A Much Needed Update!

Wow! Our blog has been completely neglected! Sorry for the lack of updates. A lot has happened since our last post!!

In September, we jet set for sunny San Diego with 2 of our favorite people!! Tyler set us up in a beautiful house and a nice ride-thanks to all his connections and Courtney set us up with Sea World tickets, lunch at McCormick and Schmick's, and a Padre's game-thanks to her connections! It was a great weekend getaway.

Great seats, great game:

Taking the ferry from Coronado to San Diego-The house we stayed in was actually on Corodado Island:

Sea World:


Once we got back from San Diego, Chelsea was in full blown Wedding mode getting ready for her best friends Wedding. After 8 years of dating, everyone was happy to see those two finally tie the knot! Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Pardovich!





The Holidays came and went faster than ever this year. We made trips down to Eugene and over to Tillamook for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then celebrated New Year's in Lacey, Washington with some great friends. The following week we celebrated Cody's 27th birthday with dinner and bowling.

This year we hiked into the woods and cut down our own tree for the first time:

Roxy helped Courntey pick out a perfect tree for her apartment:

Cody had to cut our tree down more than Chelsea hoped he would in order to fit it into the house:

New Year's at The Youngs:



After the excitement of all the Holiday's, reality of Courtney's big move to Houston hit us hard. Despite the many nights of tears, we were all super proud of her and excited for her new adventure in life. Her and Loren made the 3 day trip across the county in her 4-runner and got her settled in to her new apartment. She signed a 2 year commitment with her new job. We secretly hope that she enjoys her time in the South but is ready to come home in exactly 2 years and 1 day! Good luck Courtney. We love you and miss you.

Cody has been busy studying for his professional exam. He studies in the morning, studies in the evenings, and studies on the weekends. April 13th just can't come fast enough for both of us. Chelsea is ready to have her husband back, and Cody is ready to have his life back!

How most evenings our spend at our house:


Well, that pretty much wraps up the last several months of our lives!

Cabo Getaway

We have been so blessed to have been able to take so many wonderful vacations this year. Our trips to Japan, Alaska and San Diego were all full of fun, adventure, great friends and family, and we wouldn't have had it any other way! However, for our trip to Cabo we decided we wanted to keep it low key and thats exactly what we did.

Our flight over on Thursday was actually one of the most fun flights we have ever been on. EVERYONE was on vacation and ready to have a good time. You would have even thought the flight attendants were on vacation too! Luckily, we got the GREEN light going through customs so we were able to avoid Mexican authorities from rummaging through our perfectly packed luggage.

We checked into the resort, ate some lunch, changed into our swim suites and headed straight for the pool. Our 5 days were spent lounging by the pool and hanging out at the swim up bar. We left the resort only once our entire trip. We hopped onto the local bus and spent the afternoon in downtown Cabo San Lucas on a mission to accomplish two things: 1) Eat tacos and drink Margarita's at Cabo Wabo and 2) Buy a souvenir for the house. Once both missions were accomplished, we made it back to our poolside chairs.

View of the resort from our room:


Enjoying lunch at Cabo Wabo:


Checking out the Marina:



Chelsea made it the whole vacation without getting sun burnt! Cody on the other hand, left looking like a lobster. In fact, he got burnt on the very first day. He fell asleep lounging by the pool (with no sun screen on) and 3 hours later woke up with a red front side and a white backside!

After a relaxing vacation, what better way to travel home than in first class?! Our unexpected upgrade left us looking completely out of place. When everyone else was wearing business suits and ties, we were wearing shorts and flip flops. Not to mention we were the youngest in first class by 10+ years. When the flight attended came around to take our food and drink orders (which we took full advantage of) she asked if we were Mr. and Mrs. Olson or brother and sister...? Once we assured her we were indeed a married couple and figured out how to get out the hidden beverage trays, we enjoyed the flight home in comfort.

"Rope is for Cowboys, This Here is a Line...."

Last year, our good friends Holly and Sever got married, moved to Sever's hometown of Ketchikan, Alaska and built a house. Home construction was complete in early August and they were more than excited to move in. Three weeks later, we arrived as their first visitors in their new home. This was Cody's second trip to Alaska (He went fishing in Ketchikan for Sever's Bachelor party in June of last year) and it was Chelsea's first. It was clear to everyone that we were not locals when we landed in Ketchikan...For starters, Chelsea was carrying her safari print luggage (which didn't exactly fit in with the statewide Camo theme) and Cody failed to wear xtratuf boots. So yeah, it was pretty obvious we were outsiders!

After a tour of the new home (which is absolutely beautiful!), we settled in at the Paulson's Wednesday night. Thursday morning we got up early to go explore Ketchikan. Holly and Sever both had to work but they gave us a truck and a map so we were set! First we went searching for bears and we spotted three of them! Then we headed to downtown, along with 8,000+ other tourists (4 cruise ships docked Thursday morning). We grabbed breakfast and did a little trinket shopping (Cody's least favorite thing to do but he hung in there until Chelsea pick out a painting for the house). Later we hiked Married Man's Trail, drove up to Ward Lake, and checked out the totem poles.



We got back to the house at just about the time Sever called it a day at work. So, we grabbed pizza and beer, and went out on the boat! The guys had a great time fishing...







The next day, we tried our hand at shrimping for the first time. Cody, Sever and Adam dropped 9 pots ranging in depth between 350ft and 500ft deep.



Saturday morning the four of us (and Moser) got up early, grabbed our backpacking gear, loaded up the boat, and headed to Pleanty Cuttroat Cabin on Orchard Lake. Before we buoyed up the boat in Shrimp Bay, surely we had to throw out some more shimp pots ("you know, there's a reason they call it Shrimp Bay!"). Then we started the hike from hell. The cabin website mislead us by stating it was a 1 mile hike from the Shrimp Bay Trailhead to the cabin. Terrain was listed as: old-growth cedar, Sitka spruce, and western hemlock rain forest trail. Sounds nice and easy, right? We are all in good shape and an easy 1 mile hike is nothing...so we packed WAY TOO MUCH STUFF!!!! This "trail" was hardly a trail! Holly and Chelsea took a wrong turn because it was so hard to tell what was the path and what was forest. We can't count how many times our boots got stuck in mud throughout the journey. Not to mention, the trail was steep and ALL UPHILL, and clearly more than 1 mile in distance!!! So, yeah, it took us 3 hours to pack in 4 backpacks, 2 fishing poles, a cooler, a tub of food and cookware, white gas, diesel, a motor, a lantern and a jug of water. Yes, you can call us amateurs!!!





When we finally got to the cabin, we were soaking wet...not from rain, but from sweat!! EWW...Gross, I know! So, we hung our stinky clothes up to dry.





The girls were so happy to be dry and warm in the cabin, that they decided to stay in and drink a few cocktails, while the guys went fishing. The cabin had a 14 inch skiff which was perfect to take out on the lake. A couple hours later Cody and Sever came back with plenty of fish for dinner.



The next morning, we all got up and did some more fishing. The bite was on and it was a beautiful morning.





Once we got back to the cabin, we made the hike back to the boat in Shrimp Bay to pull up our shrimp pots. (We hiked out with some of our "extra" gear to leave back at the boat in order to make the final hike back a little easier).







After much success with the shrimp pots, we hiked back to the cabin and the guys went out fishing again. They caught more trout but came back wasted..apparently they drank a little too much whisky out on the boat. We are not sure if Sever can handle his alcohol better than Cody or if Cody just maybe drank more than Sever...either way...Cody was a mess :o) Holly, Sever and Chelsea made a great shrimp ramen and lemon pepper trout dinner before calling it a night. Cody...well he skipped out on dinner and was up all night sick.





Cody had a rough night and the morning didn't get any easier for him. In fact, it got worse...we had to pack up and make our final hike back to the boat to head home. Lets just say, that Cody didn't really pull his weight on the hike back. He was too busy getting sick along the trail and wishing a bear would come take him out of his misery. Chelsea calmly reminded him he had a wife to live for :o) Not only did we have a flight to catch, but a storm was suppose to blow in so we needed to make sure we got out of there before we got stranded there! Cody managed to get it together enough to make it back to the boat.

Somewhere in the middle of the ocean during the 2 hour boat ride back to Ketchikan, the boat motor died!!!! Yes, with no warning it completely died. Sever managed to get the back up motor running and had Holly driving the boat at about 4 kph...which would have taken us forever to get home, thats is if we ever got home..considering the storm that was coming in! So, while Holly was Captain, Sever started working on the motor, and Cody and Chelsea sat back thinking...oh no, this has got to be our fault, we are such bad luck! Just about the time another boat started to come in our direction to check on us, the motor started back up. Before we made it safely to shore we watched a half dozen whales bubble netting! It was pretty amazing... but don't worry, we didn't get the boat too close to them...we were done with unexpected adventures!



We can't thank Holly and Sever enough for giving us a true Alaskan adventure! Cody will finally admit now that there is indeed wildlife in Alaska. We saw bears, a beaver, whales, and even a swimming deer (sorry, we were unable to post the video), eagles, etc.

Hood to Coast 2011

Team Wood Rather be Drinking and Sawing Logs, Van 1:

Courtney somehow talked me into running Hood to Coast with her this year. She ran 2 years ago and loved it. She told me it is an experience she feels everyone should experience..and now I am a complete believer! Her co-worker Nicole who is a member of the Timber's Army put together a team this year and was nice enough to let me join them! I loved running in college, but since moving up to Portland 4 years ago, I lost that love and only did it (which was not very often) for the exercise. So, I thought this would be a good way to get back into shape and find that love for running again. With the poor weather we had this spring and early summer, I found it hard to train. As HTC got closer, I started to panic, thinking I am not in good enough shape for this I need to get my butt into gear. So, thats exactly what I started to do and at some point, I started to love to run again.

Courtney and I were both in van 1. Courtney started out the race and the top of Timberline at 4:30 am on Friday morning! On our way up to Timberline, we heard a radio emergency announcement informing us of a major storm heading north in our direction. When we made it to the top, we saw some wild lightening and wondered what the day was going to bring us!

First Leg:
Length: 5.67 miles
Difficulty level: Hard
Description: Severe downhill through Government Camp and HWY 26 on paved street and shoulder.
My Experience: 5:15am, thunder, lightening, pouring down rain, pitch dark, cold, wet, pissed off at the semi trucks driving by at 60 miles per hour getting me more wet. The first 3 miles, I was thinking, what the heck did I sign myself up for?! Then the rain turned from a torrential down pour to more of a comfortable sprinkle, the sky lightened up so I was able to enjoy some of the beautiful scenery, I kept a good pace and made it to my first exchange feeling great about the condition I was in!

Running in the dark:


The hand off to Hoss at my first exchange:


1st legs down and soaking wet:



After my run, I was so cold and wet, I failed to stretch out and re-hydrate myself and instead changed my clothes and curled up in the back seat to warm up and rest. Biggest mistake ever!

After the rest of my van finished their first legs and we met up with van 2, we grabbed lunch at a nearby cafe and headed to of our teammates house for showers, rest, and to re-decorate our van (the rain washed off all the writing on our windows). We had about a 6 hours before we had to meet up with van 2 again. Thank you Cord to opening your house up to our team during this break. It really worked out perfect.

Nicole, Courtney and I waiting to meet up with Van 2:


Van 2:


Courtney starting out leg 2 in Portland:



Second Leg:
Length: 6.08 miles
Difficulty level: Moderate
Description: Basically flat terrain along Front Ave / St. Helen Road / Highway 30 on paved shoulder and sidewalks.
My Experience: My second leg was the easiest leg but the one I struggled with the most. My muscles were sore but most of all the afternoon heat just did me in! It was about 87 degree's outside at 5:30 pm, along a busy highway. This time I was thankful when the semi trucks drove by me at 60 miles per hour so I could catch a nice breeze. During this leg I thought, no way am I ever going to be able to finish my 3rd leg! I had to walk a couple times during this leg, give myself a few pep talks before making my next exchange, and was a little disappointed with my speed and performance.

During our second van exchange, we tried to find somewhere to eat in St. Helen's, only problem was that it was 11:45 pm and everything was closed in the small town! Desperate for food, we stopped at an open Muchas Gracias for dinner. I decided to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead of consuming Muchas Gracias but the rest of the team ate there. Then we headed to an open field to catch a little sleep. We got a about 2 hours of sleep before we had to get up and meet at the next van exchange. Due to traffic our runner from van 2 was waiting for 30 minutes before we got there.

After 2 hours of sleep in a field, coffee was a must!


Third Leg:
Length: 5.77 miles
Difficulty level: Hard
Description: Beginning with gently rolling hills, long uphill toward the end, finishing downhill for half mile on paved roads.
My Experience: It was 6:15 am, the air was fresh, and I was feeling great! This was by far my favorite run. I saw a deer cross the road, it was light enough to take in the scenery, and the temperature was perfect. I was a little worried about the hills in this leg, but thanks to my training in OC, I did just fine! I finished strong and felt great!

Cord kickin' butt at leg 3:



We met up with Van 2 for our last exchange, ate lunch and headed to the finish line in Seaside! Cody, Kim and Loren met us there to watch our team cross the finish line, we had a few celebratory beers, said our good bye's to the team and hobbled home.

It truely was a great experience! Our team finished the 200 mile race in 36 hours and 11 minutes. Thanks Team Wood Rather Be Drinking and Sawing Logs for letting me join you in this amazing experience. I feel so lucky to have been a part of this team!

Crossing the finish line as a team:



Looking forward to running Hood to Coast again!

-Chelsea

Grant Blume Gets Married!

Yes, that's right...Cody's cousin Grant is a married man! We went up to Seattle last weekend to be a part of his big day.

We drove up to Seattle Friday afternoon, checked into our hotel and met up with Jeff and Jeana for drinks. Saturday morning, we stopped by the house to visit the rest of the family and we got Cody a much needed haircut. We left the house to go grab some sushi for lunch. The place we wanted to go to was closed so we ended up stumbling across a Japanese Market. We ran in there to purchase our lunch and Cody ask Chelsea if she needed anything else. She jokingly said "Yeah, Chu-hi!". Chu-hi was Chelsea's favorite adult beverage in Japan, but she has been unable to find in back in the states. Well, it was Chelsea's lucky day because this market sold a lemon flavored chu-hi beverage! So, Chelsea bought her chu-hi and Cody bought Asahi, a Japanese beer, and we headed back to our hotel! We later caught a cab to the Wedding.



The Wedding was held in downtown Seattle. The ceremony was beautiful, the reception was a blast and most off all the bride and groom were shinning with happiness. It's truely an amazing feeling when you find your best friend to share your life with.

Olson family photo with the bride and groom:


Cody and Chelsea at the reception:


Kim and Loren:


Courtney and her friend Sarah:


Chelsea's parents drove up to Portland to stay at the house and watched the girls for us. Maxi and Roxy loved spending some time with Grandma and Grandpa Stuebing! So, we were able to enjoy the weekend in Seattle and not worry about anything at home. We knew the hosue and the girls were in good hands.

Congradulations Mr. and Mrs. Blume. We wish you a lifetime of happiness!

4th of July Weekend

For 4th of July weekend, we went camping at Crane Prairie with Cody's parents. Cody got off work at noon so he could pack the car and be ready to leave when Chelsea got off work at 2pm. We kissed Kitty goodbye and hurried to head of of town to make the 4 1/2 hour drive.

When we pulled into the campground, we saw a sign that read "dogs on leash at all times". If Roxy could read, I am sure she would have insisted we turn around and find another campground! Once we got to our site, Cody grabbed Roxy's cable, let her out of the truck, tied the cable to the tree and hooked her up. She broke the leash law for no more than 30 seconds. As Cody was getting Roxy leashed up, the camp host drove up and said, "Hey. Your dog has to be on a leash. This is your 1st warning. Next time I have the call the sheriff." Keep in mind that by the time he said this, Roxy was already on her leash! That put a bad taste in Cody's mouth but he shook it off and we started unpacking. First step: Set up the tent and make our beds. This is when we learned Cody only brought ONE sleeping bad! Oops :o) We were able to scrounge up an extra sleeping bag from Roger (Uncle Neal and Rog changed their plans last minute and decided to camp with us when they got the report that said ocean was suppose to be too rough to take the boat out). Well, we were thankful Roger let us borrow his sleeping bag but we were a little nervous about where this camping trip was headed. 2 strikes in the first 30 minutes was not good odds!

We spent most of the weekend out on the boat. Cody and Loren fished while Chelsea and Kim caught some rays. Unfortunately for Chelsea, she did more sun-burning than sun-tanning! Sabby and Roxy got lots of swimming in and several walks to ease the pain of being leashed up at camp. To Cody's disbelief, Chelsea and Kim even started working on his T-Shirt blanked he has been requesting for 4+ years! Our evenings were spent around the campfire enjoying some of Kim's delicious desserts and discussing some of Cody's childhood. Oh, what a great weekend we ended up having. Too bad we don't have any photos to share...Chelsea forgot the camera!