Greece and Egypt

Nate and I returned from our vacation last week. We had a great time. Greece was impressive. It was amazing to see all the ruins in Athens. We spent four days there which we felt was enough to see all the main sites in the city (ie. the Acropolis, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the Agora, and The National Archaeological Museum). We were blown away by the structures and statues that the ancient greeks were able to create.

However, after we got to Egypt we both agreed that pretty much everything we saw in Athens paled in comparison. It was unbelievable to see all the temples the egyptians built thousands of years ago. You definitely cannot appreciate the size of these structures and the pyramids until you are standing there in front of them.

You can see some photos of our trip by clicking here...
Megan's Flickr Page

Also, here's some videos that we took!
In this video you can hear the calls to pray being blasted from speakers located on every mosque in Egypt. Kind of shocking when it wakes you up at 5AM!



This video is from the Valley of the Kings where they have discovered the tombs of over 60 egyptian kings including the most famous, King Tut. Our ticket let us go into three tombs. Our tour guide chose the first two for us, which were Ramses IV and Ramses IX. For the third tomb, he offered us two options...We could either go into a tomb that was not very deep into the mountain and still had very colorful hieroglyphics on the walls or we could go into the Tomb of Merneptah. This tomb, he told us, was a very steep descent into the mountain and might be pretty exhausting. Of course, Nate and I chose this one while everyone else in our tour chose the less strenuous tomb (probably a good thing since the average age of everybody else was over sixty). Amazingly, when we made it to the location of the sarcophagus, all of the other tourists seemed to simultaneously leave. It was just us and one of the workers. We took this video while down there. There is supposed to be no photography allowed inside the tombs but the workers are always after a little extra money. He motioned at us to go under the ropes that surround the sarcophagus and actually let us take pictures and video in return for some egyptian pounds.



Here's Nate at the Step Pyramid of Sakkara...



Here's a video of some of our camel ride...



-Megan

Office Space

All the paint supplies are officially put away. I finished the office. Thank goodness! Needless to say, I don't want to see another paint brush for a looooooooooong time. The room looks pretty bare with no ladders or dropcloths in there, so I guess I'll have to do some more furniture shopping soon.

-Megan

Slinky

Remember when you were little and you had a slinky? It wasn't a complicated toy. It didn't require a Ph.D. to use. All you had to do was get it going down the stairs and it would do the rest. Apparently modern day slinkies are not so straight forward. The best we can figure is that either the slinkies today are alot lighter than they used to be and can't pull their weight over themselves...or the stairs in new houses are wider. We tried multiple times to get this slinky to go down the stairs. After many attempts and much frustration we finally succeeded. We were so excited we made this video to commemorate the event. Enjoy!

The Bone Room

This weekend we went in The Bone Room (www.boneroom.com). This is a unique store on Solano Avenue in Albany that is filled with real bones, fossils, and exotic insects. We've walked past this store many times and have never gone in. For some reason, we decided to check it out this time. If you're ever in the area you should stop by. After seeing all those crazy bugs I can safely say that I am not cut out for Fear Factor! Sorry Joe Rogan.

Skeletons hanging from the ceiling!

Those are some huge bugs!

Joe Rogan would make you eat those.

I told Nate to do his best Britney impression...

...but all I got was this.

-Megan

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Ah yes, it's that time of year again! Time to eat way too much and sit around watching football every weekend. Isn't it great?! For Thanksgiving, my mom came up from LA again and we saw the sights in SF as we usually do. I think if Megan had it her way, Christmas would be four times a year and it would be rainy 75% of the time...she loves the winteryness.

Here's some pictures of our Thanksgiving weekend:

"Ooh! Can you believe the Pier Market has been here since 1971!"

Action shot...eating action.

Funny sticker on a van. No mommies.

Too cool for school.

Union Square Christmas tree all lit up.



Garland...Judy Garland.

Bam!

-Nate

Walk Like an Egyptian

We're on our way to see the last remaining wonder of the world at the end of January. We booked our Egyptian tour through Insight Vacations (www.insightvacations.com). Hopefully it doesn't get cancelled. Apparently, many tour companies will cancel tours if not enough people sign up for them. We'll find out if it's a go 30 days before our departure date...although I have been reassured by two different people at the company that they've never heard of an Egypt tour being cancelled. Keep your fingers crossed. If it gets cancelled, we'll have to move on to Plan B. Well, I guess we'll have to come up with a Plan B first.

Before we go to Egypt we'll be heading to Greece for 5 days. No tour necessary for this part of our trip. We figured we could handle Athens on our own.

Be sure to check back in February for some pictures of our trip!

-Megan

Baby Steps

Whoever said decorating was fun must have either:
a) hired someone to do it for them
or
b) not have had a full time job
Sure, painting the first wall seemed fun at first but the excitement quickly wore off after that. It soon became a daunting task that I would have to do each night for a couple hours after work. As you can see from the pictures, it's looking better but I'm still a long way from done. If anyone's making a Christmas wish list I still need...more furniture, rugs, art, etc. It never ends. Oh, and someone please keep reminding me not to buy another piece of furniture that needs to be filled with even more decorating items.

Before and After Pictures...

-Megan

Doggies have birthdays too...

Happy Birthday Lucy!

-Megan

"Get to the choppah!"

If you haven't seen Predator that title won't make any sense. If you have, enjoy the Arnold reference.

After almost 50 weeks of wearing them, I've finished my last set of Invisalign trays. A retaining wire has been installed on my bottom teeth and I have to wear an upper tray to bed each night. I think it all turned out pretty good. Here's the before and after pictures:

And here are the animations of the movement:

-Nate

The Happiest Place on Earth

In September, I planned a trip to the Magic Kingdom and we headed down to Los Angeles. We spent two full days park hopping between Disneyland and California Adventure. If you haven't been there for a while, you have to check it out. Space Mountain has been completely renovated. It no longer has that 70's feel. Pirates of the Caribbean also just reopened. Although it seems the only change they made there was to hire Johnny Depp to stand in there all day. If you have never seen the amazing show 'Fantasmic'...you MUST see it. We watched it three times while we were there. That Mickey really knows how to put on a great show.

"I LOOOVE ice cream"




It must be the Magic Kingdom cause I don't even know how to draw...but check out that Tigger!


Okay...now mine doesn't feel so special.


"Seriously...I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE ice cream!"

-Megan