IIIII'MMMM BBBBAAAACCCCCK!!! :D

I have been itching to let my fingers dance across the keyboard and create a post for you guys. But I have to pull back the reigns and remember that a week of vacation means that there is a week in which absolutely NO home improvements happened.

Whoa there horsey!

Sure, I could come up with a bunch on Pinspiration for you, but I feel like there will be plenty of that in the future. So, instead, I'm going to just post a bunch of fun pictures from our trip and allow you to ogle while I come up with a fantastic post for Wednesday.

Without any further excuse making, here are some photos I took, and ones that I stole from my cousin'a instagram, of our week in LA, CA. Enjoy.

Upon arriving in CA,  we visited Jonathan's brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. It was great to spend time with them! It has been way too long between visits. So, once we landed in Burbank, Jonathan and I hoped in our rent-a-car and drove to their house to spend a few days.

We did a lot of talking, eating, and the boys played video games a majority of the time. But here are a few highlights for ya.

The third day there, we decided to walk around Oakley Headquarters. The building was really neat and a lot of fun to explore.  

Uncle Jun Jun helped Casen try on sunglasses. We didn't buy anything, but instead watched a bunch of people race on the big outdoor dirt track that they have for RC cars. 

 Then the morning we were to leave, we went out to breakfast together and made sure to take lots of photos. 

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After spending time with them, we spent time with my side of the family. We went to an observatory in Griffith Park, CA where we were able to also get a good view of the infamous 'Hollywood' sign. 

We also spent a lot of time eating--it's sort of what my family does. 

This is the only picture I took of our visit to Venice beach. Other than this dog, which I found hilarious, I wouldn't recommend it. Venice was interesting, just not my thing. But I would highly recommend Santa Monica--a lot cleaner and more my style. 

My dad is on the right, my uncle on the left. I still mix them up at times. Oh and have I mentioned that my husband is a twin too? --yea, I'm in trouble. 

A compilation of the whole week. We celebrated my mom's 50th while we were together!! It was awesome. 

I have to say, it was a wonderful week spent enjoying family time. We drove all over the LA area, spent hours in traffic, talked, laughed, ate lots of frozen yogurt, had In and Out Burger, and made many memories together.  I am so thankful that God has blessed me with them and I cannot wait to spend time together, again. I just wish we all lived closer to one another. 

I Just Have to Gush...

about all of my brothers.

Have I ever told you that I am the most boring person in my family?! No, I'm not really insecure, it's just fact. I live in the same town I grew up in and don't plan on leaving any time soon. I'm the stereotypical housewife from decades ago...I cook, clean, and stay home to take care of my husband and the house. Guess what? This is what I LOVE to do and it's me...so I'm totally happy :)

My brothers, on the other hand, are crazy. My sister? Well her story deserves a post of its own!! (Miss you Yuliya!!!!) My brothers all live in California. One is opening up his own sunglasses and t-shirt company. The middle one is going to film school to edit and eventually produce movies. And finally my youngest, little brother, is currently pursuing his acting and singing career. Yea, they are all super-fantastic in my book.

I want to share with you some of their "stuff."

Let's start with Mark. Mark is my oldest, younger brother. At the age of 21 he is the most ambitious and uninhibited person I know. He is the one who asked me if I wanted to settle down and get married, even though he gets along really well with my husband. He just loves to live his life to the fullest and won't let anything stand in his way. His moto is 'man up!' or 'you only live once!!' --I don't think I know of anything that he wouldn't do. He originally moved to Cali to pursue a career in snowboarding and is currently professionally sponsored. But his heart is, now, into building his brand. Check it out here.  But you also need to watch his amazing snowboarding skills. You can thank me later ;)

Parker, my middle younger brother, is a phenomenal editor. He has helped to edit many a video and really has mad talent. He is almost 20 years old and going to be a great film producer some day. When we were all younger, he would watch the same movie over and over again analyzing it and trying to find all of the flaws. It always amazed me that he could pick out such details! He will often edit videos for both of my other brothers when need be. It has just become a whole family affair! Check out this video that he edited for Mark's business.

Finally, you have my youngest, younger brother. Alex, who is 15, moved to Cali with my mom about a year ago. He is pursuing his acting and singing career. I can't believe that my 15 year old brother is living in Cali doing what most kids dream about. He has had a couple of commercials for Disney XD and, also, has shot a couple of scenes for various primetime TV shows. But my favorite part is listening to his music. Check out these two Switchfoot covers below. The first video was edited by Mark and the other was done by Parker.

Yup! Those are my amazing brothers. I love them dearly and I am so thankful that God has blessed them so. I pray that they are able to achieve everything that they want to! Even though I miss "The California Contingent" as my dad calls them, I know that God has them where He wants them. I am just such a proud big sister.

Things You Find Out AFTER Moving In.

*Note: This post may be a bit overly sarcastic and a tad bit exaggerated. At the end, I have topped it with a sprinkle of cheese. You have been warned. ;)

No one tells you that buying a house is like unwrapping a gift.

On the surface, it is a surprise, but you may be very disappointed with what lies beneath.  As you are given the gift, your anticipation builds for what the present is going to be. When you buy a house, you "know" what the present is, but, well, you really have no clue. You proceed, blindly, to unwrap the true gift,  knowing that nothing can be "that bad" and that things will all work out. After all, it is your house, and really that is all that matters. Ha! Oh you sad, sad soul.

As you live in your house you start to realize things. First it's the banging noise that the old hot water tank makes every time you shower. Unphased and still completely in love, you move on. That can be fixed right? Ha!

Then your realize that you live on a really busy road. You were all excited because you thought that "being on the road where the local school bus garage and town garages' are, our road will constantly be plowed during those lake effect snow days!"  But then you realize that this just means when you have your front door open in the summer that there is a lot of noise and that you will be digging out the end of your driveway 100 times a day during the winter. But, yet again, your still unphased--it's good for the arm muscles right?

Again, other things strike you. You walk into someone else's beautiful home and your home's flaws become very apparent. You never realized that flat walls were such a luxury and that double pane windows were to be held in great esteem. You see carpeted floors or stained smooth wood and realize that those floors look clean all the time, unlike your sub floors that your hoping will pass off as hardwood ;) Yet again, you try to focus on the fact that it will all be nice, someday, soon...you're truly hoping.

The final strike is when you realize that it is going to take you years...yes, years to undo the years...yes, years of neglect in your yard. When the weeds are as tall as the bushes and the idea of a garden bed was SO last century, you just sort of say, "Whatever!!!"

As your just about ready to give up, you see a twinkle of hope and redemption and you realize that things are going to be ok! Your husband slowly works on that yard of yours and you can visualize what a flat wall will look like in your home. The windows start to be less bothersome only because you know that they, too, will soon be replaced with beautiful double pane ones.

And those other things like the hot water tank and the amount of road noise, well they are just par for the course. Nothing seems to be too overwhelming when you sit back and think of your children playing in the yard and the future Christmas' to come. It's all just more memories and history. You realize that it is all worth it right now. Your 'someday' is today.

An Unexpected Combination

Remember when our sun porch went from this

to this?

Of course you do, considering it was just last Friday! :) I don't know if you looked closely enough at the table in the corner, but if you did, you may have realized that it was our dog pen with a picture frame on top! Space in our house is exceedingly limited, so every single square inch needs to function, and this corner was going to be no exception.

When I was moving things around last week, I realized that there was just enough space between the bed and the windows to squish Piper's pen. After squeezing it in there, I decided that it would be nice to make the pen functional as well. I wanted a surface for drinks or to place a book until the next chance to read.  

My first inclination was wood, but then I decided that it may be too "raw" looking and might end up having that thrown-together-last-minute look. Sometimes that works, this time it definitely didn't. I also thought that I could use one of the multiple TV trays that we have, but in the end, they all proved to be too small. Finally, as I was browsing through our guestroom-turned-storage-room, my eyes fell on a picture that I was given. The picture originally hung above our fireplace in our apartment's dining room and I still didn't have a place for it in this house. My grandfather gave it to me and said that my grandmother had purchased it on a trip to Europe. I love the story behind it and that it was my grandmother's, but it wasn't quite my style--thus the lack of spot for it in our new space. 

So, I preserved the picture by taking the whole thing apart and then using wrapping paper to cover it. This way, in the future I can use it if I find a space for it! I used the matting as my template, cut it to size, and stuck it all back together. A bit of tape and some finagling and the picture had turned into the perfect tabletop for the dog pen! The whole shebang looked more intentional and I was able to protect the picture at the same time!

I decided to accessorize a bit by using a clear-based lamp that I picked up at HomeGoods for ten beans, a succulent plant I had on my kitchen counter, and a decorative box that was also given to me by my grandparents. I love how the blue of the planter and the red play off each other. Being opposites on the color wheel, they really compliment one another.  The lamp was an easy choice because it gave the feeling of coziness without impeding the view. A win, win in my book.

And in the end, that corner became something much more functional. I have to say, I was pretty excited with how it turned out. I may do a bit more tweaking in the future, after all nothing is truly safe in this house.  But as of today, I declare it finito!

I have to know what you think though! Do you like the functionality or does it look a bit to thrown together? Have you ever used a piece of furniture or decorative element in a completely different way than it was intended for? Did you like the results or end up scraping the whole project? 

Happy Monday everyone! 

Six Hours Later

So, there has been a change of plans.

Rule #1: NEVER, ever, ever expect things to go according to the plan. Home improvements are just not meant to fit into a nice, tiny box and be tied up with a pretty red bow. Nope. They have a mind of their own. Things change. Projects are inevitably expanded and cost more money. So, thus, projects get cancelled so they don't drain the pocketbook.

 Remember when I was really excited about our plans for the sun porch? Well, they have been put on hold. On our way back from my roommate's wedding, this past weekend, Jonathan and I were discussing plans for the sun porch. He commented that we needed to insulate out there and thus the walls needed to be ripped down. Well, upon further discussion we realized that it would cost us at least a grand to redo the porch.

Sun porch project is now a pending process.

How's that for alliteration?

Long story, made short, we really didn't want to start a project that we couldn't fully fund from the beginning. We have the money in our savings, but are working on building up our emergency fund. So that money is not truly available. Plus, we estimate that it would cost about the same to redo our guest bedroom. Well if that is the case, we should do that first! A guestroom is much more important than a sun porch.

Needless to say, we were both pretty sad about the situation. We were really looking forward to having another room finished--seriously, look at the state of that space!! Having that tower-o-boxes unpacked was an exciting thought. So I got to thinking, "Why not just do something out there that would look nice and be a good temporary solution?"

And that is exactly what I did.

My goal was to utilize the mattress that was out there and also unpack a majority of the boxes. I also wanted to make sure that the space still functioned. This meant that at least one dog pen and various other things that have been stored out there, needed to continue to have a home. Easier said then done. But the room couldn't get much worse than it was before.

First I cleared the space out as best I could and then gave everything a good vacuum, sweep, and mop. At this point the room was smelling lemony-fresh! Plus, all those balls of hair just had to go. Definitely not the accessory that I was going for :)

I decided to buy another white bookshelf--those cheap $15 Walmart bookshelves are really great in a pinch. I also bought a fitted sheet to use on the queen mattress and create a temporary place to read books. I brought in a rug that I had on hand and got rid of the old, stained green one. Finally, I used a bunch of things that I had stored in the guestroom to gussy things up a bit. I really like the overall result. Definitely an improvement. :)

I surprised Jonathan with it last night...and all he has said since then is, "Wow. I just can't get over how nice it looks!" --That's my man!

Fall Cleaning List: Part One

Summer is coming to an end. Can you believe that the beginning of September is only a week and a half away?!

That's crazy. 

Living in a college town, the beginning of the school year isn't only marked by yellow school buses being visible all day, but also the amount of young adults that are everywhere.  The noise level also seems to increase a hundred fold and our quiet little town turns into a bustling metropolis. 

OK. Maybe not quite a metropolis, more like a constant drunken party, but either way, you get the idea. 

So, the real reason for this post is not to tell you all about the invasion of the body snatchers college students, it's to tell you how much I love lists and share with you the recent list that Jonathan and I made. Think: Goals for the End of the Summer. Basically, this list is our way of whipping our house into shape before we hibernate away for the winter. 

Let's start outside.

Since moving in, we really haven't touched much outside. It has never been a priority and to be honest the amount of work we need to do out there is a bit daunting. We have at least three trees we want to take down, the entire perimeter of our house is surrounded by bushes we want to rip out, and there are four flower beds that we need to empty. 

We did take down one small tree, already, and Jonathan ripped out a few small bushes scattered around the property, but that has been it. Our goal, in the next two weeks, is to rip out all of the bushes around the house, empty all of the flower beds, and prepare things for next year in general. It would be nice to start off summer 2013 with an open property ready for some landscaping. 

Another thing on our list, well my list more specifically, is to clean all of our windows. After the bushes are ripped out, it will be a lot easier to get to the windows and give them a good scrub. In preparation for winter, I would also like to get a good look at them and make sure all of the storm windows are set.

Another thing I would like to accomplish is cleaning out and organizing our shed. The space off the side of our garage is a bit, well, cluttered with all sorts of things. It would be nice to get everything out of there and then clean it and put things back in more organized. I have a feeling we would open a lot of space by doing so.

There are plenty of other things that we would like to accomplish before the lake effect snow drifts in, but this is a start. If we can accomplish these things by next Saturday, I will be happy. As it is already Wednesday and we haven't even started any of these, this seems like a stretch. Plus with the rest of the week being booked so I'm hoping we can accomplish some stuff next week.

Here's to hoping! 

Gorgeous Chairs

As per our last post, there are some pictures I need to share with you. Pictures of certain chairs that were an early birthday gift from my parents. But first things first, let me give you the back story.

While we were in Canada we did a bit of shopping. We usually head into Huntsville, made popular by Shania Twain and Tom Thompson, to visit the wonderful little shops that line downtown. I love taking time to walk through all of the antique stores, art stores, and especially love visiting the Nutty Chocolatier--mmm love their frozen yogurt.

This year, we walked into an antique store that I had never been into before. I believe in years past it was a used record store. Still cool, but doesn't quite excite me the way that used, old stuff does. We walked through the doors and right away I spotted a pair of green leather chairs. They weren't just green...they were lime green. They were the perfect scale and were old school, but still sleek enough that they would fit into the decor of our home. I squealed, showed them to Jonathan, and then left empty handed. Yea...they were vetoed. Too expensive and we really had no way of getting them home in our tiny Subaru.

Fast forward a week and we were home. One evening we went out at my grandparents to spend time with them, my parents, and my little brother. At one point my parents asked me to come out to the car to look at something. I of course agreed...completely oblivious. They opened the back door of their SUV and suddenly I saw lime green...THE BEAUTIFUL CHAIRS FROM THE ANTIQUE STORE! I was so surprised and completely caught off guard. I actually didn't even notice them at first because I was too distracted. They said that they went back and grabbed them after Jonathan and I left--they were an early birthday gift.

Well those little sneaks! I was so surprised and excited. And I have to say, they fit perfectly into our home. I have since rearranged a bit and one fits perfectly on the one side of our living room. Here is a before and after for you.

As you can see, in this progress picture, we originally had a rocker on the left side of our living room. I loved the rocker, but with most of our furniture being brown, it didn't really make a statement or anything. Plus, going with the whole first-floor-color-scheme idea, I wanted to pull in more of the lime green-grellow color. Enter amazing chair from parents and a bit of tweaking and I think it looks a whole lot better!

The other one is waiting patiently to be utilized on our future porch. I can't wait to see what it looks like out there! :)