Lazy Sunday
Posted on September 16, 2012 by Ching under Things to Do.
Brian and I rewarded ourselves with a lazy Sunday today because last Sunday was quite hectic, with Brian’s mom’s birthday lunch at Olive Garden and then we had to clean the old townhouse right after.
Brian shampooed the high-traffic areas.
We were pretty satisfied with ourselves until we came back for our final walk through with Linda on Monday. We remembered to clean everything but the oven. We’re hoping to still get most of our deposit back, though.
We weren’t lazy all day today, but we did take it easy after last weekend. We began our day by having a nice breakfast on the deck. We love being out there and listening to the fountain, even more so now that the HOA replaced the fountain with a bigger and better one. It even lights up at night.
After breakfast I got busy with dishes, laundry, and unpacking a few remaining boxes and moving things around in my closet. I opted to skip the gym today because there was so much to do. It worked out because Brian wanted to get his hair cut after mowing the lawn.
We decided to familiarize ourselves with the neighborhood by checking out a couple of nearby stores. There is an Asian market on Harry and Greenwich, which is really convenient. Dong Huong’s prices are quite higher than the prices at Thai Binh, but it’ll do in a pinch. Also, they have fried tilapia!
There’s also a liquor store in the same area, but I think we’ll still end up shopping at Groves. No one can really compete with their prices.
We got a little carried away with scouting the neighborhood and ended up on a couple of dirt roads. We did find our way eventually but Brian decided he wanted to go to Flint Hills National before going home. Lucky for us there was an open house today so we were able to enter the highly exclusive gated community.
I’m really glad that Brian enjoys browsing open houses also. Most guys don’t. I’m fortunate that we get to enjoy it together.
The terrace has to be my most favorite part of this house. It’s got a built-in grill and a grand fireplace that sits between two sets of French doors. It’s partially covered and is an amazing space for outdoor entertaining.
This is the amazing laundry room with a sink for hand washing your delicates and plenty of counter space for folding clothes. Huge windows bring lots of daylight in also.
This is a guest room with an en suite bath, but the built-in bookcases made us think this was meant to be an office or study. This is the bathroom that’s attached. I’m not sure why there’s a bow on the toilet seat cover. Brian thinks they do that so you don’t use it. I think it’s a bit strange.
The great room is vast and has a fireplace at both ends.
I loved the master bathroom. The chandelier just makes it look so elegant.
Brian loved the shower. Who wouldn’t? It’s huge!
This house has more fireplaces than most houses have rooms. This is the fireplace in the basement, which is just as grand as the ones on the main level.
Speaking of basement, check out this bar.
It’s amazing!
Anyway, that was our fun for the afternoon. It was definitely a nice, leisurely Sunday compared to our previous weekend.
What about you? How did you spend your Sunday?
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Taking Time Out for Zoobilee
Posted on September 16, 2012 by Ching under Events.
If you think moving wasn’t hectic enough, we had to take time out that same day to attend Zoobilee. We would have skipped Zoobilee except we signed up to volunteer and we always keep our commitments. Even though we both had less than four hours of sleep that day, we pressed on.
I’m so glad we went because we had a lot of fun as always. And, Brian and Cory both got free growlers from Granite City (thanks to April and me).
There were lots of great food. I was completely full less than an hour into the evening. I had to pass up so many food vendors to save room for the really good stuff.
We took a break to get free chair massages from Sveta’s, a Zoobilee regular.
It made me realize how badly I need another massage. Maybe someone will get me a Sveta’s gift certificate for my birthday (hint, hint).
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We are Officially Moved In
Posted on September 16, 2012 by Ching under Home Ownership, Life.
We are officially moved in and mostly unpacked. Normal people would have moved in the day after they closed on their house. Not us. We dragged out the moving process for a month. LOL. Didn’t have a choice in the matter, though. I was out of town a lot over the last month for work and Brian spent almost a week in Chicago. It was only four days but it felt like a really long time. Anyway, it was hard to find time to really focus on packing and getting organized. However, we did have some time to move a few things to the new place. Little things that are lightweight like our patio set and the barstools and clothes, we moved ourselves. We had so much time between our closing date and when we had to vacate the townhouse that we moved quite a bit of stuff ourselves. I was starting to get worried that movers wouldn’t have enough to do and we have to pay for a two-hour minimum regardless. This thought was quickly erased on Friday night when we were scrambling to finish packing.
We had a little bit of miscommunication while I was out of town. I told Brian to quit moving stuff to the new house because then there would be nothing left for the movers to move on Saturday morning. He thought I meant quit packing and so he spent time playing video games instead. I wanted him to continue packing but leave the boxes stacked (in the garage or somewhere) for the movers to move.
When I arrived home from Kansas City on Friday night, we still had the kitchen, bathrooms, and most of our closets to pack. Yes, we were moving clothes in the weeks prior but you have no idea how much clothes we had. Heck, I had no idea how much clothes we had until we moved.
Though we weren’t quite finished packing, we finally went to bed around 2:30 AM on Saturday morning. We didn’t get a chance to disassemble the bed because at that point there were several heavy boxes stacked in the room and we didn’t have enough space to do it. Actually, we could have moved some of the boxes downstairs and disassembled the bed but that would have meant not getting any sleep at all. I still wanted to be able to get some sleep and get one last shower in before the movers showed up at 8:30 AM.
We got up at around 6:00 AM the next day and finished (or so we thought — some drawers were missed and didn’t get emptied but somehow survived the move anyway) just in time for the movers to show up. They arrived about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Worked out fine, though. We were both up, dressed, and ready to roll.
We hired Mighty Movers and got two guys and a truck. These guys are awesome. They emptied our entire townhouse in about an hour. As they moved the boxes in the bedroom, Brian and I got to work on disassembling the bed. I think they probably could have loaded the truck faster if Brian and I were more organized, but I was satisfied with how smoothly the loading process went overall.
They also had lots of rope and padded blankets to protect your furniture. Brian and I were really worried about our tables and chairs getting nicked and dinged during the moving process. In every move I’ve ever been involved in, there’s always something that breaks. But these guys are pros. It was amazing to watch them stack everything tightly in the truck. Things that needed to be protected were covered with the padded blankets and everything was roped to prevent shifting during the trip.
Brian and I arrived at the new place several minutes before they did. At first I thought they’d gotten lost but I think they were just driving really slow, which I appreciated. Everything made it in one piece. Even things that were broken in our previous move arrived in the same condition instead of the damage getting worse (which is what usually happens).
Brian gave them specific instructions not to ding up the walls, which we recently had painted by Balderas Quality Painting (a great company that I highly recommend — when we repaint the interior in a few years, I’m calling Tony again because his crew did a fabulous job). The movers did a great job. They got the truck unloaded in about an hour without nicking our walls or breaking anything. The move took two and half hours from start to finish, which I was really impressed with. I told Brian that it would have taken us and our friends four to five hours to do the same thing. He was like, “Try all day!” I’m not sure if it’s normal to tip movers but these guys earned it so we gave it to them.
I highly recommend Mighty Movers. My entire family has used them several times on their moves. My friend Darcy used them when she moved to her house a couple of years ago. Now we’ve experienced their professionalism and expertise first hand. They are fast and really good at what they do. I will use them again next time we move.
The only downside about Mighty Movers (which I hope they fix in the future) is that they don’t take credit cards. They could only accept cash or check, which was really shocking considering this is 2012. Who doesn’t take credit cards? Apparently they don’t, as I found out. Brian and I never carry any cash around. I don’t carry around my checkbook because I probably write five checks a year. I couldn’t remember for the life of me where I had stacked the checkbooks. Good thing we asked before they got started so Brian could run to the ATM and get cash.
Speaking of checkbooks, it took us a few days to find them but we did find them eventually. I didn’t start worrying until after we emptied out all of the boxes and still hadn’t come across them. I had forgotten that I put them in a shoebox with some other stuff from one of the drawers and put the box in my closet. Glad we found them when we did because I was about ready to panic.
Here are a couple of before and after photos of our hearth room, the first room to get set up because there was nothing to unpack. The movers put our furniture in there. All we had to do was put the floor lamp where we wanted it, rearrange some things (e.g. center the table), and hang the picture on the wall. LOL.
The left side is how the previous owner used the hearth room. The right side is how we have it now. We put our dining table from the townhouse in there because we didn’t think it would look right in our formal dining. The counter height makes it feel too casual so we’re using it as our breakfast table. We don’t have an official breakfast nook, like most people do, but there’s enough space in the hearth room for the table and an easy chair.
I’ve actually used the chair several times already. I usually sit in it and check Facebook while Brian is making dinner. He has already claimed the kitchen as his domain. I have no idea where anything is in there. I usually have to ask him. LOL.
When we first looked at the house, it was difficult to visualize how we could use the hearth room because the previous owner used it quite differently. I had a vision though, I just wasn’t sure if there would be enough space to do it. The room is pretty much done, though I am eventually getting an area rug to put under the chair and ottoman (hopefully soon). I think it will better define the seating area in front of the fireplace and make it feel more cozy. I’m not placing a rug under the table because it will be easier to mop spills on the wood floor. I could change my mind later but we are messy eaters, and a rug under there would be more work for me that it’s worth.
Also, I don’t think I’m putting curtains up. I personally despise curtains because they collect dust over time. While Brian and I aren’t slobs, we’re not the greatest when it comes to cleaning the house either. The less we have to keep up, the better. So for now, we’ll just have the blinds that came with the house. I would like to replace them with better ones in the future, but that will be at least a couple of years from now because we have to save for it.
Actually, we had curtains at the old place. You can see a small hint of it in the photo below (which happens to be one of my favorites from the old place). It’s kind of orange, but it looked great with our furniture. We might use those curtains in our dining room. I don’t know yet. For now, I’m glad I don’t have to dust any.
P.S. You can see the curtains we have a little better in the next photo. I totally forgot that I blogged about them when we first got them. It was just a matter of doing a search on the blog. LOL.
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Abuelo’s
Posted on September 15, 2012 by Ching under Food and Drink.
It had been a while since we’ve dined at Abuelo’s. We quit going for a while because they no longer served their sangria in carafes, but then I got an email that said I could get the sangria in carafes and also another email after that with a buy one entree get another free. We went back the other day only to be disappointed that we still couldn’t get a carafe of sangria. Apparently it’s only available at select locations, Kansas not being one of them. Blech.
Between the visit before last and this visit, they switched to the “create your own salsa” thing. They still had the red salsa and the really spicy salsa that Brian usually asks for but they’ve added the green pineapple salsa which is actually really good. It’s great by itself but it’s awesome when mixed with the regular red salsa.
I suppose many people, like Brian, ask for the spicy stuff to mix with the regular salsa which just isn’t spicy enough for some so they finally just caved and decided to let people mix their own. I thought it was a great idea because, not only does it make the dining experience more interactive, but it gives the diner a sense of accomplishment (e.g. the salsa I made is better than yours). LOL. Jokes aside, now you can have salsa that is exactly to your unique taste. Plus, there are already other restaurants that have gone this route such as P.F. Chang’s next door.
I think Brian got the Laredo, though I can’t really tell from looking at this photo.
I got the Durango Burrito, one of three things that I usually order when I’m at Abuelo’s.
Abuelo’s is not as much fun without pitchers of sangria. Lucky for us, we were there late enough for happy hour. FTW!
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Stix at Legends
Posted on September 15, 2012 by Ching under Food and Drink, Travel.
More food porn just for you…
Brian and I have been to Stix as few times over the years. The food has always been good.
This last time I went with my coworkers because we had a training session in the area. The food and service were good. I would definitely return. Although, I owe Brian a trip to Yard House first. There are so many good places to eat in the area, you really have to do some juggling. Yummo!
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