Cross Country Skiing to Maroon Bells

Back in January 2015 we drove home to Chicago from California for the holidays. On our way back out West, we stopped in Colorado and visited one of our favorites places, Maroon Bells in Aspen. It had been years since we last visited for the first time, back in 2012 or 2013 on one of our road trips.

So we were really excited to go back and visit in a different season. We asked around how we could get in to see the mountains and they said either through snowmobile (which was not cheap to rent) or cross country skiing. We are both snowboarders so this was our first time cross country skiing. It was a great workout and took quite a while for us to get to the mountain. We started early in the morning and finished by mid afternoon. 

It was gorgeous and sunny out and we couldn’t ask for better weather. 

We brought snacks and had little picnics when we got hungry. The mountain didn’t seem that far but it was a couple of miles. We kept saying, “we’re almost there, we’re almost there.”

It was absolutely beautiful to see the mountain covered with snow. I love how harsh the lines on the mountain are.

The last time we were here it was cloudy and drizzling and we could barely see the mountain.

Had to get in our jumping pic. 

We decided to walk down to get closer to the mountain and had to trudge through some pretty deep snow. 

Oh Maroon Bells, we love you. 

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Jumping for Joy Part 2

Back in July I put together all of the jumping photos from the last few years. We started the tradition in 2010 on our first road trip together and have been doing it since. It is one of my favorite traditions and am so glad we have kept it up. I thought it would be fun to do a little update of the latest editions of the last few months of travel.

July 2015 -Chicago Suburbs. My parents sold my childhood home so we had to take a picture before it was gone forever. 😦

August – Denali National Park, Alaska

October – We took a road trip (that I still need to blog about) with our best friends and my brother and his fiancé, to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, Zion National Park in Utah, and Las Vegas.

Before we moved out of California we spent a day in Santa Monica (where we lived the first year we lived in Cali) and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to take a jumping pic in front of our old apartment building.

October – Our old place in Southern California with our roomies, the day we drove to Seattle for our move

December – Lake Crescent, WA

January 2016 – Snowshoeing in Mount Baker

February – Fremont Troll, Seattle I missed the jumping memo on this one 😉

March – Moran State Park, Orcas Island, WA

What fun travel traditions do you guys do?

Linking up today with :

http://www.herheartlandsoul.com

http://www.champagneandsuburbs.com

Tell Us About It: Fave Winter Activities

I am so behind on blogging but I’m trying to keep up with our linkup schedule, so today Katie, Mattie, and I are talking about our favorite winter activities and memories. (I can’t believe it’s already March!)

One of my favorite things about living in Seattle is that the winters are so mild. It’s just cloudy and rainy. It barely snows here and coming from Chicago it’s pretty refreshing. I love that it snows in the mountains. It’s so pretty to look at and feels like being in a real life snow globe. I also love that we can choose to play in the snow for the day and drive to it and not have to live in it.

In January, Dave and I went snowshoeing for the first time. We went to Artisan’s Point in Mount Baker on New Year’s Day. What a great way to start the new year! It was gorgeous and sunny out. It was an amazing experience. We brought snacks and a lunch and sat in the snow. That was the only time we were a little chilly, when we weren’t moving. 

I sent this pic to my dad and he said he wanted to frame it. How cute is that? 

We rented our snowshoes from REI. A lot of people don’t know that you can rent gear, but you should take advantage of it! Living in Seattle people are so active so you have to reserve equipment early!

I have so many more pictures from this snowshoe adventure at Mount Baker, and if I can ever get my stuff together I will blog about it.

The first two weekends in January we snowshoed and I wrote about this snowshoe trip here. This one was a little steep, but such a fun adventure. It was my friend Gretchen’s first time.

This was the week after Christmas, but it reminded me of a Christmas card because it’s so cute! Dave and Denny grew up together down the block together and went to school together from kindergarten through high school. Adorable much?

So even though snowshoeing is a new activity for us, it’s a new favorite for sure! It’s is just hiking in the snow but I love that the snowshoes allow us to still hike in the winter, versus waiting for spring to get out again.

Can’t wait to read what your favorite winter activities and memories are.

Link up with us below! If you missed today you can still link up for the rest of the week. Miss you blog friends.

New Year’s Eve Cabin

Since I’ve taken some time off from blogging, I wanted to play catch up on our New Years Eve adventure. Last week I talked about how for Christmas we went to the West Coast of Washington and it was so great. We got to see so much and it was so peaceful.

The very next weekend we took off for a cabin with two other couple friends of ours. It was a really cool location right on the lake.

Dave and Hayes were in love with the projector and they both want one now haha.

The boys picked a random forest area to go snowshoeing in. Half of us have been snowshoeing and the other half haven’t. But you just strap on the snowshoe over your hiking boot and walk. You just have to be careful not to walk backwards. 🙂 Since your shoe clips in, the back of your foot is unhinged so you can easily fall.

It was really pretty  with the snow everywhere you look.

Our feet/shoe picture that we try to remember to take in cool places we visit.

Because there was so much snow everywhere on the trees it would randomly fall and sprinkle us with snow. When Dave and I were about to take a picture we got a nice spray. 🙂

I don’t like when my posts are super long so I’ll break up this day into two posts. It was a great first snowshoeing experience.

Our Road Trip Recap

Here is a quick recap of our road trip with two of our best friends from Chicago. We were all over the map and had the best time.

Our road trip started in Arizona, visiting our old roommate in Tucson on Thursday of last week. Then the next morning we picked up our friends Melissa and Nico at the Phoenix airport. Then we grocery shopped at Trader Joe’s and then hit the road for the Grand Canyon. We camped there overnight.

The next morning, we took off for a tour of Antelope Canyon.

We stopped at Horseshoe Bend in Page, Arizona after lunch.

Then we drove to Zion National Park, and did our usual jumping pose. 😉

We spent 2 days in Zion National Park. We went hiking and camping and my brother and his fiancé joined us too.

It was a dream road trip and I’ll fill you all in with more details asap! Happy weekend everyone!

As always I’m linking up with these lovelies:

Hill Collection and Running 4 Cupcakes

Seattle’s Pike Place Market

So back in August of 2011 Dave and I were on one of road trips from Chicago to Seattle. It was my first time ever being in Seattle and it was bright and sunny. We went to Pike’s Place and Dave took awesome photos.

It’s fun to look back on these pictures now knowing that we are moving to Seattle this month. I never thought we would move here but we couldn’t be more excited to, life is funny and unpredictable that way. You never know where you are going to end up and you can’t imagine certain things happening until they do!

I’m a pretty practical person and I was never a huge fan on flowers because they don’t last very long, but the endless supply and display of flowers in this market is pretty! You can’t deny that.

Because it’s such a popular tourist spot it can get pretty crowded here.

After we walked around the market, we went across the street to none other than Starbucks. Seattleites love their coffee!

 

I love Pike’s Place and know we are going to take most of our visitors here. It’s such a pretty market and I love it.

LA Date Night

This post is a little late as we’ve been out of town and I’ve had awesome guest bloggers in my place. But I wanted to recap one of our recent LA date nights.

We hung out in Los Feliz with our friends Erin and Richard and walked in the downtown area and came across this mural. You all know how much I love murals.

We ate at the Fred62 diner and ate the waffles and ice cream. Haha it was delicious and I don’t regret it at all. Go big or go home 😉 

That night we went to the Hollywood Bowl and saw Dave’s current favorite band, Future Islands. They put on a great show and are so good live! The lead singer is so passionate and you gotta respect that. Dave and I haven’t been to a show in awhile and it was a really fun date night. 

Seeing a show at the Hollywood Bowl was on our California Bucket List so that was fun to cross it off. It’s a great venue and seats so many people and has great sound.

The Chandelier Tree is a private residence that is located in Silver Lake in California. You can read more about the tree here.  The address is 2811 W Silver Lake Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90039 if you want to go see it.

I’d heard about it online and wanted to see it for myself. So after our concert I surprised Dave and drove over here. These are just cell phone pics so they’re aren’t super clear but you get the idea of how awesome it is!

They said lighting the tree costs about $200 a month, like lighting 30 rooms, and they have a donation meter that brings in about $83 a month.

This tree has been in music videos, has a Facebook and Yelp page, and is a location for lots of proposals.

Dave and I are all about traveling and exploring but it’s also fun to explore our own city and where we are currently living. LA may have a lot of traffic, and a superficial reputation with Hollywood but there are still a lot of really cool things to see and do here.

Rachel’s Guest Post

I found Rachel’s blog from a link up and was so excited when I found out she is originally from Chicago! You all know how much I love my Chi town so it’s so fun to find other Midwest bloggers, even if they don’t live there anymore. I love reading her blog and seeing her adorable little boys! But I’ll let Rachel take it from here:

Hello “Say Yes to Happy” readers! I’m Rachel from Floral and Fudge. I was so flattered when Julie asked me if I would guest post this week! She and I are having fun getting to know each other, and we’re bonding over our Chicago roots 🙂

Today, I’m sharing my bucket list with you all.

First off, let me just say that I’m extremely blessed to have some of my biggest dreams already crossed off. In all seriousness, being married with two babies is all I could ever ask for in this life. I’m not a huge risk-taker, so there’s no interest in sky diving or mountain climbing or swimming with sharks.

But these are still pretty good. Here goes!

1. Visit all 50 states. I’m currently at 28. I would love to see California and Hawaii!

2. Buy our first house.

3. Sing a duet in public with my husband, Steve.

4. Attend high school and college reunions. (I missed my 10-year high school reunion this summer, but I hope to go to future ones!)

5. Read the whole Bible.

6. Plant a tree, hopefully like an apple tree or a peach tree.

7. Go on a cruise to some Caribbean island like St. Lucia.

8. Try blonde.

9. Learn how to sail.

10. Have coffee with someone famous. I’m thinking Amy Grant, Candace Cameron Bure, or Lauren Graham.

11. Eat a delicious pizza in Italy.

12. Swim under a waterfall.

13. Get something published.

14. See the hospital where Steve was born in Fairbanks, Alaska.

15. Take a pottery class with my mom.

16. Shop at IKEA in Stockholm.

17. Eat my weight in chocolate.

18. Take Nolan and Ephraim to a certain theme park in Orlando.

19. Throw an over-the-top party, just for fun.

20. Do everything for these boys.

What’s on your bucket list??

Come visit me at Floral and Fudge!Thanks so much, Julie, for letting me fill in for you today! 🙂

How sweet is her family?! Thanks again so much Rachel! It was so fun to have you on my blog today. I love hearing about other people’s bucket lists, they are always so interesting! Eating chocolate, pizza in Italy, learning to sail? Yes please!!

Mattie’s Guest Post

Mattie, from Northwest Native, has been an awesome blogging friend of mine, so friendly and real. She and I started our first link up together, called “Tell Me About It,” that we host at the beginning of each month. Our next one is October 2nd where you tell us your favorite thing about your state! I’m super excited to move to Seattle next month and finally get to meet Mattie in person!

Today she’s sharing some items on her bucket list with you all:

My bucket list is mostly travel and experiences. I am getting married on October 10th and our goal is to save up for a down payment and buy a house as soon as we can. We also hope to have kids one day. But none of these things are part of my bucket list, especially since when I was in high school and part of college I decided I would never be married or have kids. But then Michael came around and changed my mind. So because of that, I don’t feel like those should be bucket list items for me.

Visit all fifty states. So far I’ve been to Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Maryland, Virginia, Hawaii, and Washington D.C. (not a state, I know, but it’s included in this for me). Only nine states and D.C. That’s just sad. Reading blogs has really increased my wanderlust. Everyone talking about their cities and the great things there makes me desperate to travel! (Oh yeah, I’m not counting states where I’ve just been in the airport.) Currently Denver is near the top of the list of places to visit. I’m also desperate to visit Austin, NOLA, and Savannah. First I need to visit my friend in Madison as soon as I can (she’s been to see me twice, and the wedding will be three times!). And Michael’s cousin is getting married in Minneapolis next summer and since he and his fiancee are coming to our wedding, I think we should try and go to theirs!

This is from Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park in Montana. Michael and I went on a road trip to Montana and stayed in a tiny cabin with no wifi thirty minutes from Glacier. I love exploring different parts of the country!

Swim with dolphins. I’ve wanted to do this since I was a little girl. However, I took an animal law class my senior year of college (probably my favorite class of all time) and it’s made me really think about things like this. I only want to do this if I know it’s humane. Michael and I went to Mexico in March courtesy of the company I work for, and there was a place where we could’ve done this. But I looked into it and it turns out the place there is run horribly and is not very humane, so I couldn’t support that.

Run a 10K. I just decided on this one. I’ve run one 5K. The longest I’ve ever run is the equivalent of a 10K. The day after Michael and I did our 5K in March, we decided we’d try to tackle a five mile run, which would’ve been our longest ever. But at the five mile mark we weren’t dying, so Michael said, “Let’s just go until we hit an hour.” And then when we hit an hour we were so close to 6.2 (aka a 10K) that we just pushed through to that. Since then, the longest I’ve run is probably four miles. My standard run on a good day is a 5K (3.1 miles).

Go ziplining. I’m afraid of heights, but I think I would love ziplining, especially if it was in a super scenic location. I’ve been places where they had ziplining (Mexico multiple times) but just haven’t done it!

Wonders of the World. Apparently there are tons of lists of various Wonders of the World, but there are some that I absolutely want to see some day (though I wouldn’t mind seeing all of them!). Stonehenge, the Great Wall, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Empire State Building, the Panama Canal (my grandpa worked in the Canal Zone so my mom lived there for seven years), the Grand Canyon, the Great Barrier Reef (I was so close yet so far away when I was in Australia–sigh)… There are a ton more listed on the Wikipedia page, but I was getting tired of typing (and thought maybe you guys were getting tired of reading!). There are definitely more I want to see.

In my mind, the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in Sydney are wonders of the world. I was lucky enough to study abroad in the Sydney area for a semester and my friends and I did the bridge climb (like my childhood idols, Mary Kate and Ashley).

Exploring my own backyard. Oregon and Washington have a ton to offer that I’ve yet to see. Crater Lake has been on my list for years. I also want to travel to Bend, Oregon because it sounds like an awesome city. I’d like to go to Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens (I’ve been to St. Helens, but I was really young on a school field trip so I don’t remember it much!). I’d also like to go to Vancouver, BC (I can’t believe I haven’t done this yet) and go back to Victoria, BC (I went when I was twelve and it was beautiful).

There’s a ton of other international travel I’d like to do, but I don’t want to ramble for days. What are some of the things on your bucket list?

Thanks again to Julie for asking me to guest post!

I love that Mattie mentioned that Mary Kate and Ashley were her childhood idols because they were mine too! Hah. I, like Mattie have such a case of wanderlust and want to travel to SO many places both near and far! Thanks again for your post today Mattie!

The 2015 Blog-tember Challenge: 10 Items Off Your Bucket List

So the other day I was browsing on Kylie’s blog and I saw she was participating in The 2015 Blog-tember Challenge from Brave Love Blog and I had to check it out. Make sure you click over to see the daily prompts! Having topics to write about makes is so helpful when you occasionally have mental road blocks.

Thursday, Sept. 10: 10 items off your bucket list. If you haven’t made one, now’s a good time to start!

I’ve had a running bucket list for many years. I am always adding to it and checking things off. I’ve actually been meaning to add a Bucket List Page to my blog for a little while now (I will get to it eventually!) So this prompt today is right up my alley.

I think one of the fun parts about writing and blogging is you can interpret things the way you want. So instead of going in the direction that a lot of people go with bucket lists like getting married, having kids, buying a house, finding a job I love, etc all things I want, but I thought I’d share 10 places that I want to travel to:

1. I’ve been obsessed with the Eiffel Tower and Paris for as long as I can remember. I can not wait to get there someday (hopefully very soon!) and take a picture in front of it, have a picnic there, and just marvel at it. 
2. I’ve seen so many beautiful pictures of Moraine Lake, in Banff National Park in Canada and I’m so eager to see it in person.
3. Cracker Lake, Glacier National Park in Montana
4. Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver. Years ago Dave and I spent one day in Vancouver on a road trip to Seattle and didn’t have enough time for this bridge, but now that we’re moving to Seattle next month, we for sure have to check this place out!
5. A few of our friends have made the trek to Iceland and Dave and I can’t wait until we make it out there. It’s supposed to be a photographer’s dream in terms of stunning landscapes like this one at Haifoss waterfall.
   
6. London town! I’m obsessed with the UK and the royal family. I can’t wait to go to London and see all the famous landmarks, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, The London Bridge, Parliament, etc.
7. Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park in Canada look stunning. Looks like we are going to be so busy road trip in and out of Seattle in the upcoming months 🙂
8. Maligne Lake, Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada
9. Lake Lucerne, Switzerland looks so magical! 
10. Hike Cinque Terre. Those colorful houses and the mountain side is breathtaking.  

There are so many places I want to go to and the list just keeps on growing 😉 Hopefully Dave and I will get to hit some of those beautiful places up in the Pacific Northwest and Canada in the coming months. But for right now, Europe still eludes me.

As you can see I prefer the mountains to the beach. Yes it’s fun to see the palm trees and the ocean but the sand gets everywhere! Hah (first world problems!) But the mountains have a way to putting things into perspective for me. It makes me feel small and humbled. I love the view you get when you do an epic hike.

Super excited about this Blog-tember challenge and to get to read some items on your bucket lists and find some new bloggers!