Pining for the Fjords

Howdy, everyone!  I've taken a bit of a break from blogging for the past few months...we've been busy getting settled in the new house and training for the event I'll be recapping here, but mainly, I just didn't want to write for a while.  Thank goodness that's over!  Let the stories recommence! As you've read about in previous blogs, each November for the past 5 years, our "Breaking Rag" team has headed either to McDowell Mountain (in northeast Phoenix) or to the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation in Southern California (never again!) to participate in a 24-hour, around-the-clock, eight-person trail relay run.  This year, we thought it might be fun to take the show on the road, and after checking everyone's schedules, we signed up for Ragnar Snowmass, held in early June at Snowmass Village in Colorado, just outside the fancy-pants town of Aspen. The event ended up being absolutely amazing, but it was a bit more stressful than normal to get ther...

One of the perks of Chris coming back to W.L. Gore and Associates was the great relocation package they offered us, and it included the services of a fantastic realtor, Melissa Howe at Berkshire Hathaway.  Melissa showed us tons of great properties and was a true pleasure to work with during our house search.  Eventually, after looking at around 30 different houses, mostly in the historic areas in Mid to Uptown Phoenix (Willo, Encanto, F.Q. Story), we put an offer in on one we saw at an open house our very first weekend in town (when Chris had recovered enough from almost being murdered by the fish ).  On 3/14 (Pi Day!  We won't forget that anytime soon), we signed the 8,000 pieces of paper necessary for the transaction, and around noon, the house was ours! How about a tour of the new house?  As a note, these are all pictures from Zillow (hence the fish-eye lens in all of them); once we finish all of our "moving in/setting up" chores and give the place a tho...