Vacation to Orlando: Day 1

As most of you know, Greg went on vacation to Orlando, Florida. I won free plan tickets to Orlando through my work at a giveaway at our company picnic, so Orlando we went!
Before we left for the trip, we tried to look up some things to do and make some plans for the week. We don't like to plan out every day to the hour, but we didn't have enough planned on our honeymoon, so we spent a lot of time at our resort and the beach. We're not complaining, but it's one of those situations that if you're travelling all the way to a destination, then you should plan some things that you wouldn't regularly do or can't do while in your hometown.

With our trip being scheduled over Memorial Day weekend, our friends were all busy, so my parents planned a mini vacation to Kansas City to watch the pets and the house for the weekend while enjoying some activities in Kansas City and eating at my dad's newly found favorite BBQ restaurant, Jack Stack. We hung out on Friday before we left, making dinner and playing games.

Greg decided that he wanted to bring his tennis bag to play at the resort, so we had to check that bag. After arriving to KC's airport at a normal, early time, we found that with it being Memorial Day weekend, the airport was a lot crazier than expected, and we had to walk at a brisk pace to thankfully make it on our flight. Greg decided to check his bag as well to save him some time in security.

Long story short, our trip did not start off so well. Greg's tennis bag arrived just fine, but the airport failed to get his luggage on the plane in time. Greg's luggage flew to Baltimore and then arrived in Orlando at 3 PM, so our vacation was on hold for a couple hours.

We stayed at the Star Island Resort that had beautiful pictures on their website of a luxurious room, two pools with a pool side bar, tennis courts, and lakes. Our place was very spacious, but it was in desperate need of an update like the photos on the website had marketed.

View From Our Balcony

We spent our first day getting some groceries, going to the flea market, and eating dinner out. Not that exciting, but I would like to say that we were just tired on our first day...

I will warn you now that almost all the photos of Greg and I to come are of us holding out the camera... Not very exciting.  So, there may be a new background and hopefully different clothing in each of the pictures.  Ha!

3D Movie Experience

Greg and I are starting to become very lucky at the AMC 30 Theater in Olathe for the Fork & Screen movies, or at least we think so.  Last night we had our first 3D movie experience and saw The Avengers.  The fight scenes were cool, but overall I don't know if it was worth wearing the 3D glasses the entire time and paying more for the ticket.

The AMC theater by our house offers "Fork & Screen" where you can order dinner in the movie and they will serve you as if you were at a restaurant.  We went to our first dinner and a movie experience in the AMC theater downtown going to the Cinema Suites, where they offered leather reclining chairs to sit in, and we had awesome service.  At the Olathe location, we have had a different experience. 

It all started when we saw 21 Jump Street two weeks ago.  We got there before the previews started, ordered our food, watched as everyone else received their food, and then our check was dropped off.  We told our waitress that we had not received our food, and she apologized and brought it out right away, and we didn't have to pay for our meal.

Last night, same deal.  We ordered before the previews, watched everyone else get their food, and then I asked Greg after my stomach started growling if it was going to happen again.  He said to wait a little longer so a free meal was garunteed.  After waiting over an hour, we pressed the button for service.  A gentleman came by, and we told him we didn't have our food.  After coming back a couple times, we were told the computer crashed and our order was lost.  So, Greg's southwest chicken wrap and my lobster seafood salad sandwich were free.  The manager also came by and gave us free movie tickets to another move!  The second time was better, and I'm looking forward to the third!

Can't complain!  The movie was good as well, and we recommend it to all.

Guest Bedroom Concept

We always offer people to stay the night or for family to come visit for the weekend, but I never really paid attention to what I was offering them... a bed in a room.

I'm embarrassed to even show you what we were offering our guests that stayed overnight.  It was literally a bed in a room.  No extra furniture, no window treatments, no TV...absolutely nothing.

I've always wanted to make the guest room a retreat and relaxing place to stay or even nice, quiet room for Greg or I to read in.  In school in my design classes we were told to have concepts behind all our designs, so I first reviewed a couple rooms that I really liked on the internet to decide what direction that I wanted to go.  I have pictures of those rooms below that I found on HGTV's website under their designer portfolio page for contemporary bedrooms.

I love this headboard, but I think I may steal it for my room one day.  I also like the pop of color with the pillows and accessories against the neutral background.

A few weeks ago, this bedroom was the winner with the bright green walls.  I think I thought about my guests a little more and thought that they may not have the same taste as me, so I should stick to a color for the walls that doesn't have so much energy if I want it to be relaxing.  What I also took away from this room was the black and white pictures against the wall that I always think looks very nice and neat.

This headboard shape is in a lot of rooms and adds a lot with the nail studded border on it, which is a must-have in my next room.

I love the color of this accent wall, and I like the idea of having an accent wall.

 I like the wall color again, the lamp shades, and neutral furniture pieces.

Two nightstands are a must, because I wish our bedroom had two.  I also like the look of lamps on both nightstands.

So, what I took away from all of these rooms was the following:

• Accent walls
• Different shaped padded headboard, with nail studded border
• 2 nightstands and lamps
• Black and white photos
• Comfortable pillows

To summarize, the concept for the room is going to be "a traveling retreat".  I'm going to fit in some black and white photos of places that Greg and I have travelled to so far, and I have also thought of an idea to encorporate a map somehow.  I have an idea in my head that I will see if I can pull off and make it look like it fits in the room.

Greg and I did some bargain shopping raiding neighbor's garage sales and we found some pieces to work with.

2 nighstands that I am going to paint and replace the hardware. $15 for both.

2 lamps that I can spray paint and buy new shades. $4 each. 3 drawer dresser that I am going to replace the hardware. $20.

MDF board for $15 at Home Depot and I am going to use Greg's old memory foam to make a padded headboard.

So, I've started the work on the nightstands already.  I need to find some fabric to use on the headboard.  I think I'm going to reuse the bedspread and maybe get a new bedskirt that has some cleaner lines.  We are still undecided on the paint color.  I keep bringing home some blues, but we shall see.

Until next time.... Keep dreaming!

Playstation Move

During the week I got home and Greg said, "You're not going to like this, but you're going to find out anyway." My response, "Okay..." Then, Greg said, "I got a playstation, but it was free, and it doesn't work right now."  So, I wasn't worried at the time that my free time with Greg would no longer be.

Greg's friend's playstation didn't work, so he went out and got another one.  He gave the old one to Greg, and said he could have it because Greg thought he could fix it.  I couldn't tell you what was wrong with it, but Greg went out and bought a heat gun and melted some parts together, got the machine to turn on, went through some updates, and we now have a functioning playstation.

I really don't care for gaming systems because a lot of time is wasted sitting in front of the TV rather than doing anything else.  However, we had a Wii growing up, and I do like the interaction of the Wii games.  Greg informed me that Playstation has a similar function called the Playstation Move, so Friday we went out, spent around $250, and we are stocked for the rest of the year.

We got a gaming package with the typical sports game and another medevil game, Greg got a zombie killing game and the associated gun just for looks, and I got a work out game.  The sports game has bocce ball, ping pong, disc golf, a medieval fighting game, and archery, which has become one of our favorites.


Greg Shooting Zombies...



Greg Shooting Targets in Archery

So, we spent a lot of the day on Saturday playing some games, and we are looking forward to playing with friends and family next time they come over.  The next step is convincing Greg that it needs to be moved to the basement.  I think I'm almost there because the fitness game has a lot of jumping around that can't be good for our floors...