Nerf Wars

(This is Elena) So just in case you didn't know, I collect Nerf guns. This collection started on an Easter many years when my brother Todd was still living at home. My mother ... I mean the Easter Bunny had given Todd two foam dart guns, and being the big brother that he is, he immediately started shooting it at me. Well my brother and I have a history of wrestling and such so I grabbed the other gun and shot back. This started an extended war. Whenever I knew Todd was home I would get one of the little foam guns and sneak up, shoot him then run away. Always use Guerrilla tactics on a bigger, stronger enemy. Todd of course did the same to me minus the running away. It was a fun way to spend time with my brother (who sometimes is not so good at verbally communicating affection) and his way of telling me that he cared. We would hide in doorways, jump into different rooms, shoot blindly around corners and kamikaze run at each other in our skirmishes. I think that was the best Easter present either of us had ever received. My sweet brother bought me my first Maverick for Christmas shortly after. It was awesome. Little did either of us suspect that it would lead to an Nerf Arsenal of over 8 different types of foam weapons. I have all of these : D
Night Finder (2)
Maverick (2)
Raider Rapid Fire
Longshot
And two off brand guns courtesy of Boushley Family Christmas 2010 (watch out for Grandma Boushley she's a mean shot)

Well Aaron and I had to break in the new apartment with a Nerf War and were pleased to discover that this apartment is perfect for foam dart battle. We have three rooms in the back not to mention the couch in the living room and the kitchen which all provide great cover and still give room to run around.  Aaron got off a sweet shot here :

This is a great alternative to watching TV or playing first person shooter games : )

Enjoying the Weather

Since we've been up here in Seattle things have been pretty great, especially with the weather! So we've been taking advantage of the mid 60s weather and taking lots of pictures outside. (I think this also helps Lena stay sane since she sits inside reading books all day :D ). So you can see some of the pictures over on my flickr photo stream http://www.flickr.com/photos/boushley/

Some of my favorites are Lena imitating Ellie

And some pictures I got of the cool sparkling light on the lake

We went to downtown Seattle on our first Saturday here. Apparently it was the first sunny day about 70 in a long time... BAD IDEA! Pike's Place was super busy, and we weren't even hungry :/ So we won't be going back there, until its a cloudy weekday and we are hungry. After bailing on Pike's Place, we went to the Seattle Public Library, which was really cool. The architecture at that place is awesome.

Our first Sunday here, we went to the ward for our temporary housing and discovered that Lena knew someone and found a lot of fun couples. We have now found an apartment (http://thelakesapts.com/) and its only about .25 mile from Lena's friend... turns out its in a different stake though :( bummer. However, it is also only 1.5 miles from the building I'll be working in, and just across the street from part of the Microsoft campus.

One adventure from the apartment hunt. While we were looking through the listings that the realtor sent to us, we came across one that was awesome. It looked like the best one, was fairly spacious (1000+ sqft) and had hardwood floor, stainless steel appliances and granite countertops. The location was pretty good. It was our first pick that we wanted to go see with our realtor. Turned out there was one problem... it was a 55+ community :( Our combined age isn't even 55+. So alas it was not be.

All in all things are going pretty good for us. We'll be in our temporary housing a bit longer than expected ( the movers aren't available to give us our stuff until the 30th ), but it may turn out for the better as it'll give us some time to work on our apartment.