Rhode Island

Over Memorial Day weekend, Glenn and I flew up to Rhode Island to visit our dear friends, the Gilberts! We lived a 2 second walk apart in Japan and Stella and often found ourselves there for hours at a time. Watching the kiddos, enjoying margaritas or having a good cry. Whatever the day entailed! I've missed Kristy, Drew and their little Giblettes so much!

We got in late on Friday night and stayed up late chatting. On Saturday, we headed to the Cliff Walk. A gorgeous walking/running path that overlooks the bay and is backed by humungeous old mansions. A perfect combination in my world.
On Sunday, we returned to the same area and checked out The Breakers. A Vanderbilt mansion. Our Vanderbilt world tour continues! It was huge, opulent and over the top, but so cool to see.

On Sunday night, Kristy got a babysitter and we headed out to downtown Newport to a great seafood restaurant and then to one of the bars downtown. Newport is a cute little town with so much history. I loved all the little shops and colonial homes.

The rest of the weekend was a lot of relaxing, donut eating and hanging out with the kiddos. It felt like we were neighbors again. I can't wait til they come down to Virginia in August. Thanks for having us Gilberts!

This is how my garden grows

My mini garden is doing great! I even see my first few green tomatoes. I realized too late that you are suppose to have stakes/cages for the squash so I'm not sure how many yellow squash I will get, but now I know for next year. Also, I should have planted just one or two of the squash and tomatoes. They've gotten big! The herbs are doing great though and I made a margarita pizza with my basil last night. Love that!

We missed you!

Last month was the Norfolk wine festival...always a wonderfully drunken good time. Last time we lived here, I missed it because I was studying for my LEED AP exam for work. Bad planning on my part. I did get to pick up Glenn and then escort him home as he puked out the side of my newish car, but that's a whole other story.

This year's festival was beautiful weather and made all the more fun by the return (to us and Norfolk) of our friends, Chris and Gizelle. We hadn't seen eachother since July 2010 until the beginning of this year.

I love having them so close! We missed you!

Also, side note, doesn't my hubby look gooooood in this pic? Yeah, I thought so too.

Kitchen is painted!

So I've been stinking at this blogging thing, but I spent all 7 of the last 10 days working on the kitchen. I had to revise my plan because, well my arms couldn't handle it. After rolling the kitchen ceiling I decided to stop with ceilings and move on to the walls and trim in the kitchen. It was already a mess anyway. So now we have a nice jagged paint line between the kitchen and the dining room, but that will be fixed in phase 2. I'm guessing when Glenn comes home, that will be sooner than later!

This was my schedule last week:
Monday- edge the ceiling
Tuesday- paint the ceiling
Wednesday- scrape/prep the trim
Thursday- paint the trim (4 doors and a window plus baseboards)
Saturday- edge the walls and paint the trim again
Sunday- roll the walls
Monday- touch ups an clean up

For me, phase 2 is several weeks away!

Here is the best part though- the pics. I painted it a color called Ventana by Pratt and lambert, but I had HD color match it in Behr paint.

Did I mention that the old baseboards were BLACK under all the old paint?
Our house is a little piecemeal with old and new baseboards depending on where walls were removed and added. Who paints baseboards black? I wish I had a few before pictures from before the remodel.

Pinspiration #2

I made these forever ago, but I am currently wishing I had a whole bunch more. They are super easy and only have a few ingredients: cream cheese, vanilla and powered sugar. Whip it up and pipe it in to a hollowed out strawberry. The recipe calls for crushed graham crackers on top but I used a few cookies that we had since I just needed a few.

I loved them because I got the taste of cheesecake without the heaviness or calories of a whole piece of cheesecake. I suppose if I eat a whole plate full, I'm not saving so many calories! Try them!

It begins...

The painting project that I've been avoiding since we moved in begins tomorrow... The downstairs ceiling. We're talking over 1000 sq ft of ceiling, 9 feet in the air. Arms forgive me now. First up is the ceiling, the the trim and lastly, the walls.

I'm starting in the kitchen and working my way towards the living room. I figure it's best if I don't destroy the entire downstairs at once, but Glenn will be gone so I can live with it.

The sooner I start, the sooner I'll be done, right? Wow, this is gonna suck.

Our porch

If our patio wasn't evidence enough, we love spending time outdoors. When we are in town, we love sitting on our porch in the morning and enjoying a cup of coffee.

Our front door faces northish so it's shaded in the morning which is perfect for catching up on my emails and for Stella to watch the passerby.

Family Fun

Just a random selection of photos and events in my family right now!

1. Dave and Jen bought a new house that is under construction. I've been enjoying all the extra pinning inspiration she has been doing. I can't wait to see how it turns out and hopefully see it this fall!

2. Connor lost his two bottom front teeth. He's so proud of himself, it is pretty dang adorable. How is he turning 7 this year?! Time flies.

3. Brooke is still a troublemaker built so cute. The girl loves her heels too!

4. Mom and dad are officially retired! They are celebrating on a European adventure. I can't wait to hear about it when they get back. How many years til Glenn retires? Only 13 more with he Navy....

5. Glenn and I are going to visit some of our Navy family soon- the Gilberts! I can't wait to see them. We haven't seen them since we left Japan and now they are stateside too.

Dining Room: Check!

On my To Do list for months has been the item: "Order dining room chairs". We have the bench that we made, the chairs that I bought on Craigslist and on the otherside of the table...nothing.

I searched for a long time on Craigslist, but couldn't find what I wanted. It didn't help that I kept changing my mind as well.

My first idea was a Bertoia Style chair, but then I decided I wanted something a little weightier. Plus, the only reasonably priced chairs were on Amazon and I couldn't tell by any of the review if they were quality chairs or not.

Next, I moved along to another industrial style chair and found this one from Crate and Barrell. Loved it, just not the $200 price tag.

Then I found this blog post with a few other more affordable options. She ordered a few of the ____ chair. I had three of them in my online shopping cart until I saw the $104 shipping price. Wah wah. I'm just too cheap to pay for that (which is why my initial search was on Overstock.com). Then, I was searching on Pinterest and saw this picture:

And unbeknownst to me, there is a World Market in Newport News! I kindly asked Glenn in his post-drinking haze to drive with me the 21 miles to NN. Now we are the proud owners of 3 Jackson Tub chairs. Sans shipping cost. No more moving chairs around when people come for dinner.

I did have a hard time deciding which side of the table they should go on though. I decided this side, to balance the bar, but Glenn thinks the other side. What do you think?

The dining room is all finished now. Except for paint, but that might be awhile...

"New" Chandelier

When we decided the put a ceiling fan in the bedroom, we knew it made sense to remove one from the dining room and replace it with a pretty chandy.

I looked for awhile but couldn't find one that was big enough for the space AND we could afford. Enter my brother buying a new house and a big chandelier too big for their dining room. Not to mention brass and ugly.

They shipped it to me last week, all 27 lbs of it, and now I've got a ugly brass chandelier. Just kidding of course. That's not my style.

Enter 3 cans of spray paint, a little poly spray and 12 shades ($3 each at Garden Ridge!) So for about $50 plus a new dimmer switch and plate, so really about $85, a new chandelier!

My hubby got his electrician booty on and wired it up. Not quite as smoothly as the fan, but we're learning. Let's just say I sat in the basement to reset the breaker each time it popped. In which time I cleaned up the basement. It was a lot.

Now for the pics!

Before:

A little primer:

First coat:

And finished!

With the lights on. Glad we went with the dimmer. 12 60 watt bulbs is a lot.

Thanks for sending it mom & dad!