Where'd January Go??

I know that time flies when you're having fun and crazy-busy but really... It's like January didn't happen it went so fast. If it weren't for a few pictures to prove it, I might not believe how much has happened since my last post a month ago. This will likely be a long post... Let's see... where to start...

Well, we went to Maui with our friend Kelly and her folks. They had booked a three bedroom condo and ended up with an extra room. It was *very* nice of them to invite us! Hawaii was sunny and beautiful which was a nice escape from the rain of Seattle. (Although we were sad about missing the fresh snow that was falling in our mountains.) I went a little camera crazy and took a ton of pictures. There posted in our Picasa album here in case you're interested.

I'd be hard pressed to pick a highlight from the trip... We stayed so busy you'll notice there aren't any beach pictures (if you take a look at the photos). We did spend some time at the beach, but not a ton. We did a lot more hiking and exploring.

On our first full day we hopped into the rental car and decided to head out to a hike in the book that sounded nice on the north west corner of the island. It took nearly the whole trip to figure out how close together everything is out there compared to the big-ness of the west coast... We overshot the hike by MILES before we finally admitted that we'd gone too far. But by then we decided to just keep going since it was so pretty and we were enjoying the drive. We ended up on what turned out to be mostly a one-lane road carved out of the side of a cliff. Very striking scenery!

The next day we hung out at the beach a bit and just played in the surf in the morning. That afternoon we went for a hike at a park and went for a swim in the stream. The water was a bit chilly, but it felt nice in the 80 degree weather.

Day three involved quite a long drive all the way around to the rain forest side of the island and a four mile hike (round trip) up to a huge, 400' waterfall. Kelly decided she thought it was necessary to stand under the falls and have her picture taken... and then convinced me to do the same. It seemed like the thing to do. :) It was raining off and on during the hike but not more than one might expect in a rain forest. When we got to the bottom we figured since we were there we should go for a quick swim in the Seven Sacred Pools, but there were signs up and locks on the gates due to flash flooding. Huh? It wasn't raining that hard...?? So we hop in the car, grumbling a bit about the closed pools and head back. And then it really started to rain. No, I mean it really started to rain. Dry stream beds on the way out were now running fully. And there was thunder and lightening like I've never seen before. It was kinda fun, even without the Seven Sacred Pools.

Next day we decided to really try to swim with the fishes. So we put on the snorkels and fins and headed to the beach. Short version: we got to swim with the fishes and a huge sea turtle. Jim and the turtle seemed to really get along well... the two of them just sorta floated there for a long time hanging out.

Finally the last day had arrived... Jim and I had a later flight than Kelly and her folks, so we ended up heading out on our own and went back to the Hana side of the island to squeak in a hike that had been rained out the last day we went. But when we arrived at where the trail head was supposed to be, there were tons of signs saying it was on private property and now closed. Very disappointed we wandered to the state park instead to hike around there. As it turns out, we had a great time at the park. There was a small beach area, but most of the park was lava cliffs into the ocean, and the waves had created small tide pools on the top of the cliffs where we were hiking, and the pools had fish and crab and all sorts of fun things in them. This was also the only day I neglected to sunscreen up... so of course I burned a bit. We stayed longer than we intended, so there was a bit of a mad dash to catch our flight, but we made it...

Then we got back and I headed out for a work trip the very next day. The best part was getting to see lots of people that I used to work with but don't anymore. There's no doubt - the outdoor industry has some of the greatest people in it! The worst part was being away from Jim and the critters.

Next short story... it's still snowing. It's been snowing in the mountains since mid January with really no end in sight. Great for skiing - also "great" for avalanches. Normally they close I-90 occasionally throughout the season for a day here and there, but last week it just seemed to stay closed due to avalanche control work. Finally, they said, it'll open back up on Wednesday. So Wednesday comes and although it's a few hours later than they thought, sure enough it opens back up. We took a few hours off work and dashed up to our little ski spot, Alpental, to make the most of all this fresh, light (un-Washington-like) powder.

We skied for a couple of hours and then headed in for a little snack... and heard that they closed the pass down again and they don't know when it'll reopen. Oops. Apparently there was a natural "snow slide" (as if they call it something other than an avalanche it'll sound less scary??) that buried two cars. Everyone was OK, but the road was once again closed. Since there wasn't really much we could do at that point we went back out and skied...

While standing in the lift line a few runs later, a ski patroller came up and announced State Patrol would be "escorting" cars down the pass for an hour, and after that they are closing it back up and it definitely won't open again until the next day at the earliest. Hmmm... what to do? Should we be responsible and go get in our car and wait in line for the opportunity to get home? Or do we conveniently neglect to heed his warning... and ski until they open the pass back up? (We had backcountry ski gear with us and there are safe areas near by if they didn't open the ski areas the next day.) But we had a friend with us and he felt like it was the right thing to go, so off we went... West-bound on the East-bound lanes. Very strange. As it turns out they didn't open the pass again until the following Saturday morning, and this all took place on Wednesday...

Last weekend we finally managed to get together with my folks for Christmas. Since we were out of town in December and then for a good part of January it had been delayed. My brother bought me a movie, Stardust, which we all watched together. Very cute - highly recommended. The one part I could have lived without was some of the witch-critter unpleasantness. The movie was a little like the Princess Bride, but of course not quite as good. (John thinks Stardust is better, but he's wrong of course.) I will definitely watch it again. Thanks John!

We followed our Christmas celebrations with a party at my friend Anandi's (and her hubby, TJ) house. It was a Groundhog Day party... I love it! Which works out well with the theme of the post... skipping straight from Christmas to early February. They live quite a ways from us, but it was well worth the drive and late night.

And that brings us up to today... those were the big events of January. The only other thing is that we've started making some progress in the spare bedroom again, which is very exciting. And even though I haven't made progress every day, my New Year's Resolution is still helping me chip away at little things in an effort to make our home a castle.

Hopefully February will be a bit more low-key so I won't have to try and cram a whole month into as short a post as possible.