Crazy Colors!

The first step to our home transformation was painting. Once you see the paint color they chose you will understand why this house scared us away the first time we walked through. I do wonder what the previous home-owners were thinking. Clearly they had a different style than Luke and I do. So let me take you on a tour of our house so you can experience the awesome paint colors we had to live with before I painted my life away and turned the walls from headache into refreshing. 

When looking at this picture, the front door is on the right. This room and an identical room across from it are the first two rooms upon entering the house.

After passing those first two front rooms is the kitchen and then the family room. These rooms were a bright yellow and this weird brown. The kitchen had paintings of grapes all over. It was gross.  

 

  

 

This is the upstairs guest bathroom. Crazy colors, huh?! I'll get to painting it someday. But this bathroom is a really decent size. I love how roomy it is. And it has a very good-sized linen closet as well as good counter/ cabinet space.

 

 Bedroom #1, which I call the sea shell room because it had sea shell stickers plastered all over the walls, as well as this raffia/ straw wall paper glued onto the bottom half of the wall. This room was a nightmare to paint over.  I scrubbed and scraped for a whole day trying to get the stickers and wall paper off. 

 Bedroom #2: This over the top purple/ green/pink room. 

 

Here's the purple room in the middle of the painting process. Each room took 2 coats of paint to cover up all the craziness!

 This is the Master bedroom, one of the somewhat more mild of the rooms. We have not painted the master yet..... and we may not get to it for a while. It's one of our last priorities among all the other projects we have going on. But we'll get to it some day. I'm thinking gray, white, and yellow....

And that wraps up the tour of the rooms pre-paint. The family room, kitchen, stairwell, upstairs hallway and the 2 guest bedrooms have been painted. I'm planning to wallpaper or stencil the downstairs bathroom. The upstairs bathroom I haven't decided what to do with yet but I think I've stepped foot it in 4 times total so I'm not feeling too rushed to start it anytime soon. I don't think I'm going to touch the laundry room, because for whatever reason that's the only room the previous owners painted a sane color. And the front living and dining room I have big exciting plans for. Luke is going to build me a built-in bookcase and window seat which I'm so excited for, and I plan on placing wainscoting along the bottom half. I've had my eye on some very pretty furniture and someday those two rooms are going to be looking mighty fine. But for now, we're trying to pace ourselves. I'm excited to post our progress thus far. Already within 2 months of living here, this house has undertaken some incredible changes!

Our New Home

A few months ago I abandoned my blog due to the fact that I had nothing blog-worthy to write about. Everyone else seems to have such interesting lives, always having something to share.... but I always felt silly with whatever I posted. 

Well in the recent months Luke and I have gone through quite an adventure as San Marcos, CA's newest home owners. After a quick 28 day escrow process, we packed up and left our apartment home of 2 years and set out to experience home ownership for ourselves. In the rush of packing, and the delay in upacking I have yet to find my journal so I haven't recorded any of the experiences we've had in the last 2 months.... hence my return to blog world.

The home we bought was one of the first houses we ever walked through in our search for a house. We were not impressed and  pretty much wrote it off due to the amount of work that would have to go into it. We put in multiple offers on other homes and always got out bid. We found a few homes that we fell in love with, but didn't like the area. The home search was very emotional and stressful. Somehow we were guided back to the house we're in now. Upon walking through the house the second time, our eyes were opened to the possibilities of what we could do with it. We even wondered why we passed up on it the first time around. It suddenly seemed like it would fulfill all our needs-- it was a decent distant from both our jobs, we were still in the same general area that we were in before when we lived in our apartment, it was a decent size... not too big but something we could grow into. We were so excited and ready to place an offer. We were confident we would get this home, since it had been on the market for a while, but just to be safe we put in an offer a bit higher than the asking price. We had been burned many times by putting in an offer at asking price and then getting out bid, and we didn't want that to happen with this house.  To make a long story short, after what seemed like millions of signatures on millions of documents, on April 6 (28 days later) we had the keys in our hands and were ready to move in. 

Thanks to great friends and Luke's parents, moving out of our apartment and into our home was really not too bad. It was sad leaving our apartment for the last time. Camden Old Creek was our home for 2 years and we had enjoyed so many good times in that little one bedroom home. We knew it was time to move on, but it was difficult leaving the incredible ward we had grown to love, and the memories we had made in that apartment. Thanks, Camden for an awesome time!

Because of the amount of work we had planned to put into the house we kept most of our belongings in the garage for quite a while (in fact many of our boxes are still out there). For the first month we spent many nights watching TV in our family room with pillows propped behind our backs up against the wall. We ate breakfast and dinner on the stairs. Eventually we got real smart and brought in our blow up mattress and set up camp in front of our TV to watch shows and movies when we were ready to relax. It was real ghetto.

Little by little we have brought in our furniture as we have completed projects. So far we have painted most of the interior, placed crown molding and some base boards, installed new appliances, moved a half wall between the kitchen and dining area allowing for more eating space, installed surround sound system in family room, laid hard wood floor in family room, replaced old kitchen counters with new granite, installed kitchen backsplash, placed kitchen hardware,  installed new kitchen sink, and scraped up old vinyl kitchen flooring in preparation to lay new tile flooring. All except installing the kitchen counters we have done ourselves. I am so proud of us for completing all we have done. Luke and I have grown so much closer as we contemplate, make decisions, and carry through all of this together. It's been fun remodeling our home, but I am ready for it to be over so I can start with the actual fun part: decorating. I've done some here and there, but can't wait til everything is ready for me to decorate completely. 

Anyways, I plan on recording our progress and pictures little by little as our house becomes a home.  Enjoy!

Thankful

Since we just celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday, and Christmas and New Years are right around the corner, my mind has been filled lately of the incredible blessing that it is to live the life I do. Recently I have found myself pondering over how and why I have been blessed in so many ways. Surely I have done nothing to deserve the many wonderful things I enjoy. Whatever the reason, I have so much to be grateful for and I thank the heavens for sending me so many wonderful miracles along this journey.

I have the cutest, funniest, most thoughtful, caring, and loving husband in the world. I can't believe I got such a catch. He showers me with love... not just verbally, but through his actions. He makes me laugh, and he makes me smile. I just know that we will have a long and happy eternity together :)

I have a wonderful family with awesome parents and hilarious siblings. I'm so thankful to be able to call them all my best friends. We have the best memories together and although we no longer live under the same roof I'm glad that we are still as close as ever.

My in-law family is the best. I'm so glad I feel welcome and loved in my new family. They make me feel right at home. I'm grateful to each of them for being who they are.... because I know it's through them that my man became who he is, and I thank them for that.

I'm thankful that Luke and I have incredible jobs. In an economy where so many are unemployed, we find it a real treat to not only have jobs but to have ones that we enjoy going to each day.

I'm grateful to have been raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and to know the truthfulness of the gospel... to have the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, and to know of my divine potential to someday become like him. Especially at this time of year, I'm grateful for the birth of Jesus Christ who lived and died for me. May we spread the joy that is the reason for the season.

<3

Thanksgiving

We had such an enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend. We got to spend it with Luke's family in Las Vegas. We watched football, played volleyball, ate lots of yummy food, took family pictures, and enjoyed time together.

We also got to take turns holding this precious girl:

and playing with this guy:
We had such a fun trip, and are excited for the upcoming weeks where we will be able to see both our families again!

Our Orlando Trip

We have been home from our vacation for two weeks now. It was the most needed vaca in the history of my life... and I am already SO in need of another! We had such a blast in Florida with my parents, brother and sister.

We started our trip by taking the Coaster to the San Diego airport, which was a new adventure for me.

This is us waiting for the Coaster to arrive.

We flew from SD to LA and then from LA to Orlando. The flight to LA was seriously 25 minutes long. The other flight was 4.5 hours and since it was a red-eye, it was probably the 2nd worst plane ride I've ever had (1st worst was the flight to Jamaica on our honeymoon when I got super sick). Not only was it a long flight... and in the middle of the night.... but the man sitting next to me was really big, really old, and really smelly. Luke and I would eye each other as people were boarding the plane wondering Is this person going to sit by me? Oh I hope not. Or...I hope we get that girl! (Are we the only people that do that?) And as this guy got closer it became obvious that he was indeed going to be sitting by me (and practically on me)for the next 4.5 hours. I'll just say that fresh air had never felt or smelled as good as it did after that flight was over.

So our flight landed at 6am Eastern time. We got our rental car and headed to our hotel, where we spent most of the day relaxing by the gorgeous pool and exploring all the activities our hotel had to offer. That night we met up with my family at Planet Hollywood in Downtown Disney.

After dinner we walked around Downtown Disney, which was actually really cool. Our favorites were this girl who looked just like a statue and didn't move a muscle, and all the extremely talented musicians.

The next day we went to Disney World. It really wasn't any different than Disney Land, which was kind of sad. We had a ton of fun though. Our favorites were the Buzz Lightyear ride and Space Mountain. We also went to the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, an animated comedy show, which sounds super cheesy, but was actually hilarious, especially since Luke was "That Guy". I guess each show they pick a guy from the audience to kind of pick fun at and they chose Luke. Afterwards they gave him this special sticker. It was seriously hilarious. We were all dying.

It started storming in the late afternoon so we called it quits and went out to dinner.

The next day was LUKE'S BDAY! We went to Universal Studios that day. Sadly my camera was out of battery and I forgot to recharge it so I have no pics. This was definitely my favorite park. There were awesome rides-- the Hulk and Spiderman were among our favorites. We also got SOAKED on a few water rides. Of course.... Hogwarts was incredible. It seriously felt like we were in Hogwarts. Everything looked so legit. The rides were pretty awesome too. I so wish I had pictures of it! That night we went to BJ's and watched the BYU football game, per the Bday boy's request.

On Saturday we went to my dad's work event. It was a trucking competition where a bunch of truck drivers had to compete in some obstacle courses. The heat and humidity really caught up to us that day and we were exhausted after sitting outside for just an hour. Luke and I relaxed by the pool for the remainder of the afternoon until we went to the Hooptie- Doo Review, a dinner/ play that people from my dad's work went to.


On Sunday we went to church for an hour,


walked around the Orlando Temple grounds,

Chased little geckos,

and went on an alligator tour. This was the only alligator I saw, although the tour guide pointed out baby alligators but I never saw them. Afterwards we each took a turn holding a baby alligator. Luke passed for some reason.
Monday was our last day all together. We went to Typhoon Lagoon, a water park. There were some pretty cool rides, and the wave pool was awesome.

The fam took off that evening while Luke and I scored some sweet deals at a near by Outlet mall. We left the following morning and have been home ever since. Coming back to real life is always such a bummer... especially when it involved piles of work that need to be done. We spent the rest of the week playing catch-up. We are now back into the regular swing of things... and are anxiously awaiting another vacation, although I don't think it will be for a long while.

Our Latest Adventures

We have had some fun and crazy adventures lately. The last few weeks have been crazy, busy, fun, exhausting, and I seriously cannot wait for two weeks from now when we will be relaxing in Florida. It will be a MUCH needed vaca.

Last week we went to the Chargers vs 49ers game with some people in the ward. It was my first NFL game, and was really fun. The stadium was actually less impressive than I had imagined it would be, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless.


Labor Day weekend was so much fun! We had most of Luke's family in town, as well as our great friends Kevin and his wife Kelli. We loved having everyone together and enjoying so much company! We spent a rather overcast Saturday at the beach.... the girls tried to catch as many rays as we could while the boys played countless games of beach volleyball (something Luke had been wanting to do ever since we moved here, but has never had enough guys to play with). Then we pigged out with some Phil's BBQ in our living room watching the BYU football game, and later did some shopping where I got a KILLER deal on some much needed new bathing suits.

We were also able to attend a session at the temple. It was neat to be there with family and friends.


Afterwards, Kevin, Kelli, Luke and I spent the day at SeaWorld. It was so much fun. We have lived here for a year and a half and had never been to Sea World until last weekend, and I think Luke would agree that it exceeded our expectations. We both loved the Shamu show the best.





This Thursday we, as well practically the rest of So Cal, some of Mexico and Arizona were affected by the blackout that I'm sure everyone heard about. I was at work when it happened... we had patients in the chairs and had to let everyone go and cancel the rest of the day's appointments. We got to go home a little early, which was nice, but it took over an hour to drive home in the ridiculous amount of packed traffic. That night was so eerie. We drove around town, just curious if anything was open. Of course nothing was, but it was weird to drive around and see no street lights, no store signs, no gas stations open... everything was out. We hung out with some friends that night, ate some peanut butter & honey sandwiches, and played some card games under the light of some lanterns and candles. Rumor had it that the electricity would not return until Friday or possibly even Saturday. Luckily we got ours back on at 10:30 that night. It really made us think how grateful we are for the things we take for granted every day... like electricity.

I have a hot husband! Seriously. I'm sitting here lazily on the computer while he's doing P90X right in front of me (he just asked me if my fingers are getting a good work out...) and I like watching him. I'm so proud of him for being dedicated and working so hard at being more active. He's doing great :) I even tried it with him last night... and it's NOT easy! Props to my man!

This past weekend was so much fun! Our good friends Nate and Liz came to visit from Utah. Luke was seriously in heaven. I forgot how good of friends he and Nate were. The whole weekend I could just tell he was so happy. We spent time at the beach, watched movies, and ate way too much. Unfortunately both of our cameras are broken so we didn't take a single picture the whole weekend. We didn't even think until after the weekend was over that we should have taken some on our phones. Oops!

Maybe we'll take some this weekend b/c we have a lot more visitors coming. Most of Luke's family will be coming down as well as some other really good friends from college. We can't wait! It will be so fun to have family and friends with us for a whole weekend!

THEN just a few short weeks later, Luke and I will be jumping on a plane and flying across country to hang out with my family in Orlando, FL! We are so excited for all the fun things we have coming up :)