Winter Sports, Summer Sun

Last week, Sean headed out to Sun Valley, Idaho for a conference with work.  In addition to being home of the Power Engineers headquarters, it's also one of America's premier ski resorts, so I flew out later in the week to meet Sean for the recreational part of the trip.  I can honestly say that, randomly, this was one of the most fun vacations that I've ever been on (and I consider myself a beach person...with an appreciation of the mountains).  In Idaho.

Sun Valley Club, where we had dinner with Sean's company on Thursday night

 Dollar Mountain.  This is the beginner mountain, a build up to Bald Mountain.  This one is 1000 vertical feet and proved difficult enough for both of us.  Neither of us even managed to be able to safely ski all of the green slopes.  There's like, 30 slopes on this mountain and over 2 days we couldn't even attempt all of them.

 Bald Mountain in the background of the top of Dollar.  That one is 3000 vertical feet, but other than eating on it, we stayed on this safer choice :)

 River Run Lodge, at the base of Baldy where we had an amazing breakfast Saturday morning

 We rode a gondola midway up Baldy for lunch at the roundhouse

The Roundhouse.  One of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.

 The level of talent that skis here is unlike any I've ever seen.  This mountain is covered in almost straight vertical moguls.  But even little kids were zipping down these and into the trees, no problem.  Unbelievable.

 Natural hot springs in the west are pretty cool.  We drove almost 7 miles down a tiny snow covered dirt road to get here, to this isolated little hot spring in the river.  It's a little weird to strip down to a bathing suit in the middle of the snow and maneuver down a hill into hot water, but it's one of the cooler experiences I've ever been privy to.

 Brunch in the lodge dining room.  While we look pretty beat here, this was so relaxing.  We spent a couple of hours eating an unbelievable breakfast and drinking coffee in this cozy dining room while watching it snow outside.

Ski Boots

This weekend we celebrated Sean's 24th birthday with a trip to the mountains.  I booked this trip a little while back, and would have loved to have been someone who could keep it to myself until Friday when we left, but secret-keeping isn't much of my strong point, so I had to give it to him at Christmas.  So so much for that :)

We stayed here, which ended up being a decent place to stay, and the food was awesome, but when we got there I was surprised to find that instead of the bed and breakfast, lodge with a fireplace environment that I'd envisioned, that we were staying in a cabin room at the top of a dirt hill (advertised as "mountain view").  It had a bed with a quilt, a shower that was literally a glorified tile corner, a toilet that you couldn't use if you were much bigger than me, and a space heater.  We had to follow 'Jacob' up a sketchy dirt hill in the middle of nowhere to find it.  If you watched LOST, then you know why we were prompted to go ahead and text Lyndsey to let her know where we were staying in case we didn't ever come back.  That said, it'd be nice in the summer and if you were expecting these accommodations, really.  But I wasn't.  Since I'm married to an eternal optimist though, Sean didn't cry, and instead saw the bright side.  This was all he could come up with:  "Do you have the rest of your Nutter Butter?  You should leave it outside to see if we can lure a bear.  You think bears like Nutter Butters?".  Later, when I apologized for my lack of research concerning a place to stay, Sean looked on the bright side with the following:  "But Maria!  If we hadn't stayed HERE, we'd never be able to see a bear eating a Nutter Butter!!".  We didn't end up seeing a bear eating a Nutter Butter.  Or any bears for that matter.  But we did find a fireplace in the multipurpose room above us which lessened the blow.

Aside from this small detail though, we had a great time.  I highly recommend the place to eat or camp.  The food was SO good and the service was great.  And it was relatively close to a lot of things.  On Friday night, we hung out by the aforementioned fireplace with a glass of wine from the resort's vineyard (a nice touch on their part) playing games.  That sounds lame, but I love hanging out with Sean, and it's pretty freeing to be in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone reception...even if it did start out a little creepy.  We spent Saturday morning at Grandfather Mountain where I spent plenty of time in my childhood, Saturday afternoon and night trying to sharpen some of our skiing skills, and Sunday hiking and shopping in Blowing Rock.

The view from part of our Grandfather Mountain hike

The top of Grandfather.  At the risk of sounding dramatic, I'm not sure what the wind speeds were at the top of this mountain, but I felt like I needed to sit down to keep from blowing over.  According to the weather report from the mountain, they've charted wind speeds at 115 mph and temperatures as cold as -32 degrees F.  Obviously, it wasn't that cold or that windy, but it felt like it to me.

1 mile high suspension bridge at the top of Grandfather.  As a civil engineer, this suspension bridge was pretty much the highlight of Sean's entire trip.  At his request, I also have pictures of the turnbuckles and springs that operate this bridge in a way that Sean would have to be the one to explain.  But I'm just keeping them for us to enjoy :)  He crossed it, but like I said, I was scared.  Even as a non-civil engineer, this is pretty cool.  But I've been here on a sunny day as well, and it's still scary.

Sugar Mountain- the reason for our entire trip.  Hopefully in that afternoon/evening, we've sharpened our skills enough to ski Idaho in 6 weeks, although that's doubtful.

Casualty of the trip.  In addition to Sean's elbow.  Sean is insisting that this "isn't that bad", but he can't feel it, and as long as there's any visible evidence of this catastrophe, then it's "that bad".  Naturally, this wasn't my fault, but the resort's since it was the result of a huge patch of straight ice :)

Sunday short hike to a waterfall near the lodge on the Toe River.  It'd be a good place to swim sometime around July, I'm sure.

This is such a fun place to go, and there's so much to do, especially in the summer.  And it's always fun to spend some time in a place so different from home.  Happy Birthday Sean!  You're such a blessing to me and I hope this year's the BEST EVER!

Queen's Landing

Last weekend, Sean and I went on a dinner cruise on Lake Norman that I got him for Christmas.  Yeah, we're just now getting around to using it.  It was a pretty night with a pretty sunset, and pretty decent food.

Freedom Park. It's great.

Seanie and I had a picnic in Freedom Park tonight.  With Chinese take-out.  And we played with the camera.

Thanks to Laurie and Helen who got us this sweet picnic basket and blanket for our wedding.  We like it a lot.

Sean practicing nostalgic prints.  In sepia no less.

I hope when we have kids, that we have boys who make this cat-who-ate-the-canary face

Portraiture via Seanie

"I'm having a Nick-looking day" -Lyndsey, do you concur?  I thought he was always having some degree of a "Nick-looking" day.

More camera play...like my prop?

Yep.  Sure did set up auto-timer.  Continued egotism...

Ducks at the park

Seanie Bonnie

Anyone recognize this from Emily's season of The Bachelor?  It's Freedom Park :)

Date Weekend :)

Sean and I spent last weekend on a weekend-long date.  After entering the working world, I hate to admit that summer hasn't been our favorite season.  It's just been annoyingly hot.  And I'm not one to describe "hot" as annoying.  In the past, it's been a time for the pool, vacations, and light work...but it hasn't been this summer.  We've been to the pool once, and instead of being the summer-loving people that we once were, have become people who are thinking of summer as a time when our clothes aren't comfortable and our electric bill triples.  Yep.  So we dedicated the weekend to rekindling our love of summer and each other with some outdoor dining and fun in the sun..

Yes, I'm going to be someone who posts pictures of their dinner.  Because this rivaled any restaurant and I got the recipe for the main part from my favorite cookbook, Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Women, which is a book that you need if you don't have.  

 A close up of my masterpiece, tuna steaks with kiwi and avocado salsa with wild rice.  I made She-Crab soup as our side.

 Dessert from the same cookbook, orange cream with mandarin oranges and granola.  What I love about that cookbook is that everything is amazing and it's all pretty healthy.  

On Saturday morning, we made mango smoothies (another Betty Crocker recipe) and headed out for the "fun in the sun" segment of our weekend to the US National Whitewater Center in Charlotte.  This place was SO much fun.  We literally spent the entire day, and could spend 10 more without getting bored.  We went on a big zipline, did a ropes obstacle course that was 60 feet above ground, and went whitewater rafting.  Our intent was to finish out the day with kayaking on the Catawba River, but we got tired and our arms hurt, so we'll have to go another day.  They also have several other ziplines and obstacle courses, a lot of hiking trails, a zipline tour through the canopy, stand-up paddleboarding, etc.  To quote someone else, it's like an amusement park for active adults.

The Big Zipline

 Sean and me, all suited up for ziplining and obstacle-coursing

 A kid on the first obstacle in the "Canyon Crossing"

 Whitewater Rafting

 And finishing out the night with fireworks

A Very Happy Easter :)

Easter weekend in Charlotte was SO beautiful.  We had my mom, Ladson, Lyndsey, and Nick up to Charlotte and cooked out by the pool before our Saturday night church service.  I'm so glad that we're back in the season of cooking out by the pool.  And of course, Elevation Easter was awesome.  Over 19,000 people came to 21 Elevation 3D Easter services all over Charlotte and prompted over 2,200 salvations.

The service began with a video about the desire of human beings to shorten distance.  We walked, then ran, then rode horses, then bikes, then cars/trains, then airplanes, etc. but that the one distance that we can't shorten is the distance between us and God.  But that Jesus came to make that distance possible to overcome.  Then, the rest of the service was about Acts 1:8.  This verse represents the VERY last human words spoken by Jesus on Earth, and reads "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth'.    Pastor Steven explored the verse in 3 dimensions, looking first at the Gospel in Jerusalem, which is likened to the Bible Belt, where the Gospel is known by almost everyone, but still applies.  And then the Gospel in Judea and Samaria, which is likened to Las Vegas, where there is little morality and/or knowledge/belief of Jesus.  And lastly, to the Gospel in the ends of the Earth, which represents distance that we can all feel from God.  I LOVED this service and felt like the Gospel came alive in a whole new way.  And of course, was in 3D.  A creative presentation to teach about the original Creator.   Listen to it!

Distance.

Nick and Lyndsey spent the night with us afterwards, which was awesome.  We walked down and got some ice cream, and stayed up and watched a movie.  Haven't seen them much since we moved up here and it makes us sad, so a sleepover was probably what we needed.

On actual Easter Day, I had to work.  Newborns in Need as well as another organization that I can't remember gave each of the babies an Easter basket to celebrate their first Easters.  They had handmade newborn washcloths, burp cloths, stuffed animals, books, etc.  I love that people take time to make/do that kind of thing for the NICU babies.

When I got home, Seanie had an Easter basket on our island with a note and some candy.  He'd spent his afternoon putting together the "Apartment 139 Easter Egg Hunt".  I was psyched.  Anyway, here's some pictures from the weekend, wish I had some of my family, but I don't.

Mogatu helping Sean clean our windows :)

My post-Easter Egg Hunt Basket

I love Easter :)

Workin' For The Weekend

I haven't written anything in a while mainly because most of my free time went out the window with my job, which showed me into reality right around my last post.  But I really love it thus far, so I feel pretty blessed.

A few months ago, post-CMC-rejection letter, I had resigned myself to working retail for the rest of my life and was mad at myself for picking a major that chewed up and spit out all possible free time in college, as opposed to, say, psychology.  But then I got this awesome job and am successfully using this degree of mine :)

I thought, after my rejection letter, that since God didn't put me into a new grad position at CMC, that I should be totally psyched about what was in store for my life, but it was really hard to believe that.  So I called CMC, gave up on any dream that I ever had of working with women's and children's and begged/pleaded for any position that they might have (med-surg, nurse tech, secretary, janitorial services, whatever would get my foot in the door) and was denied.  I cried.  Presbyterian had told me that they would be hiring 18 people, all from within the system, and even after listing all of my fantastic credentials, was assured that since I didn't work for Presbyterian before, I wouldn't be now either, so all was lost.  I felt like an over-achiever in college, and was really irritated that I'd done so well in school and been involved in so many extra-curricular activities only to be turned down for not living in Charlotte during school.  So after teaching me plenty of patience that I don't ever want to use again, God came through as always in the 11th hour and I got a phone call from Presbyterian offering me exactly the position that I wanted in women's and children's in the neonatal intensive care.  So in effect, I was right.  I should have been SO excited that I didn't get the job that I applied for at CMC, knowing that God had something so much better and cooler in mind than what I had limited myself to being able to do.

Anyway, onto what we've been doing in the mean time...

We saw Cirque Du Soleil's show, Totem, which is easily the coolest thing I've ever seen.  I'm a huge fan.

I planted a garden.  Basil, Rosemary, Catnip for Mogs, Onions, and Cherry Tomatos.  Our green thumbs are at work.  It's modest, but it works.

We had a progressive dinner with our small group that I wish we had pictures of that consisted of super high class appetizers compliments of Jana and Blake, dinner at Jessica and Ben's, and puff pastry dessert at Ginny and Jonathan's.  Sean and I did the salad, and we were very outdone.

 I finished making my bag :)

 And I made my first envelope pillowcase.  I was psyched about how well this would match our bed (see below), but I think I'd rather it go on a chair in our room, and maybe make a solid green one to go with it.

And lastly, we've been looking for houses like we're getting paid for it.  Where to live, how high are the taxes, do we need a yard, HOA, neighborhood pool, which kitchen do we like, how many bedrooms....there's more to buying a house than I thought.  More on that when a decision is made...don't get too excited, it'll be a while.  I like a house in Stallings and a new development in Steele Creek.  Any opinions would be helpful...

Valentines :)

The first time that I saw Sean, or registered seeing Sean, he had his back to me in a building in Clemson, and Lyndsey pointed him out to say "that's Nick's brother".  I had that feeling about him, like I knew him but wasn't sure from where (and I don't think it was from having seen Nick's picture).  A deja vu feeling if you will.  And I knew very shortly after that, maybe even before we ever talked, that I would marry him.  Obviously, I was right.  I think that that feeling is super weird.  Sean said that when we went into the apartment building that we live in for the first time, he felt that same familiar "I've been here" feeling, and knew that we would live here.  I guess that's God's way of putting a sense of familiarity about certain people/things/places to point us in the right direction.

According to Sean, the first time that he saw me was at a square dance, where we didn't talk.  After that, the first time that he remembered talking to me was with a group of people walking to CP group.  He said that I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that said "Clemson Equestrian", and that he took that as a means to an end and started asking me about the equestrian team in order to strike up a conversation.  He referenced that same "at home" feeling talking to me and I talked about when I first saw him.  I think that's really crazy.

So here we are 4 years later.  Anyway, we celebrated Valentine's last weekend in uptown, but I like celebrating on the day, so I decorated our apartment, and tried my hand at making surf and turf.  It was a fun deviation from our standard meals, so here's some pics.

Appetizer cheese in my 50 cent Valentine's bowls

Pretty table :) With the pretty flowers that Sean brought me.

Surf and Turf dinner

Brownie cake that was so delicious

Sean got a book and a movie, and I got tickets to Cirque du Soleil's Alegria, which comes to Charlotte at the end of July.  It's pretty far in the future, but I'm psyched.

I love Valentine's at home.

Lobster Crudo...And Other Fine Cooking Skills

On Saturday, Sean and I went to the cooking class that I got him for his birthday.  It was at Upstream, a restaurant right next door to our apartment, which is nice since we could walk and Saturday was really pretty.

This particular class wasn't hands on, so we basically hung out and watched the chef cook while he explained everything.  We learned a bunch of stuff, some of which maybe I'll be able to put into practice.  I think some people must be regulars and do it every month because they seemed to know everyone and asked a million questions and took tons of notes.  

The first course was chilled lobster crudo, which turns out means that the lobster is slightly undercooked.  It had a lemon vinaigrette and caviar involved in it as well.  I think the highlights of this part were learning how to shove a wooden pick up the lobsters tail to keep it from curling, putting the lobster in simmering water rather than boiling (a tip that helped me make valentine's dinner), and learning to cook lobster for 6 minutes/lb.  Pretty helpful.

The next course was pickled blue oysters with baby beets.  I'm gonna go ahead and say this wasn't my favorite, so I neglected everything that was said about it.

Next was Togarashi Seared Hawaiian Ahi Tuna which was AWESOME.  I had no idea how to sear tuna (actually I didn't know what searing was at all), and now I do.  And I think it's delicious, so we'll use that.  It was made with sweet potatoes, which were really good, but a little more complicated than I like to get with sweet potatoes, so I guess I'll do it easier.  It was awesome though.

Lastly was the best part, the dark chocolate and almond tort.  I've never learned how to make tort, so I'm glad I know now.  Sean gave me a hard time for checking out that recipe the whole time everything was being cooked.  Anyway, we came away really full with a list of all of the recipes, so overall a great way to spend Saturday.  Followed by a long run in an effort to work this great meal off.

.5 Years of Happiness

Sean and I have been married .5 years as of tomorrow, February 7th.  1% of the way to our Golden Anniversary.  We're all about the little things and are still enjoying this gig, so we spent the weekend celebrating that major milestone (and Valentine's Day).  A marriage weekend if you will.

On Friday, I made no less than what I'd consider a Mexican feast while it poured down rain, so we hung out at home and watched a movie.  I love that kind of date because since it's cold and rainy, you don't feel guilty about hanging around at home.

Sean, who is the best husband ever, planned our date for Saturday.  Even though we barely live 10 minutes from uptown, it's a lot different in uptown than it is in Southpark, so Sean booked what was an awesome deal on a room at the Westin in uptown Charlotte.  We checked in around 1:00 and headed to the gym to prepare for an amazing dinner (we have to prepare our bodies in advance for those because it helps to enjoy the meal when you're not stuck on what it's doing to your waistline).  Did some swimming, and spent a long (very relaxing) hour or so in the sauna reading.  Then we headed up to get ready for dinner.  Sean had picked out a restaurant in advance that was just a block from the hotel on the green, Aquavina, and had even decided what we should eat, which consisted of a variety of appetizers and dessert.  After that we took a walk around uptown in the overstreet mall and Epicentre and headed to the Knight Theater for a show.  We saw UNC's a cappella group, the Clef Hangers.  I do have to admit that I was sceptical of another a cappella group being as amazing as Clemson's TigerRoar, but they were awesome.  I will say that it was weird to have everyone stand up and sing UNC's fight song at the end, but we'll take what we can get.  It is always a little better with Tiger Rag as the finale of any and everything though.

The view of Charlotte from our hotel room

All in all, great weekend with my great husband.  I absolutely cannot believe that we've been married for SIX months.  It feels like we got married yesterday...but at the same time like our wedding was forever and a day ago.  Anyway, either way, in the words of Sean's old co-worker, I think I'm really lucky to have made a really good decision when I was really young.

In the green, which is in the center of uptown