The Evolution of Epic Adventures

This might be a bit of an understatement, but I have found that marriage changes things.  Not that that's entirely bad, mind you, but nonetheless, things change.  Please, allow me to explain.

Before meeting me, Ryan was quite adventurous.  He loved hiking in the mountains, biking along single track, skiing down crazy steep mountains, to name a few.  And he did it all, uh, quickly. 

See?  Here he is with his buddy, Josh at the summit of South Sister in Oregon sometime pre-Jeannie.  I'm quite certain that the moment this picture was taken, they turned to each other and said, "last one down buys lunch."  

Then he met me.  Now before you jump to any conclusions, he remained adventurous.  It's just that his definition of quickly changed.

Here is the same mountain in 2005.  The South Sister.  Isn't it a beautiful mountain?  The entire hike up the mountain gains more than 5,000 feet of elevation.  I can't remember the exact amount.  I just remember the aches in my legs when it was all said and done.  This picture was taken about a third of the way up.  And it was taken by Ryan ... who was waiting for me.

Two thirds of the way up now.  Ryan is waiting ... again.

 Oh, here she comes!

At the top ... in time for lunch!!!  We didn't set any records for speed that day, but my husband was learning a valuable lesson about patience. 

Add three kids to the mix and the whole idea of 'epic adventure' changes.  Nowadays, any vertical gains in elevation are done in one of two ways:  a car or an elevator.  

This past weekend, Ryan took a couple of days off and we headed west to the big city.  The kiddos had been looking forward to seeing the Space Needle (along with the zoo, the beach, and seeing their cousins).  They were even more excited to find out we could go all the way up to the top.  We laughed to find that nowadays, pictures of successful ascents are taken at the bottom ...

then superimposed over a perfectly gorgeous background (with a rather large fish of course!) despite the rain pouring down outside.  The best part about the whole thing?  They emailed the picture to us ... for free! 

The other thing about epic family adventures?  You take a couple hundred pictures.  Biking, hiking and skiing have given way to zoos, aquariums and boat rides but we still have a grand time.  And we have pictures to prove it!  (Coming soon...)