Lederhosen!

Our dance school had a Germany party night the other night, so we got in touch with our heritage with some lederhosen and danced the Polka!

Argentine Tango

We went to a masquerade ball where we are taking dance lessons and were convinced to perform dances in 2 of the dance heats; Tango and Argentine Tango. Each heat would have 4-5 couples dancing so not too much pressure dancing in front of others.  Once we got to the ball we took a look at the schedule to see when we were scheduled to dance; heat 5 for our Tango and heat 7 for our Argentine Tango...we just happened to notice that there was only one heat for the Argentine..and we were only ones dancing it!?!  Apparently we would be doing our first solo dance..

Well here it is with a couple pics:

Fence Project

 Before

After

To see all that happened in between, 

check out this time-lapse video of the whole project.

A look at the other side

Seattle Challenge Race

 We participated in the Seattle Challenge Race yesterday and finished 43rd out of 241 teams, not bad for our first scavenger type race together. It was a fun scavenger race in downtown Seattle and the pics below are some of what we took from the clues provided...

"The Great Seattle Fire was the impetus for professionalizing Seattle's firefighting force, which had previously been all-volunteer. For this clue, find any firefighter, firetruck OR fireman's memorial and act out their job in your team's photo."

 "Within one block of 'Seattle's oldest restaurant' you'll find a gleaming white fellow superlative. Spell out W-A in the photo within 5 yards of one of its corners."

"Near a well-known aqua feature along the water, you'll find many anchors, none of them attached to a ship. One of them marks the exact spot where a 'first ton' came ashore in Seattle. Just in front of it, take a photo with your team matching the shape of the almost-finished wheel in the background."

"In this downtown 'directional' park/plaza, you'll find these temporarily blue trees; they're supposed to draw attention to deforestation issues worldwide. In your team's photo, do your best to mimic the tree you've chosen." 

 "Find the only pig in town to survive a direct hit from a Prius and lived to fight another day- after a brief recuperation period. If it helps, we'll tell you that she goes by Rachel. While your whole team can't fit on her back, a few can do so in the photo."

"In As You Like It, the bard says, 'All the World's a Stage'... Find this huge empty wooden expanse - its # matches that of the year of Seattle's big splash on the world stage. Once there, along with one other challenge team, act out your favorite movie or play scene on the big yellow C shape found painted on the far end." 

[Wizard of Oz]

"Find the ignition point of the Great Seattle Fire. You're looking for a plaque affixed to a certain kind of building. SE of there, you'll find an unnamed sculpture on the grounds of the building that succeeded the first you found. It's just perfect for poking your team's heads through in the photo."

A Legend's Time to Retire..

The era of my Nissan Truck has come to an end. I made the tough decision to finally let go of my 2004 Nissan Frontier with 307,000 miles. It has been the best truck I have ever owned and I would have never believed I would take a truck to such lengths as to reach over 300k miles. The most unbelievable part of it is, it is still in excellent condition and runs great. It didn't burn or leak a bit of oil and was still clean after 7000 miles on the last oil change. I bet it could go another 100k miles easily. I had never seen or heard of a 4wd truck with 300k miles, or even thought it was possible, but my Nissan has been amazing.

This truck worked hard for me and was the perfect vehicle to have for my courier delivery job, which is how I put so many miles on it so fast. 5 years and 230k miles and many more I am going to miss out adding onto this baby. When I reached 200k miles I was happy I picked the right vehicle. From that point, I set a goal of 300k miles, which would give me everything I needed from this truck and it passed it without missing a beat. It lived up to my goal and now the time has come to set it free for greener pastures. 

I now have new needs with my photography business and a replacement to the legend has been selected. I  chose a vehicle with the functionality that I need along with better gas mileage and hopefully the reliability I have come to expect like my Nissan. Nissan didn't have quite what I was looking for so I decided on a Toyota Rav4. It has everything I was looking for along with a more powerful V6 with almost the same mpg as their 4 cylinder. It was a long search, but I found a great deal on a 2008 Toyota Rav4 Limited V6 with only 54k miles that I hope to turn into another 300k. 

Here she is:

Out with Old and in with the New!

Snowmen!

We got a lot of snow last night so we had to build a snowman (or snowbear). We also went for a walk and saw a pretty cool snowman with his own snow shovel.