Austin Nemecek

Little baby Austin Nemecek is here!  Check Lexi's blog at www.bebenemecek.blogspot.com to see how cute he is!!!

Busy Busy

Yes, now that school (aka work) has started and so has graduate school you may say goodbye to my regular postings on this site.  Don't cry though-I have started a new site for graduate school where you can track my progress and view my projects; www.AshleyInglese.blogspot.com.  See you there!

Virginia

I recently returned from my last vacay of the summer:(  The frowny face is not for the vacation but for it being the last.  I went to Charlottesville (which will be referred to as Cvill from now on) to visit my sister, Hilary.  She and boyfriend, Corry, just moved into a really cool loft-it's actually a real loft not a fake one.  We spent to week visiting wineries and eating a lot.  There is a lot of beautiful wine country in VA about 30 minutes outside of Cville.  See for yourself.

This Summer

This summer has been really awesome.  Start it all off with a trip to Greece-it can't get better than that!  (Check out the cute photo of Tony and me in Paros.)  Last summer sucked-I did get married which was awesome but I wasn't working and had a teaching contract but wasn't getting paid b/c I hadn't started yet; blah blah blah.  I was bored and too broke to do anything about it.  Anyways this summer I'm rich-just kidding-but I have stayed a perfect balance of productive and relaxed.  

My biggest goal this summer was to revamp all of our photo albums and scrapbooks and to create a wedding album.  I have successfully accomplished this goal and all of our photos and memories are preserved and beautifully displayed in albums-check.  I also had  a goal to do some gardening and I got a huge pot and planted some herbs that are growing too fast for us to eat-check.  I have taken some great vacations other than Greece such as Disney World and I am going to VA to visit Hilary next week and my house is immaculately clean-check, check.  

The only thing left that I want to do is to cover the window on our front door with some type of cloudy screen thing-it has a name but I'm not sure what it is.  Oh yeah-Tony and I also put new super organized shelving in our closet and I reorganized all of my jewelry into trays in my wardrobe.  Wow-I've been super-productive this summer.  It hasn't been all work though-I've had my share of tv watching and laying out by the pool.

I've always had aspirations of making my own cleaners at home and I have started doing that as well.  It is actually way cheaper than buying them at the store and if you've read my previous posts you know I love non-toxic, eco-friendly cleaning solutions.  The one I use the most is an all purpose bathroom or kitchen cleaner.  It is the easiest, cheapest thing you can imagine; equal parts water to vinager.  I got a gigantic bottle of vinager at Target for about 2 dollars and free water from the tap and put them in an old spray bottle from my store bought cleaning solution that ran out.  It works better on mirrors than anything I've ever used and keeps my shower clean longer.  It does smell like vinager so don't use it right before you have guests over but the smell goes away in a few hours.

Another that I've used is a fabric whitener.  I didn't want to buy bleach b/c anything that smells like it will burn my nose hairs probably isn't that good for me and honestly I'm pretty sure I would ruin stuff with it.  I found a recipe used for whitening fabrics that consists of soaking said fabrics in a solution of 1 tablespoon salt and 1/4 cup baking soda.  These are all things that we have at home anyways and nothing toxic or damaging about that.  I soaked my white towels for an hour and it worked pretty good.  The only thing I will change is that I may soak them in hot water next time instead of cold.

Day on the Lake

Here I am enjoying a day on the lake.  I really need a break from having the summer off:)

As you will see in the following photos Tony is a great wake-boarder but even the best has to wipe out at some point.
Our new camera is so much better at capturing shots like this.  The zoom lens really helps get close up and the shutter speed is so fast that action shots are frozen in time.

Here is where the speaker should be.

So then why is it floating in the lake?

I know this isn't a lake picture but it is a photo of Tony and me on our 1 year anniversary!

Disney World

My friend Andrea and I are both teachers so what else would you do during the summer except go to DISNEY WORLD?!  I went when I was about 4 years old and I think she was around the same age as well.  I hated it but I did grow into a huge Disney fan throughout my childhood.  My Dad recently bought a retirement home outside of Orlando so we had a free place to stay and opted for a little road trip.

It is definitely not cheap getting in, nor is it easy; they really allow time for the anticipation to build.  But immediately upon arrival you are greeted on Main Street with barber shop quartets, balloons, and the smell of sugar.  Yes, the streets smell like sugar!  The smell actually comes from the confectionary where the make delicious treats like Rice Krispy treats and fudge.  They also have every type of candy you can imagine including about 30 different colors of M&Ms. 

We did have a Wally World moment; Space Mountain was out of order but we rode just about everything else.  Splash Mountain and the teacups were my favorites.  We stayed until midnight and saw the fireworks and the parade.  You turn into a twelve year old again for the day.  I left the camera at home but luckily Andrea had her iPhone and was able to snap a few shots.

Greece

Greece was definitely the trip of a lifetime.  It was actually more than I expected.  As my school year was winding down I would often need a little boost during the day so I would look at pictures of Greece online.  All of the pictures were so beautiful that somehow I thought it wouldn't or couldn't actually be like that in person but it was.  After spending most of my twenties so far backpacking through Europe during the summers; carrying my belongings. sweating profusely, and staying in shitty hostels this trip was a breeze.  We used a travel agent so we had someone to help us choose islands and hotels in our price range and she handled all transfers, ferries, and island hopping planes.  The transfers were the best part for Tony and me because rather than our usual get off an airplane-find a train, bus, whatever-walk to the hostel-pain in the ass we had people standing at the airport with a sign that had out names on it and they would kindly take our bags and drive us to our next location; they even had AC!!

Our fist stop was an island called Paros.  It is a small, non touristy island.  We stayed there for 2 days and spent one of those at the beach.  The best part about Paros was how nice the people were.  All Greeks learn English from the second grade so there are really no language barriers and they were so friendly we felt like everyone on Paros was our best friend.

Next we were off the Santorini.  We stayed in a town called Oia (pronounced Ee-ah).  This was as gorgeous as all of the books and websites said it would be.  We were so impressed with Paros and how beautiful it was but it could not hold a candle to Santorini.  For that reason we were glad to have gone to Paros first because in reverse order Paros would have been somewhat disappointing.  In Santorini we had a relaxing beach day and a not so relaxing boat cruise.  The beaches on both islands were so cool to us because they were not the typical white sand beaches.  They had rocky sand and the one we went to on Santorini actually had black volcanic rock.  It was very hot but also more unique.  The beaches were also surrounded by stunning rock formations.

We were then off to Athens.  The Acropolis was cool at night and the to go gyros were amazing but other than that I could have stayed in Santorini for 2 more days.  It was hard to choose pictures because we took over 700 of them but I hope you enjoy these.

I would also like to add that Tony and I celebrated our one year anniversary yesterday and it was awesome.  We went out to dinner on Saturday night to Blackstone which was the site of our rehearsal dinner exactly one year earlier and spent yesterday out on the lake and eating our year old wedding cake which was delicious btw. 

This is the view of the Acropolis lit up at night from the roof top bar at out hotel in Athens.

These 2 are a gorgeous sunset in Oia.
Oia
Below is Kamari beach in Santorini.

The 2 below are views from our hotel in Oia.

Below is Kolimbithres beach in Paros.
Below is the sunrise from the patio of our room in Paros followed by our hotel in Paros.