came down through Pendleton. Needless to say, we had nowhere to set up our tent and spent a short night attempting to sleep in the Ford. Trips like this one make me appreciate my bed.
The photos above are from Fruita. More Moab photos to come.

Camas House

We're finally moved into the Camas house. We moved all of of our stuff over from North Bonneville in one weekend but since the weather has been so nice, it's taken a little longer to get things put away. The house still needs some love and our list of projects is growing but it's a very livable place. My favorite part of the house is the built in storage. Each room has built in closets and drawers of some sort and since I'm a neat freak, I feel like everything I own has its place and Jarred has no excuses to create piles everywhere. Since I've been in list mode...

Great things about our new house situation:
1. The kitchen has potential to be awesome. Last weekend we drove (that's right, 20 minutes) to Ikea and oogled over kitchens. I've always wanted a kitchen with a big bar counter and this place has one. Granted right now, the counter is bad, bad, almond colored Formica, but that can be fixed.
2. As I mentioned before built in storage EVERYWHERE. LOVE IT!
3. Small yard with good garden potential.
4. Two car garage. Never thought it really mattered but it does. This house is the same size as our other house but with a two car garage. We've come to realize we have more garage items than house items.
5. Fenced yard. While I feel bad that the dogs have a smaller yard, I learned that the dogs really don't use much of a big yard and not having a fence gets dogs like Shuksan hit by cars and dog tickets.
6. Jarred has his own pooping bathroom. Not a necessity in life but sure is nice.

Not so great things about our new house (but things that can be changed):
1. House needs to be painted and fake shutters removed. Why people ever put shutters as "accents" on the outside of a house is beyond me.
2. Big ass fireplace in the middle of the dining room/living room. We're lovers of the wood stove and to us, fireplaces are a waste of space. This one is HUGE and puts out absolutely no heat. I think it's the first thing Jarred will tear down, which should make for an interesting project.
3. Every room has BAD lighting. The bedrooms have huge ceiling fan units which made us think that these huge units would put off a lot of light....wrong. They put off mood lighting. I can't even see what color socks I'm putting on in the morning.
4. It appears that for years the washer hook up has been leaking. This makes for wet sub flooring and a ghetto laundry room set up. Will be the first thing I change if/when we buy this place.
5. The front door doesn't really shut. I'm not sure why but unless it's locked, it's not shut which means that I often walk out and leave the door open while I'm gone. Luckily we live in a safe neighborhood?

All in all we're sooo glad we moved. It's really been a lifestyle change, a much needed one.

Our New Digs

Finally, oh finally- we've moved. I never really knew how much living in North Bonneville affected our lives until this past week when we moved to Camas. For the past month (actually two years but we got obsessive about it last month) , Jarred and I have been trying to figure out how to get out of our North Bonneville house and into a house closer to where we work. Jarred should really be a financial advisor if the teaching gig does not work out for him as he looked at every possible angle of how we could get out from under our North Bonneville house and purchase a house in Camas. We've had our North Bonneville house for sale for TWO, that's right TWO, years now and after waiting and waiting for someone to snatch up the gem (don't a lot of people want a half acre of grass?), we finally realized the market is too depressed (we are among those whose house is now worth less than we owe) and we should rent the place out. Thanks to my awesome parents, we were able to put an offer in on a foreclosed house in Camas and in the mean time rent the place while the offer went through. The minute we had the keys to our Camas house, we packed up and moved. We were tired of spending eight hours a week in our car that had traveled 14,000 miles to and from work in the last year.

Holy shit, what a difference moving has made. Let me just list some of the highlights.
1. I have a two mile bike ride to work.
2. Jarred rides seven miles to work.
3. We're five minutes from a grocery store.
5. I'm ten minutes from the horses.
6. We can ride up two blocks to great running/biking trails.
7. We're 20 minutes from Ikea.
8. We can go to Portland after work and not make a day of it.
9. I mowed the lawn last weekend, took me 20 minutes (1.40 less than in North Bonneville)

As you can see, we're obsessed with how close everything is. The house is not too exciting and has some issues like the fact
that every room has mood lighting, forget bright rooms but everything that needs to be fixed is cosmetic. The important thing is that we are not married to the car anymore and we have so much freedom in what we do during the work week.

Water In Washington Is Cold

This is why I stick to "easy" rafting. The water in Washington is cold.

Yes There Are People In This Boat

Jarred's crazy rafter friends. They raft everything he kayaks....and more!

Eagle Creek

A good reason to love Washington.