Home for the Holidays

As always we will be spending Christmas with our families in MN! Eric is already in MN and I will be flying there tomorrow. I cant wait to see family, friends and play in the snow!!!  I plan on spending of my time in MN playing in the snow....either ice skating, sledding, or just making snow angels.  I will post a few updates over the holidays but don't expect much.....until then I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Around Athens: College Ave

Eric and I have lived in Athens for 4 years and we have a lot of favorite places around town. I have decided to start taking pictures of some of our frequent hangouts and the popular places around Athens since we wont be here forever.

Our first stop is College Avenue. It is located right in the middle of downtown Athens. On College Ave there are several clothing stores, bars, restaurants and coffee shops.

Eric has spent A LOT of his time at Walkers Coffee Shop & Pub studying for classes, grading papers, and writing for his Ph. D. We have also watched a few football games here and watched some of the World Cups games here as well.

The Grill (below) is a popular place in Athens. Open 24/7 it serves the best (and greasyest) burgers, fries, and malts in town.

Baby its cold outside...

It is officially winter here in GA. The cold nights & days have been keeping our fireplace busy! Our cats have been snuggling up together, sleeping by the fire and sleeping on our feet at night to stay warm. I love having the fireplace going....it always makes it cozy!

I have mentioned this before but I had to share it again. Our cats love laying down in boxes, suitcases, and bags....well we left some Trader Joe's bags out the other day and it didn't take long for Rainy to jump in one. Isn't she cute!?

Athens Christmas Parade

Last Thursday we went to the Athens Christmas Parade. This year we met up with my co-worker Tracy & her family. The parade is always fun. I have several favorite parts of the Athens parade... 1. The dogs from the shelter....it always makes me want one. 2. The marching bands...especially the drums. 3. The cute kids dancing & singing. 4. All the lights! Here are some pictures from this year's parade.

My fav. float in the parade

Tracy & me

The St. Mary's Polar Express

This float was made out of all recycled products.  The tree is made of green plastic bottles.

Even Starwars we at the parade

Eric & Me all bundled up!

My favorite tree

Is it weird to have a favorite tree? Well, I have one. This is a Ginkgo Biloba tree. Ginkgo's are one of my favorite trees but this Ginkgo is amazing. It is probably on of the biggest ginkgo's I have ever seen and it is so beautiful in the Fall. I had to get a few pictures of it since this might be the last Fall we spend in GA. There are Ginkgo's in MN but they are TINY compared to these southern giants. What do you think?

Fall in Athens

This Fall has been busy for us! Between football on Saturdays, fixing up the house (painting and tiling), family here for Thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner.... we were busy. I cant believe it is already winter. It is a cold 37 here in Athens today and I am loving it! I was tired of the hot weather and I am ready for a break! Here is a small recap of what else we did this fall:

Thanks to a friend, Eric and I were able to go to one UGA game this season. We had a great time watching UGA beat Idaho State!

We have also had to rake a few times this Fall. I know I have said this before but the amount of leaves we have is ridiculous!!! 

Tile

I have always liked tile flooring and tile back splashes and tile anything....but now I have a greater appreciation for them! As you know a couple weeks ago we tiled our kitchen and bathroom floors and let me tell you, it was rough!! It took 4 times longer to do than we thought, cost almost twice as much to do....but it looks 20 times better than the crappy linoleum floor we used to have!

We started on Sat the 13th and didn't finish until the 21st. It took longer than we expected because we didn't realize all of the things you have to do when you tile. PLUS we learned that the way we thought we could do it would not work. Who knew our linoleum floor was glued down by the force of God....Who knew you cant tile directly on top of plywood flooring?...Who knew that we wouldn't have a usable kitchen for over a week?? Not us! :)

We would not have been able to do this with out the help of some friends! So here are some shout-outs... Thank you Michell & Kelly for your time, muscles, knowledge, destroying your hands and being sore for us! Thank you to Ben & Abby for the tile saw...it saved us money and frustration! And thank you to the man at Lowes that probably saved our tile floor from breaking in 2 months by telling us we needed cement board for the floor.

Well, here is a before picture (I forgot to take one so this is from when we bought the house)....

Before

Michelle & Kelly stripping the linoleum

Kelly laying down cement board

Eric screwing down the cement board

Me happy to be finally laying tile after 3 days of working on the kitchen.

Eric's job was to cut tile with the saw Ben & Abby gave us

After one nights work of tiling

The finished product!

TA DA! No more ugly linoleum!!