Wicked Disappointment

Today is Halloween, our first holiday in our new place.  Since we now live in a very residential area, and have a front door, we were THRILLED to be able to hand out candy to cute kids!  We are such nerds that asked the owners of our home what to expect.  We came home from work as quickly as possible.  We filled our bowl, lit the candles, lit the pumpkins, indulged on my delicious homemade ZESTY pumpkin seeds, turned on Hocus Pocus and dimmed the lights.

Waiting.

...Waiting.         Nothing.

8:00......9:00.....NOTHING!

I am SO depressed.  What a letdown!

In any case, it is still exciting for us :)  We had a fun night pretending to be grown ups.  We realized that this is Lola's third Halloween with us, which is also exciting.  She is a spaz and doesn't like to be held, therefore no costumes are allowed.  But we still like to make fun of her, hehe.

By the way, back to Hocus Pocus...why does that movie NEVER get old??  What a great movie, the definition of a classic!

Hope you all are having a fantastic evening, and welcome to NOVEMBER already!!

Home Sweet Home

We got the keys to our new place on our 4.5 year anniversary in early September and gradually moved in over a week's time due to weddings on three consecutive weekends! We moved from the "Heart of the City" in Burnsville to northern Apple Valley.  Thanks to Zach for helping us load and unload the U-Haul!

We are in a cul-de-sac type development named, fittingly, Nordic Woods, in a huge, gorgeous townhome.  Needless to say, we absolutely LOVE it.  We are almost all settled in and are still in awe of how much we love it.  It is so nice to be married and out of an apartment.  It really feels like it's ours and it is HOME right now.  Again, we are not interested in buying a house right now (that's for a later post) and we are happy with this transition space until we ARE ready to buy!

We are in a 3 level house with 2 bedrooms, a big loft, 2 bathrooms, and a 2 car garage.

Kitchen from the dining room

Living room as you walk in

It has been so nice having space for all of our things.  I loved decorating, hanging photos and art, and organizing everything into its new space.  Mike is my master picture hanger :)  We are still in need of some extra furniture (for the basement, mainly) but we will get there in time.  We almost have too much space!  

We have been grilling a lot, enjoy having a garage for both of our vehicles, washing laundry in our own place.  Ahh the little things...  I can't imagine how exciting it will be when we DO get our very first home!  Again, I'm a domestic nerd.  I love having our new place!  A few friends have already come to visit and I cannot wait to see more!  We actually have room for the guys and girls to have their own space, room to sit and eat, etc.  I am looking forward to having a girls' sleepover, to be honest!

And of course, Lola loves her new house, too :)  (She loves to play with socks!)

Parents Becoming Children

They always talk about how when your parents age, you pay them back for raising you...by taking care of them.  My mom is always taking my grandmas shopping, to lunch, etc.  Getting them out of the house, just like they used to do for my parents when they were growing up.  As your parents age, you are the one taking them to their doctor's appointments, hosting holidays, paying their bills, etc.  It really is the "circle of life", if you will.

I think it is such a great thing and I'm happy to be jumping in to it already.  My dad said after our wedding that he really wants to see us more and "do things" together.  It was sort of weird coming from my dad (that's totally not like him), but I completely agreed.  We only live about 90 minutes from my parents, grandparents, and a lot of my extended family...so there's no reason we shouldn't be seeing them!  Mike's family lives at the least, 7 hours from us, which is a long way, but we commit to a few holidays a year there, a few summer trips, and we are trying to get them to come down to the cities more often.

Mom & Dad in the back seat at Sonic!

So...back to my dad's preposition.  We really ARE trying to see our parents more and "do stuff".  After we got settled in to our new place, we invited my parents to come stay.  They brought us a few leftover things that were being stored at their house and we sat down for a great day.  Being the spaz that I am, I had to put the items away...end tables, rugs, etc.  Mike and Dad got restless and powered up my brother Nick's old XBox that they had brought us.  Literally, this thing is old...like it's in even an XBox 360 or whatever they are these days.  But it provided a few hours of truck/atv/dirt bike racing entertainment while Mom and I decorated and laughed at their ridiculousness.

We wanted to do something a little different for food so we took them to SONIC for their first time.  It was rainy outside so our options for daytime entertainment were slim.  But leave it to the Barnes-Olsons to make it a good time anyway.  They didn't understand we had to eat in the car, we couldn't all see the menu, so Mike stayed in the car while we all walked outside and looked at our own menus.  Oh, those poor employees.  My dad finished the order with a hardy "10-4!"

Totally.  Normal.

The crew from the loft.

We returned home to the normal chatting, story telling, blah blah.  They decided to stay the night, which meant we had to entertain ourselves for a few more hours.  We pondered bowling, bars...eh.  We settle on playing card games.  Old school style.  We have no board games (hint hint).  If it doesn't get more exciting than card games, woo!  But we surprised ourselves.  After teaching the parents P&A, them teaching us Euchre, cleaning out the fridge of most beers, and a few laughing fits that brought us to tears, we finally all crashed to bed at 1 AM!  It was such a ridiculous and fun night.  Good ol' bonding time.

Moral of the story is:  it was fun.  And I hope we can continue to show them new things, foods, activities...incorporate them into our big-kid-married-lifestyle.  Now is the time to enjoy all of us being healthy adults, together!




Take them time NOW to enjoy your parent's company, wisdom, and ideas.  Soon, we will be advising them on their health, finances, etc...but for now, we want to enjoy being with them.  

The Couples Conundrum

So.

Married life is fabulous.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  I absolutely LOVE being a wife, having Mike as my husband, and our life together.  If only others would join us!  (If they're ready, of course.)

We attended a ton of weddings this summer, mostly people our age, which is great!  I am SO happy that we have friends who are married, but it seems that either one spouse works a lot, is never around, or is not a social person.  (I'm not speaking about anyone specifically here, promise!)  So, often it turns out with just "the wives" or just "the husbands" hanging out.  Fabulous, seriously. But I am really craving some couples interaction!  It sounds silly to say that I just want to go on a double-freaking-date, but it's TRUE!

Although we are major homebodies, we make a huge effort to see our friends as often as possible.  Especially after the wedding/funeral/summer/moving has calmed down, we are really making time for friends and enjoying time outside of ourselves.  The thing is...it's either me with Mike's friends, him with mine, or hanging out with our own friends (which is TOTALLY necessary and we both take advantage of, I'm not saying to not do so!).  But...I really want to hang out as US, the married couple...with OTHER married couples!  I'm not saying that marriage changes your dynamic, makes you special, blah blah, but there's something about that union and commitment that others cannot relate to.  I want to have a married conversation.  Call me crazy, is anyone else getting me right now?

Starting Over

I've been looking for something to occupy a bit of what "free time" I have without too big of a commitment.  After re-reading my entire Norway Blog, I'm thinking I will try this all again.  I really loved being able to go back and re-live all that I went through and I'm thinking that would be a great thing to have from this time in my life!

A year ago October 19th, Mike proposed to me, and 8 months later we were married in the most meaningful ceremony.  It was an amazing and memorable day.  We made such great memories and really took in every moment.  We made the choice to include only people we wanted to and do only things we wanted to.  It was truly US.

Sadly, a month after our wedding, Mike's mom lost her fight with Pancreatic cancer.  We were there, and it was one of the hardest experiences ever.  Thus began life with a smaller, but closer family.  It is hard to know our children will only have one grandma, but Carol fought so hard and it was so nice to finally see her at peace.

That brings me to...NOW.  Life as Mrs. Olson.  We have passed the 4 month mark already and have been through so much.  We took our Honeymoon to Samara, Costa Rica, which was ridiculously hot, humid, and AMAZING.  We planned to not plan.  We relaxed, we talked, we drank.  We were us, married.  And it felt great!

It FEELS great.  I was always a person who wanted to marry young and start a family.  I now know that I do not want a family right now (see THIS hilarious article that perfectly explains why), but I am thrilled to have found Mike and been able to call him mine for over 4.5 years (Thanks, Nick!).

We have accomplished a few other "married couple things", most importantly...finally getting our first place that's not an apartment!  We don't have interest in buying a house right now, and have found an amazing townhome to start our lives in for now.  It is a HUGE 1,805 square feet and have plenty of room for us, Lola, and more.  Our biggest pleasures are the two car garage and washer & dryer...ahhh, the luxuries.  Okay, I'm a nerd...I KNOW!  I get excited about small things, like having place for lamps, having a water softener, having a FRONT DOOR :)

Go ahead, call me domestic, I'll take it.  I love it!  I love being a wife.  I love being with Mike in our own place that we can call home.  Cleaning on the weekends, taking the trash out on Fridays.  It really is a great feeling and exactly what I want right now.  We are happy.  TOGETHER.

Nick's Wedding, September 29, 2012

Hopefully I can keep this up.  My plan is to let my thoughts, questions, and daily frustrations fill up these posts.  Please...come along for the ride!