Melissa Kaylene: A Day Spent with Nautilus

I have been so behind on sharing this post with you! A few weeks ago I was invited up to the Nautilus Inc. headquarters with a few other bloggers to spend the day. Nautilus is the company behind some pretty well known names like Schwinn and Bowflex. I'm sure you've seen the commercials on TV at some point over the years.

We arrived at their headquarters and were warmly greeted by the staff as well as an array of morning refreshments. We were introduced to many people including CEO Bruce Cazenave and then we toured the building.

It was fascinating to see the rooms and cubicles of the creative people behind the development of the products - I think at one point I caught a glimpse of an entire wall adorned with colorful post its.

After our tour we all sat down in a conference room and had a pow wow with trainer Tom Holland. We all introduced ourselves and chatted about our blogs and our lives. We were all given bags filled with lots of fun surprises - including the new Boost Band, it is a super cool product that keeps track of literally everything for you (ha!) but seriously, it is super helpful with tracking your activity level. Unfortunately for me I found out that my "old" smart phone isn't compatible with the app used to operate the Boost Band. I've got it neatly tucked away until I upgrade my phone. It will be the first app I download. :)

After our round table discussion we all mingled into their showroom to test out some of their machines. The Treadclimber is really cool because you burn a lot more calories with it vs. a traditional treadmill, but my eyes were coveting the new Max Trainer. It gives you quick intervals so you go full force and maintain it for a certain amount of seconds then you cool down - and you can complete a full workout in 14 minutes! Perfect for busy moms like me. I think I'll be getting myself one of these in the near future. :)

One of the things I really like about Bowflex is that they only us real people in their advertising - they don't pay any actors, in fact they flew David from Keep it up David, and Brooke from Brooke Not on a Diet in to do a Webcast with Tom Holland on the day of our event. Both of these amazing people have lost an amazing amount of weight - David 160 and Brooke 172 pounds! They were both such an inspiration.

After we played around on the equipment we all sat outside in the sun and had sandwiches and a huge build-your-own-salad bar. Some of the bloggers had to leave after lunch, but a few of us stayed the entire day - and I am so glad I did! We were shuttled over to Multnomah Falls which is approximately a half an hour east of Portland along the Columbia River. The plan was to hike to the top of the falls and then we were going to ride over to Hood River to have dinner.

The weather didn't quite cooperate with us and we all ended up hiking up in the pouring rain. It's only about a mile to the top of the falls, but there were lots of switchbacks and a couple pretty muddy areas up to the top! It took us about an hour total to go up and back, but even though we were drenched it was worth it. We all air dried on the bus while we rode about 30 more minutes east towards Hood River.

We had reservations at a place called Solstice, but we ended up ahead of schedule so we stopped off at a brewery just down the road from the restaurant called Pfriem Family Brewers and enjoyed a pre-dinner drink.

I immediately fell in love at Solstice. It's casual and family friendly but the food and atmosphere were amazing. We shared appetizers and discussed why Portland Ketchup is better than the rest (you must try it).

I ended up ordering a Siragusa Pear pizza and added bacon on it - it was delicious! Dessert though was something else... some of us ordered their infamous Smore's, which comes handed to you in a cast iron pan and they are very rich and extremely tasty, but I opted for their daily dessert special which was peaches with thyme marscapone and a balsamic reduction sauce. It was the perfect blend. I probably could have ate three helpings!

We all walked across the street and glanced at the Columbia River before heading back to the Nautilus Headquarters. We arrived back around 8pm and said our goodbyes to the everyone that we had gotten to know so well in just a few hours. It was probably one of my favorite days this summer.