honeymoon – athens.

It dawned on me today that I haven’t posted any photos from our honeymoon in Greece. I think I’ve put it off because it’s such a daunting task as there are so many photos. It’s hard to choose which ones to share. I’ve come to the conclusion that the easiest way to do this is to break it into chunks. I’ll show photos by each destination we visited: Athens, Meteora (Kastraki), Naxos, Santorini and Sifnos.  We’ll start with Athens. Enjoy!

The Parthenon

The Porch of Caryatids

The newlyweds!

The Acropolis Museum – one of the coolest museums I’ve ever seen. It is built over the ruins so you peer down over them as you walk throughout. The night we were there  admission was free because it was a full moon!

Everywhere you go in Athens, the Acropolis is looming overhead. Pretty amazing!

Our first dinner in Greece, it was so cute!

We’re so excited to eat!

Derek in front of the parliament building.

The Temple of Zeus.

Me enjoying a little shade in the  National Gardens.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post on Meteora.

it’s the most wonderful time of the year.

This weekend, on our way home from Mt. Baker we stopped at a Christmas tree farm to select our first Christmas tree. We searched and searched for the perfect tree…it had to be the right size, a nice even shape and a deep green color. In the end, we went with a grand fir, and today we decorated her. Not too shabby for our first tree, eh? I LOVE CHRISTMAS TREES! If I had more space and $$, I’d have one for every room in the house!

thanksgiving.

I know this is going to be a huge shocker to everyone, but I love Thanksgiving. It is my favorite holiday of the year. Good food, family, no gift-buying pressure, cooking and relaxing all day, quality time, board games, leftovers…I love it all.  This year, we’re spending the holiday with Derek’s family. Every couple years we go away with his family and rent a house in the mountains. It’s so much fun and I’m really looking forward to it!

don’t get me wrong…

…it’s pretty awesome. On clear days I have a ½ view of Mt. Rainer that’s pretty spectacular.  I can assess the traffic on both I-5 and Hwy 99 for myself. And a few of the conference rooms have really impressive views. But there are downsides to working on the 26^th floor of a very tall building….

• The elevators can get really backed up and unfortunately it’s not really realistic to walk up/down 26 flights of stairs.
• You see disturbing things, like last week’s attempted suicide from the courthouse sky-bridge. It was smack-dab outside of my window.
• When it’s windy, the building sways….ALOT. Like today. And I was extremely nauseous and motion sick. I seriously almost puked.

I’m hoping for a calmer day tomorrow.

what’s cooking’

Here are a few things we’ve been cooking up this fall. Yummers!

Cream of Broccoli Soup

Tomato Soup

Mac & Cheese

Braised Salmon

Blue Cheese Salad

goin’ to the chapel.

Over the weekend my brother-in-law (it’s so weird I have in-laws…I feel like such an adult). Anyways, over the weekend, my brother-in-law proposed to his wonderful girlfriend and she said yes!! You know when you see a couple and you get warm-fuzzies inside? This couple gives me warm-fuzzies! I absolutely adore them and we are so excited and happy for them! Congrats Gabe and Mary B!

weird story.

This weekend we posted our barstools on craigslist. In our new place, we don’t have a need for them and they were just sitting around taking up space. We got several emails expressing interest but there was one in particular that caught our eye. It was from a girl and she gave a long winded story about when they (her and her bf) had been apartment hunting they had seen a set of barstools in an apartment and her bf fell in love with them. She explained how they’d been searching and searching, but couldn’t find the ones they’d seen anywhere. And he was not going to be happy until they found them. In the email, she expressed that our barstools looked pretty close.

This morning, her and her bf came over to pick up the barstools. We started chatting with them, and it turns out they are moving into OUR old apartment! I nearly fell out of my freakin’ barstool! It was OUR barstools they’d seen in the first place during an apartment viewing!  WEIRD. Needless to say, they bought them!