Shane was up at dawn the next morning, eager to explore our new digs – he and Jason had already taken a spin around the lake in a canoe before I had even considered opening my eyes (which is why I must credit him with the photo below – the sun was much higher in the sky by the time I got out of bed).

Saturday was spent sitting on the dock with my book and my mug of peach tea, napping on the couch, paddling around in the canoe, soaking in the hot tub, rinse and repeat.  Everything a vacation should be.

Grilled kabobs for dinner, another bottle of wine, and the day came to a close with us sitting at the table, talking, drinking, laughing, eating… Over the past few months, Shane and I have spent countless evenings sitting around the dining room table or standing at the kitchen counter chatting with Jason and Nance about…life, I guess.  Our conversations flow so freely that it’s hard for me to pinpoint what exactly we talk about – I just know that at any moment I may be asked a soul-baring question, or I may be laughing out loud over Jason’s attempt to rap along with 2Pac.

Sunday was more of the same, which was perfectly ok with me.  I lounged, wandering from the couch to the dock and back again.  And Shane got to spend some more quality time with his best bud, G-man, which is always a good thing.

Sunday evening, we all piled into the rowboat for a cruise around the lake.  The tour-du-lac took a bit longer than expected, since Shane and Jason spent more time rowing us in circles than rowing us forward, but still, a good time was had by all, and our captains eventually navigated us safely back to the dock.

I put a lot of ’effort’ this weekend into resting, while Shane and Jason chose to focus their energy on playing.  Seriously, these boys played hard this weekend.  Whether it was darting off to the frisbee golf course for a ‘quick’ round of 18 holes, mad-ballin’ at the hoop in the driveway, busting out the croquet set buried in the front closet, jumping in the lake (then the hot tub, then the lake, then the hot tub…), or trying out the assortment of boats at our disposal, it was so fun to just watch ‘boys be boys’.

Sunday evening meant another dinner fresh off the grill, more talking/drinking/laughing/eating, and one final soak in the hot tub.  It was hard knowing that we’d have to bid farewell to our little lakeside paradise the next morning…

And sure enough, despite my resistance, Monday morning rolled around we were off to catch an early ferry back to Seattle, so that I could get back to the office to work toward my Monday night deadline – the phrase ‘back to reality’ smacked me right in the face with a string of stressful meetings and a thirteen-hour work day.  Yuuuuuuuuuck.  But the peace and calm was certainly nice while it lasted, and the upcoming three-day weekend holds some definite relaxation potential.  Even if our own little backyard doesn’t have a view quite like this:

Shane and I celebrated the end of the work week Schnell-style, and met at a bar downtown for some Happy Hour action.  Penn Cove mussels, garlic fries, and frothy pints of beer – these are the reasons it’s called ‘Happy Hour’.

We spent the rest of the evening with our friends Jason and Nancy, feasting on Jason’s tasty home-baked pizzas.  This one was my favorite – olive oil, onions, avacado, arugula, mmm…

Saturday morning was my monthly book club meeting with the ladies – which means a latte and buttermilk biscuit.  I’m afraid the book is secondary, really.

We spent Saturday afternoon at my office’s summer picnic, eating burgers and putt-putting a round of mini-golf.  Turns out I am terrible at mini-golf, but Shane can putt like a pro.  Go figure.

After church this morning, Shane and I headed over the Ballard Farmer’s Market.  Seemingly endless rows of fresh produce, brightly colored flowers, and locally made specialty foods.  And mini-donuts.  Let’s not forget the mini-donuts.

And finally, an afternoon spent doing some shopping, followed by a quiet Sunday evening at home.  Did some housework, some reading, and a yoga session that I will pretend can counteract the french fries, the pizza, the buttermik biscuit, the burger, and the mini-donuts.  Right.

The tomatoes and strawberries aren’t yet ripe for the pickin’, but they show definite promise.

All in all, we feel like we’ve done pretty well in our rookie year of veggie-gardening.  But there are definitely things we’ll do differently next year – a couple of words to the wise:

- Don’t assume that one of those dinky little 2-foot stakes is all you need for your peas – our vines outgrew those things in a matter of minutes, and everything would have been much simpler if we’d built a trellis from the get-go.

- 12 lettuce plants is far too many for a two-person household.  I’m sick of salad.  I was actually relieved when some of our plants started to bolt and needed to be removed.

- Squash and zucchini plants grow freakishly fast and get freakishly big.  Just sayin’.

- Gardening is rewarding and fun, but watch out – it can cause marital tensions; I got very defensive last week when Shane accused my squash plant of crowding his strawberries.  How dare he.

Keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll be seeing more signs of red next time we go out there!  I’m ready for a good, juicy tomato.

We caught up with each other over eggs, bacon, biscuits, and coffee, then headed down to Southcenter to catch the early showing of Inception.  It felt a little strange to be heading into a movie theater at 11 am, but when we discovered that shows before noon are offered at ‘pre’-matinee extra-discounted prices, I got over it (you all know I love a good deal).  Shane I spent the rest of the afternoon doing some shopping, napping, and then capping off our lovely day with pizza at Tutta Bella and ice cream at Full Tilt (insert happy sigh of satisfaction here).

I spent the evening with some girlfriends, taking part in what has quickly become a fun tradition for all of us.  Every few months, we each dig through our closets, pull out those items we love but just don’t wear anymore, and gather at La Verne’s house to swap clothes, accessories, and lots of laughs.  It was a fabulous evening, and I think we all walked away happy with what we had scored at our ‘free boutique’.

(photo courtesy of La Verne)

Today was heavier on the ‘productive’ side of things, with a couple of hours at the office and a couple of hours out working in the yard, but the evening couldn’t have been more relaxing, with a Rum and Coke in hand (Shane is trying his hand as bartender these days) and the Giants vs. Dodgers game on TV.  I’m not sure where my recent affinity for baseball came from (maybe out of need for a reason to veg?), but stretching out on the couch with Shane and cheering on the Giants has become one of my most favorite evening pastimes.  And as an added bonus, I think Shane falls a little deeper in love with me each time I spontaneously jump off the couch and let out a “woot!” in favor of his team.

All in all, an utterly fantastic weekend (unless you’re a Dodgers fan – hehe…).

Saturday began with coffee at Barista – reputed to be one of Portland’s finest coffee shops.  I went with the standard latte (although it was much better than ‘standard’), but Jack pulled out the big guns and ordered a cup of their specialty vacuum pot coffee.  Watching the barista brew this cup of coffee was like taking part in a chemistry experiment – I couldn’t begin to explain the entire process, but I can tell you that these people take their coffee seriously.

Post-caffeine fix, we headed over to the Portland Farmers Market to pick up the fixin’s for an afternoon picnic.  This market is a-mazing.  Row after row of brightly colored berries, mouth-watering baked goods, artisan cheeses, yum, yum, yum…

We walked away with a bag full of goodies and pointed the car south – destination: wine country!  The region just south of Portland is home to some of the Northwest’s most beautiful vineyards, and we spent the afternoon sipping some fantastic Pinot Noirs amidst the rolling hills of vines.

We headed back into the city late afternoon and spent some time just lounging on the grass at a nice little part in Northwest Portland, people-watching, sun-soaking, and building up our hunger for our much-anticipated dinner at Tanuki.  This tiny little restaurant, tucked away among all the other storefronts on NW 21st, doesn’t look like anything special from the outside.  In fact, even after a round of drinks and happy hour appetizers, I was not overly impressed.  Then we ordered our dinner (actually, we didn’t really even ‘order’ dinner – we just told our server what we wanted to spend as a group and asked her to bring us a compilation of things that would fit that bill).  And then the food started coming.  And coming.  And coming.  She must have brought us 12 to 15 different plates, from Unagi to quail eggs to Chinese sausage, to a whole slew of things that I didn’t recognize, but readily ate.  We finally had to ask our server to just stop bringing us food – otherwise, we were in danger of not fitting out the door.  That was a meal.

We ended the evening with drinks with Mitch at Crowbar on Mississippi – wonderfully chill, after such a full day.  I fell into bed that night with a perfection-induced smile on my face.

Jack and La V headed back to Seattle early this morning, and Shane and I stuck around for awhile to spend some time with my brother and his family.  Elise is turning into such a beautiful little girl, full of new questions and new expressions.  She still adores her Uncle Shane – while running around at the playground, she bonked her head and began to cry.  She ran right past everyone’s offers to comfort her and right into Shane’s lap, gazing up at him with that irresistible little smile through her tears.  Precious.

And far too soon, it was time to hop back in the car and head back to Seattle.  Au revoir, weekend…

I rolled out of bed on Saturday morning to head down to the lake to cheer Jack on as he finished his 1.2-mile swim and transitioned into his 56-mile bike ride.  It was a beautiful morning, and exciting to watch the swimmers emerge from the water to run toward their bikes – felt kind of like a Baywatch episode, but with full-coverage wetsuits.  Jack finished his swim like a champ, and was off on his bike in no time.

As Jack was biking, Shane, La V, and Jason were all running in the Chelan 10k.  Here’s the crew pre-race – you can see that J has his serious game face on…

A remarkably short time later, Nancy and I stood at the finish line and cheered on our runners as they each breezed past us.  I love my friends, but they sure can make me feel lazy!  What a bunch of studs.  This picture of La V is great – like she’s saying, ‘Yeah, I just ran 6.2 miles.  Ain’t no thang.’

During all of this, Jack was still biking, on his way to transitioning into his 13.1-mile run.  Incredible.  A couple of hours later, we were all back at the finish line, waiting for our all-star to round the corner and complete the journey that he’s been on for months, with countless hours logged in preparation for this moment.  I think all of our chests swelled up with pride as he gave us a wave on his way to the finish, and we said to ourselves, “Wow, I actually know that stud!”

I figured Jack would want to spend the afternoon stretched out on the couch with an ice pack and a tall glass of water, but, true to Jack form, he had other plans.  Just a short while after his race was done, Jack was driving us out to the nearby wineries do some tastings (to ‘rehydrate’, of course).  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised – this is the same guy that convinced Shane it would be a good idea to pop over to a Mercer Island winery to do some wine tasting in the middle of one of their first really long bike rides (just to ‘rest their legs’, of course)…

The rest of the day was perfectly chill, spent grilling out on the back porch, playing games, and welcoming Brian and Nicole, who arrived at the condo late that night, to say a farewell to us all on their way to Colorado.  Sunday was Lake Day – we staked a claim on a perfect patch of grass right near the shore, spread out our beach towels, and spent a couple of hours alternating between sun-bathing and swimming.

Shane was thrilled to spend some quality time with his best bud, G-man.

And I have to say, you are never too old for a good ‘group jump’ into the water.  (Photos by Daniel Lee).  Shane is still living down the fact that he completely bailed on us (that’s him, standing lamely on the dock while the rest of us launched ourselves into the water)…

Post-lake, we had time for one more Little-League-esque group shot of our athletes, and then it was time to head back west, toward taller buildings and cloudier skies.  This was a tough place to leave behind!

Peyto Lake was impossible to top, but we made several other stops along the way, hopping out of the car to snap a few photos or skip a few rocks.

We spent the afternoon at Lake Moraine, drinking in the view of more turquoise water from our little rented canoe.

And one final quiet evening at the campsite – Shane polished off the rest of our screwcap wine while I kept the fire stoked, and we thought to ourselves, “This was just what we needed.”

On Friday morning, we made one last stop at Lake Louise on our way out of town, knowing that it could be a very long time before we came across anything this beautiful again.  *Sigh*.

The drive home was loooong, but we made it back to Seattle in one piece on Friday night, eager to wash the smell of campfire out of our hair and sleep in our own comfy bed.  And with that, our week in the great outdoors was behind us.  *Double sigh*…

Then we climbed…

And climbed…

And decided to stop for photos of each other while we were both still smiling…

Climbed some more, and voila!  Victory!  4.2 miles later, we had reached our destination, where we each flopped down on a nice flat rock and sighed a big fat sigh of satisfied pride.  The view was stunning, the air was perfectly crisp and fresh, the deep blue sky was strewn with puffy white clouds, and I think we each said a silent thank you to God for being so amazingly talented.

After catching our breath, we picked ourselves up and made our way down the mountain in record time, stopping at the bottom to get a good look at the way the change in the sun’s angle had altered the color of the lake.

Our aching feet told us we’d earned the right to forsake our cold cuts on wheat bread for burgers and fries in downtown Banff.  And I will not apologize for eating out while camping, ’cause those sweet potato fries were gooood.  The rest of the evening was spent lounging around the campsite, reading, popping open a bottle of screw-cap wine, and keeping the fire stoked.  And I was convinced, we just might be onto something with this whole camping thing…

Anyhow, after a long drive, we arrived at our campsite Monday afternoon, tired but eager to set up camp and then explore the sights.  Sadly, just as we began to unpack our tent, raindrops started to fall, and though it never poured, it sprinkled on and off throughout the evening. Thankfully, it was still dry enough for us to have a fire, so we warmed ourselves by the flames while we munched on grilled corn on the cob and bratwursts, followed by s’mores.  Turned out to be a pretty decent night after all…

We awoke Tuesday morning to the sound of birds chirping, and I could tell from the glow of the roof of our nylon tent that the rain had passed and we were in for a beautiful day.  After a short walk down to Lake McDonald to take in the sparkling water, we packed up camp and hit the road once again.

We had decided to take the scenic route up to Banff, via ‘Going-to-the-Sun-Road’ – 53 miles of winding, mountainous glory.  It was an amazing drive, and we ooh-ed and ahh-ed all along the way, from the rolling green hills up to the snow-capped glaciers.  Thank God Shane was driving, because there’s no way I could have kept my eyes on the road with sights like this around every bend!

Our first big encounter with Glacier National Park wildlife:  this guy was just chillin’ by the side of the road, nodding his head to the cars as they passed.  Awesome.

And with one final gander at the beauty of Glacier, we were off to Banff, wondering if Canada’s mountains could top what we’d seen in Montana.  Stay tuned to find out if they did!  (How’s that for a cliff-hanger?!)

After a couple of hours leisurely picking our way among the lupines and fresh Spring growth, we arrived at our destination, where the ladies grabbed a seat and took a rest, and the boys skipped stones and scrambled over logs.

The rest of the day was wonderfully lazy, with a nap, and lots of just loungin’ around the campsite – the G-man was our little camper-in-training.

Nightfall when camping means one thing, and one thing only: S’MORES!  And we are a group of people that take our dessert very seriously, so standard s’more fare just wouldn’t do – I was pretty proud of myself when I put together this perfect marshmallow-peanut butter cup sandwich.  Oooooooh yeah.

But then Jordan had to one-up me with his feat of marshmallow-Reese’s engineering genius – we all drooled as we watched this skewer turn into a gooey, chocolatey mess.  And we all groaned when he held it over the fire just a second too long and half of this fell in the ashes.  Sigh.

Sunday I awoke the pitter-patter of raindrops on the tent roof and groaned as I pictured us spending breakfast time huddled around the picnic table, trying to cook our stash of bacon and eggs in the extreme dampness.  Ick.  The thought was enough to make me squirm a little deeper into my sleeping bag and go right back to sleep.  Fortunately, we had a super-selfless camper in our midst, and as the rest of us stayed huddled in our tents, sleeping our way through the raindrops, Jordan was expertly stringing a 20-foot tarp over the picnic table, so that we would have a dry refuge from the rain.  It sure pays to camp with people who know what they’re doing…

We ended the weekend with a bang, heading out to Boudreaux Cellars, tucked away in the woods just outside of Leavenworth, for a round of winetasting.  We tasted five tasty wines and got the VIP tour, complete with a stroll though the wonderfully musty underground cellar.

And with that, we pointed our cars west and all headed back to Seattle, eager to wash the smell of campfire smoke from our clothes, but satisfied with a weekend well-spent.