Welcome Party & Summer Pool Party

The Meadows (our apartment complex) is pretty good at doing community-building events. This past Wednesday, they held a meet and greet for all the residents who moved in in the last 3 months. They also invited residents who have lived here for more than 10 years.
There were snacks set out and a two hour time was allotted for people to chat and get to know each other. We sat with a girl who is about our age (who, we found out, lives on our floor) and a staff member, who is also a resident. We met several other people throughout the evening: a few ladies who have lived here for the past 13 years, a new gentleman who is an entrepreneur in several different fields and some of the other staff.
The gentleman told about himself and some of his business ventures. We even got to see a cell phone video of his daughter and son doing the west coast swing. He sells a juice that helps you feel younger and is in the process of starting a business to promote "healthy and earth friendly lifestyles." He *may* even have some freelance work for Lindsay.

This weekend was the summer pool party. There was a big barbecue with chicken, burgers (including veggie burgers) and lots of different (and delicious) salads. They had Lei's for everyone and hired a DJ who also organized games (primarily for the kids) and handed out prizes. We were actually surprised by the number of residents who came out. We could hardly find a place to sit when we first arrived.

Our Apartment

Welcome to our apartment. As many of you know it is a studio apartment, so we only have one main room that works as dining room, living room, bedroom and office.

















When you walk through the door, to your immediate right is the closet, dressing area and washroom. There are a few drawers there and a space for a laundry basket as well. Our closet is very tall and has quite a bit of "extra" storage at the top.



When you leave the dressing area, the next "room" you encounter is the kitchen. Appliances and counter "space" back onto the dressing area wall and there is a bar separating it from the rest of the room. We bought a couple of stools at a thrift store so we could use the bar for a dining table. The apartment didn't come with a fridge, but we were lucky to find someone just a few doors down that was moving out and had the correct size of fridge for sale. (There isn't room for a full-sized fridge)













Looking out from the kitchen, along the right wall, you will see our "bedroom" and what will eventually be a seating area (once we have furniture). Technically, we already have a bed frame, however, we're still working on staining it, so our mattress is still on the floor.










To the left is our office, library & entertainment center. The desks and bookshelf are from Ikea and the chairs are probably from the dormitory of a local college (we got them at Goodwill and had very similar ones at Southern).
Beside our office is the door to our balcony (also our only window). There you will find Lindsay's bike and "garden" (which cost a lot more than we expected at Home Depot). We have one pot with flowers in it (Cyclamen & Spathiphyllum which - surprise! - turned out to be perennials) and one pot with vegetables/herbs (Tomatoes, Red & Green Peppers, Basil).













Our apartment building is at the back of the complex and the emergency access road runs below our balcony. There are also some built-in barbecues to the south of our apartment, (those brick things that you can see on the side of the path) but the last time we checked they weren't in usable condition.

We hope you enjoyed the tour. Feel free to stop by anytime!