Things have been a little busy in the Jones family for the past few weeks, so I am a little bit behind. Get ready for a big update! Two weeks ago I completed my first half marathon! I had a fun weekend in Oregon with my best friend Sarah. We drove down near Portland on Friday night so we could pick up our packets and not have to wake up as early in the morning. We ate a huge dinner at Olive Garden (gotta get those carbs!) and tried to get to bed early. The next morning we headed out to Welches, OR which is near Mt Hood. It was actually pretty chilly, in the 40's! The weather was sunny and perfect.
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| Ready to go! |
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| Waiting to start |
The temperature was perfect for running! The run was through the forest so in all shade. It was beautiful! I tried to take some pictures but none turned out very well. We never did get to see Mt Hood while we were on the run, but most of the run was in Mt Hood National Forest.
The run felt great, and it was awesome to see all my hard work in training pay off, because training was miserable a lot of the time. We ended up making our goal of finishing in under two hours- 1:58:41! Braden drove up the morning of to cheer us on, and it was fun having him there!
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| Braden and me |
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| Sarah and me |
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| Official results! There were over 200 people who run the half! |
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| Us with Mr. and Mrs. Sasquatch |
After the race our legs were definitely tired and we were really hungry! We drove back into the Portland area and ate at Ram. We definitely enjoyed our post race beers and burgers!
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| post race beers! |
Last weekend I worked a half day on Friday because I had worked extra Monday-Thursday so we headed to Tacoma to go to Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, as well as eat dinner at my favorite restaurant, Azteca. We definitely had reason to celebrate- nephew #2 made a safe and healthy arrival!
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| Tiger |
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| I love the otters! They are so cute! |
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| Ethan Reid Painter. JT is a great big brother! |
Last Saturday we drove up to a cute little town, Poulsbo, WA. It was so cute! They had a bunch of little shops and restaurants and it was right on the water.
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| Poulsbo, WA |
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| Harry Potter! Unfortunately the only thing Harry Potter about the shop was the name |
Then we headed down to Bainbridge Island to take the ferry to Seattle.
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| It was super windy! |
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| Seattle from the ferry |
That night we were able to meet our friends Chris and Kim at a little place in Bellevue called Garlic Crush- that had great Gyros and Braden and I had been craving some Greek food!
This weekend we were able to go hiking with our friends Chris, Kim, and Michelle at Denny Creek Trail! The trail was beautiful with lots of pretty waterfalls! Even Macie got to enjoy the hike! She loved it until we got to the water. Then, she was. not. a. fan.
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| The rocks formed natural rock slides |
That water was COLD. All the kids of course were having a great time, but I thought my toes were going to freeze. I was glad I wore my Chacos!
The main waterfall was really pretty! We climbed up it to find another waterfall. It was a fun hike, and about 4 miles total.
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| Top of the falls |
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| Jones family picture! |
It's crazy that this is probably our last weekend in Seattle. We don't know officially were we are headed next, but my contract at my current job is up this Friday so hopefully we will know soon! Normally I would be freaking out that I don't have a job yet, but I've been strangely at peace about it. We were waiting for my Colorado license to become active, which it did on Wednesday! Usually when I call state boards for an update, it's super frustrating, but when I called CO on Wednesday, they said "oh, looks like your license was activated a few hours ago." Needless to say I was pretty happy. My recruiter Amy has been working hard to get me the perfect job so I'm confident we will know soon! Life as a traveler is always exciting!
