Friday, June 22, 2012

When in Greece

On of my father's day gift to Lance was to do a themed date night each month for the next year. Last night was our first date night and we traveled to Athens, Greece.

Our friends Kasey and Ashli also joined us, as it turns out group rates to Greece are cheaper. Once we were packed and ready to go, we jumped on our private jet and were on our way.
First class all the way! I mean, look at all of that leg room! Plus, we were served a bag of peanuts and water. And of course, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was playing on the big screen. I'm flying first class from here on out.

The flight went super fast and we quickly arrived in Athens where we hoped in a cab to go find some food. Here were some of our options:
Lance and I both went with the Gyro (pronounced yee-ro) plate. It had a gyro, some fries, and some salad with some Greek dressing. It was actually pretty good.

Once our bellies were satisfied, it was time to get dressed in more appropriate attire. The boys were not thrilled about our costumes at all, especially when they found out we would be walking the neighborhood, but they were good sports and wore them anyways.
 Kasey not super thrilled about his outfit. Haha.
 Will was pretty grumpy the whole time, hence the binki.
Kasey and Ashli before the war.


We figured since the Olympics originally started in Greece, and they are soon taking place, that we needed to do a few competitions of our own.

Competition #1: Water fight

For our first war, we had a water fight. But it wasn't your typical water fight. You see, all of our water had red koolaid and red food coloring in them, and all of their water was blue. That way, the color would show up on our togas and you'd be able to tell who won.

 Our home base and stash of weapons.
Kasey and Ashli preparing for battle
We had water balloons, water guns, and those spear looking things, which were actually probably the most effective.
Will liked playing with the spear, and he loved throwing our balloons in the grass. I think he popped a good portion of them before our war even started.
Doesn't Will look adorable in his little toga? Unfortunately he was NOT interested in letting me get a good picture.



Will and Lance after the battle.
Both sides fought hard until ammunition ran out. It turns out, blue koolaid doesn't show up nearly as well as red, so it wasn't as noticeable as I was hoping. But it was still really fun and we were pretty wet and sticky by the end.

Competition #2: Bocci Balls

We played Bocci Balls for our second olympic game. If you've never heard of it, basically you have one small "target" ball that you throw/toss. Then each team has some balls that you try to get as close to the target ball as possible. Closest one gets a point.

 They definitely have their game faces on.
 Don't worry, we brought our too.
 And then we decided to beat each other up...yeah...
To throw or not to throw, that is the question.
 


Kasey and Ashli beat us in Bocci, but I think we won the water fight.

By this point, Will was being very difficult and we decided to head home and get him to bed.



 Will was super thirsty by the time we got home.

Once Will was down for bed, we finished our olympic games with some Mario Kart races. We got some Greek Doughnuts made, but Kasey and Ashli had to leave before we were able to finish them. Here is a picture of them.
They are covered in a honey glaze and topped with cinnamon. We had some issues cooking them that involved exploding oil and a small fire on our stove, but otherwise they turned out ok. They weren't amazing, but they weren't bad either.

And lastly, just because he's so adorable:


 

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Tour of Our New Place


Welcome to the tour!  So far we have really enjoyed living here and we are excited to show it to you. Lets get started!

We live in a little community called The Springs. There are a few different layouts and designs, but basically all of the duplexes look the same.
Here is the unit that we live in. Number 1722

When you first open the front door, this is what you will see.
There is the tv stand to the left and the love sac on the right.
 Little bit closer to show the decor.


 Surprised our letters are staying up on the ledge. I thought they'd fall over by now. Hallway leads back to the bedrooms.
 Living room from a different angle.

 You can see our table. The kitchen is around the corner to the left.
Once you come around that corner, you enter the kitchen.
It's probably about 2-3 times the size of our last one. We actually have room in the cupboards for our food and appliances! That's a first!

 This picture was standing back by the sink, facing the table. You can see how it connects to living room.
 Another view of kitchen. Can you tell how much I love having a decent size kitchen?!
 
Also, there is a door in the kitchen that connects to the garage.

This is the inside of our garage. As you can see, we have a ton of stuff and things in storage. One day hopefully we have a place big enough to store that inside. But for now, we are thrilled to have a garage.
 Now lets head to the rest of the house.

The door straight ahead is the master bedroom. The hallway turns to the left and continues back to the rest of the place.

And here is a look at the master bedroom. This is the view standing at the hallway door.
Here is a close-up of the bed. We got a new comforter and I really like the look of it.
Here is the corner to the left of the back door.
 This is the view from that last corner. You see the hallway and tv stand to the right. Then there is our bathroom area to the left.

 This view was taken from the bathroom area.
And here we have the counter and sink. Our closet is on the opposite side, across from the sink.

 We each had our own closet at our own place, so it's a bit crowded with both of us. We keep the clothes we don't wear that often in our spare bedroom.
 And the bathroom.
Now if you head out our back door, you will be in our backyard.
 It is one of my favorite things about our new place. I love having a yard and being able to spend time outside. Plus we finally were able to pull our grill out and have a few barbeques!
 It's actually a decent size back yard! We are responsible for mowing our back yard, but we don't have to do the front.
Now back inside, if you take the hallway to the left...there is a coat closet immediate to your left, then there is my second favorite new thing.
A laundry room!

  It is SO nice to have my own washer and dryer. It makes it so much easier to stay on top of it, and I don't dread doing laundry. So, so happy to have this!

If you continue on, there are 3 more doors down the hallway.

The first one is Will's bedroom.

It's so nice to be able to devote a whole room to Will and not have to worry about having other stuff stored in his room, or not being able to study because he's sleeping.
It makes it so much easier to be organized, plus it gives him space to play with toys and make a mess somewhere besides our living room (though that still happens daily).
The next door you come to is another bathroom.

You'll most likely find the tub filled with Will's bath toys and other fun things. We've learned to keep this door shut as Will loves to unwind all the toilet paper, play in the toilet, or throw whole rolls of toilet paper into the toilet. Oh fun times.

And finally, at the end of the hall is the 3rd bedroom, which is an office, craft room, storage room, music room, library, etc. Haha, pretty much whatever else we had.


Desk and bookshelves.

Yet another favorite spot of mine. It's nice being able to have my sewing machine set up permanently, instead of pulling it out every time I want it.



Looking back towards the door.
Well I think that pretty much covers it for our place! But there are a couple more cool things that I would like to point out.

Directly across the street from us is the office and a Community Center.

In the community center, there is a large room with big screen tv and a huge kitchen. Anyone can rent the community center for an event or to use as needed. There is a group of women in my ward who use the community center every morning to do workout videos. They let all the kiddos play in there while they exercise.

And there actually is an exercise room as part of the community center. There are a few treadmills, ellipticals, and also weights, I believe. I think if you want to use it, you pay $25 for a key and have access for as long as you live here. Definitely a lot cheaper than a gym membership! But unfortunately, I would have to find a babysitter, so I will continue going to my gym.

Another great benefit of living close to the Community Center is the park! Will LOVES to swing and would sit there for hours if I let him.
 It's hard to see if you aren't familiar, but our unit is in the background. There are the mailboxes on the left, and the unit directly behind those is our next door neighbor. So we are literally across the street from the park.
 Along with the playground, there is a full basketball court.
Lance has arranged for a group of guys to meet every Friday and play some ball. It's great because it allows him some down time to have fun with other guys, plus it gives him a little exercise!

Well, I think that officially ends the tour! Hope you'll stop by and see it in person!