bah humbug!

This is how our holiday season started....


But after it fell twice and we bought a new stand, everything is pretty again....

Brass to Black

This house was full of brass when we moved in. We have slowly been converting all of it to either black or dark bronze. This includes light fixtures, fans, and hardware.

Similar to the original entryway fixture (can't find the real picture)....


The new light fixture...

This light was another great craigslist find. It was $250 and the one we had picked out from Lowes was going to be $600! Getting the light installed was not such an exciting story... it was not fun to say the least.

More blue gone!

Before and afters of the carpet on the stairs....

Before:
After:


The Hallway...And FINALLY....no more carpet in the bathroom! (blue tile is tolerable for now)

Bye Bye Blue

I hinted in the last post about blue carpet. This blue carpet was in the entire house. The first thing we did when moving in (July 08) was rip out the blue carpet in dining room and living room and extend the hardwoods. Therefore, the entire first floor is either hardwood or tile.

Before (This is from the realtor's website)....

after...The light fixture in the dining room used to look like this....
As you can see, we also replaced that with an amazing $60 craigslist find (compared to the $300 I really wanted from pottery barn).

Finally some HDTV!

We have this great living space off the kitchen. We love the open feeling that flows from kitchen to eating to living. It is one of the major things that made us fall in love with this house over any other. Unfortunately, the built-in TV cabinet was made for an old school tube TV. Our lonely HDTV sat mostly unused in the basement for the entire first year we lived here. Luckily... my father is rather handy dandy when it comes to carpentry. He removed the old cabinet (in pieces) and built a brand new unit to slide in!

Before (picture taken when visiting the open house before purchase... note the blue carpet)

After (beautiful TV and hardwoods)

Fetch!

My parents had the "blessing" of keeping an eye on my dogs while we were in CA over labor day weekend. They also got to babysit their grandson Braden. Rocky is the type of dog that will play fetch for hours. Braden was wildly entertained with this! Everyone was happy :)

Duke looks oddly dwarf in the angle of this picture.

Unfortunately he has not shrunk smaller than his 112 lbs!

San Francisco & Monterey

For Labor Day 2009 we visited Joe's sister in San Francisco. Joe was already there for work and I met him there for a long weekend. He picked me up from the airport and we went straight to a lookout point near Sausalito (it was VERY windy)...

After that we headed down to Sausalito to walk around, check out the town, and have a drink. I don't have any pictures... whoops!

In the morning we went to Shelly's house for breakfast and then drove to Monterey. We had lunch and then went straight to the Monterey Aquarium. It was insanely busy (the Saturday of a holiday weekend) but it was still full of great exhibits. Some of my favorites were...

Jellyfish! Oddly mesmerizing to watch....

The seahorses were crazy. They had so many different types that I didn't know existed.

These looked like leaves...

That evening we drove down to Carmel along the "17-mile drive." The drive consisted of great views, fancy houses, and plenty of places to stop and share a bottle of wine!

Joe & I...

Justin, Shelly, Joe, and I....

In the morning we went on a whale watching trip. It took awhile to find the whales but, we ended up seeing 2 different pairs of Blue Whales (the largest type of whale) and one pair of Humpback Whales! That is SIX whales along with lots of other sea lions, sea otters, and birds. It was a great trip but, a little hard to photograph.

Pelicans...

Sea Lions...
Blue Whales ...
Humpback tail...

Breckenridge 2009

We had an awesome trip to Breckenridge this August. Very relaxing! The parents had rented a house for a few weeks and we were able to make it out there for 5 days. Below are some pictures of the highlights...

Braden did great on the plane...

The view from our house...

The girls did some hiking with Braden...

And the "kids" went whitewater rafting and out on the town!

We like to call him Bobblehead...

Rocky got his summer haircut.

We think he looks rediculous but, he loves it.

Before:

After:

Joe's 30th Birthday

It is the birthday that never ends! As part of Joe's 30th Birthday Weekend Extravaganza, I got him The Racing Experience. I only splurged for the ride-along (because the driving one is rediculously expensive). Well, it rained the day of the event in April and we rescheduled it for a weekend in June. My Mom and Dad wanted to come because Mom had never been to the speedway. They just happened to be babysitting Braden at the time so, he experienced his first race track as well!

The Newby Wedding

Joe's sister, Cindy, got married last weekend! Jeff and Cindy truly make the best couple and compliment each other perfectly. I am so excited for them! I didn't take that many pictures (left that to the MANY photographers that were there).

Joe is the third from the right. I had never seen him in a tux :)

Cute Centerpices. Vintage silver vases and floral table runners (probably Amy Butler Fabric).

Here is a link to a sneak peak to just SOME of the MANY pictures that were taken by the pros:

http://weddings.halbergphotographers.com/slideshows/Jeff-and-Cindy/

Vietnam Days 11 thru 15 - 03/11/09 - 03/15/09

We spent the next day doing absolutely nothing... again! Eden Bar (below) was one of our favorite places for dinner.

At this point we were missing the dogs a lot. We saw this puppy on the beach. He was digging up crabs (white thing on right side of picture) and chasing them around the beach. We were thrilled to see that puppies act the same everywhere!

In case you hadn't gotten a grasp for how remote this island was...

A few days later we headed back to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). We stayed overnight and then caught a very early flight to make the trip back home. This is an example of the lovely traffic in Saigon and Hanoi. It is CRAZY.




FAQ:

Q: How did you cross the street?

A: We usually tried to walk next to a local but, if not... you just have to walk at a constant pace and they will swerve around you.

Q: How long did it take to get there?

A: About 28 hours total. We flew from KC to Chicago to Hong Kong to Saigon. It was quite an interesting flight path. We actually flew over the North Pole and saw some amazing views of Siberia. Ambien was our friend.

Q: Was it hot?

A: It was about 95+ degrees in the South (very humid) and about 75 degrees in the North



Q: Was it difficult to understand people/ did they understand you?

A: The only place we had difficulty was in taxis but, we just wrote down where we wanted to go and we got everywhere just fine. We took more guided tours than we normally would but, we were on a tight schedule and we were unsure of the language barrier.

Q: What is the currency?

A: The Dong (no joke). The exchange rate at the time was about 17,000 dong to the dollar. It is a little disturbing to take 2 million dong out of the ATM but, that is just over $100 dollars.

Q: Was the food good?

A: We had some great meals and some average meals*. We really prefer more flavor in our food (like Thai) but, Vietnamese food in general is a bit on the bland side. Breakfast was sometimes difficult... they eat Pho for breakfast everywhere. (*note: don't eat airport food)

Q: What were the domestic planes like?

A: We flew Vietnam Airlines for all of our domestic flights. The planes between Hanoi and Saigon were 747s that were nicer than our United flight to Vietnam. We took a small prop plane to the island.

Q: Did you ever feel unsafe?

A: Nope, they loved us. Especially Stacy's hair and pale skin. They all cover themselves from head to toe (including gloves) so that their skin stays fair. You always seem to want what you can't have!

I think that is about it. We had an amazing trip and would highly recommend it for any of the more adventurous travelers out there!

Vietnam Day 10 - 3/10/09

After spending 2 days doing almost nothing around the resort, we decided to go snorkel ling. We signed up for an all day trip that included 5 stops and lunch. The whole thing cost $17 each. The guides had us quite disturbed about jellyfish (which we never saw any) but, Stacy practically had a panic attack when she saw a plastic bag in the water that was headed straight for Joe :)

Joe fishing for lunch (with no luck)

Stacy caught 2 and wasn't even trying!

This is where we stopped for lunch...

Vietnam - Days 8 & 9 - 3/8/09 - 3/9/09

We had one more night in Hanoi and we took an early morning flight to Phu Quoc to spend the rest of our trip. The first 8 days of the trip were very busy and we were looking forward to spending the rest of the trip relaxing.

This is a picture from the plane. You can see the red dirt roads. There were very few paved roads on the whole island.

We stayed at a wonderful resort called Cassia Cottage. The place slept about 40 people but, you always felt like you had the place to yourself. This was our private beach....

Beaches are just a little too sandy and salty for us (crazy! I know!) so, we prefer to lounge poolside where you can hear and see the ocean.

This is the little bridge down to the beach. To the right is the restaurant and to the left is the massage hut. One hour massages were FIVE DOLLARS!