Day Twenty-One: Flat Tour & Date Night

This morning I looked around the flat and the cleaning bug bit me. For the next several hours I deep cleaned our flat. So the flat was supposed to be professionally cleaned before we got here. After my cleaning today I realized that it most definitely was not. I was wiping down some glass paned door and the paper towels were almost BLACK when I was done. Uh, gross. And we had been living in it for the past three weeks. Nice.

Two things I want to say about cleaning. I hate cleaning toilets. I mean does anyone like it? But I loathe cleaning boy used toilets. So, so bad. Like the worst. Also, is there anything quite as satisfying as a good long cleaning session? I mean I often dread it, and even put it off, but when it's done I feel so accomplished and good!

After my little clean fest I decided to take some pictures of our flat and give a little flat tour!

Here is the kitchen...

This kitchen is why we almost didn't get this flat. Ha ha ha. It just looked really dingy in the pictures, and since I really love to cook and bake a bad kitchen was a deal breaker for me. But once I came to London and saw it in person, it wasn't bad at all. It looks better in person.

And once we moved in I started to add little touches to make it happier and more colorful. It is such a white kitchen and it is usually very grey outside, which can make it cold and bland, so I wanted to add lots of bright colors of yellows and orange to make it sunny, warm and happy.

The kitchen table and some more color added by pom poms and lanterns.

I put up all these prints I got off of Etsy before we left the US. They all have something to do with the sun, to remind us of home and also make it feel happy, sunny, and warm on those cold, wet rainy days.

I also threw in some good ol' Beatles lyrics to pay homage to where we are! The Beatles first recording studio is just down the road from us! And who doesn't LOVE the Beatles?!

That door on the left is the kitchen, and the door straight ahead is Tate's room...

and that cute babe following me around is the Tater Tot.

Here is Tate's room. Small, but get's the job done.

We bought this rug from Ikea to add color and rented all the furniture here.

I brought some of my favorite prints from Tate's room at home...

Here is the family room/living room whatever you like to call it.

Behind it is the dining room which we have made into the playroom/computer room. One thing I absolutely love about this flat is how light and bright it is. Even on the greyest days, we still get good sunlight through these windows. The ceilings are also very high. And great crown molding, baseboards and chandeliers which add a lot of cute character.

I wanted again to decorate with bright colors to brighten up kinda blah colors of the flat. I think it turned out well, and really love how happy and cheery it feels in here.

See those glass doors? Those are the ones that almost gave me the black lung...

And the door right through those doors is the boys bathroom, aka: the pink palace.

Here it is! The Pink Palace! You can't tell really from these pictures, but that tile is REALLY pink. And so is the tub, sink and the toilet! Lucky boys!

So I tried to decorate with some other colors to make it feel more boy-ish.

And here is the boys room...they actually have lots of space to play, and great closets too.

Here is our bathroom...

Our bedroom, with my must have King Size Bed. So, so so so so happy we were able to rent one.

I might have died without it. Also, after the first few nights of not sleeping well, we went and got ourselves a memory foam pad. It has made a HUGE difference. We also have lots of storage space, which is rare for London, but has been really nice.

The vanity. They don't have any outlets in the bathrooms here, so all getting ready stuff that has to be plugged in, goes here. Except Tate. He doesn't get plugged in.

And now I am going to take a break and eat some of these. These are one of my all time favorite candies EVER. On the face of the planet. I discovered them on my mission in Malta, which has a strong British influence. I am not usually a big fan of gummies, but these are so great. I have honestly been craving them for 11 years. Our first night here I made Todd go get some. Now my boys love them too which makes me so happy! Weird, I know.

The playroom/computer room. Again with the bright colors, and I am so happy that it is so roomy and lots of space for the boys to move around and play. It's also a great place for the computer as it is centrally located.

And that's about it. Overall, we have really like it so far, and it actually feels quite roomy for it's 1,600 sq. feet.

Tonight was date night again, and Todd and I decided to just go to dinner and sit and relax. Nothing too fancy. We took the tube to Bond St., Oxford St. and just started walking around looking for somewhere to eat. We stumbled across this place, an Italian restaurant called La Genova. Looked authentic, so we decided to give it a go.

I didn't take any pictures of the inside while we were there, so I got this picture below off of the internet. It was super Italian. We loved hearing the servers talking to each other in Italian and when they served us olives and bread to start. The food was so yummy and so authentic. We really loved this place and want to go back already!

We got in the habit of regular date night in Texas, and decided that we want to keep it up here in London, even though babysitters are a little more expensive here, it's worth it.

Excited for a good Saturday tomorrow, along with some London sights and General Conference...