Lots of Randoms

This post is going to be about a lot of random things because I'm behind a bit. A couple of weeks ago, we went to Napa for the first time. Neither Mitch or I are really big fans of wine to begin with but after an afternoon of tasting, I came to the conclusion that I just really don't like wine. There were a couple that I would drink if they were already out and available to me at a party or something, but I decided that I would never actively go out and buy these wines. Anywho, the scenary was BEAUTIFUL. The winery we chose to do our only tasting at was a castle! I think it was called Castelo de Amoroso or something like that. They had a drawbridge:

Beautiful view looking out over the valley

                                                                      The chapel

                                                                  Big dining room

                                                                        Sheep!!!

In other news, we are in the process of rebuilding our and our neighbors side gate. These are the steel frames and post that will be the basic support of the whole thing. When finished it will be covered with wood, but we haven't had a change to get to that yet, so there are big sheets of plywood covering it at the moment.

Now that I have a functional oven, I've been baking......

We bought a dining set. When the leaf is in, it seats 8 people. The leaf is not in here. This is how it will look unless we are entertaining. I was going to post a before (with our card table and folding chairs) and after picture, but I came home from work one day last week and my wonderful husband had come home early and had already taken the folding table and chairs down and assembled the new table!

By the way, when we were in Napa, we stayed at the local Holiday Inn Express & Suites. I like staying at those hotels because I find them super clean and nice. Well this particular one had the most AMAZING creation EVER.....an automatic pancake maker machine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Press a button and 45 seconds later, 2 fresh hot pancakes come off the conveyor belt. Oh man, I want one......

A Mickey Mouse Fix

 No, this is not a post about a recent visit to Disneyland (although I wish it was). To be honest, I've never quite understood the term anyways. In case you weren't aware, in constuction terms, doing something Mickey Mouse is doing something haphazard and shoddy, which doesn't make sense. The Disney Mickey Mouse is none of these, so again, I don't know why the term means what it does. Anyways, I digress. So presently, we have a separate rangetop stove and oven:

On said rangetop, the lighter doesn't light. therefore, I have to use an actual lighter to light it. Also, in said oven, something is wrong with it and when I try to bake, the outside of things burn before the inside bakes. Since baking is one of my fav things to do, this is quite the bummer. I have avoided baking at all costs since we've lived in this house because of this confounded oven. Also, please note orange extension cord extending vertically to plug my microwave in.

Although we would LOVE to redo the kitchen completely before Christmas, in my heart of hearts I don't think that's going to happen because of the cost involved. Therefore, I BEGGED Mitch to at least put our new oven rangetop in (we already purchased a new one along with a new fridge and microwave hood because of a great deal we got). Mitch hates to do anything less than perfect when it comes to construction so this pretty much killed him to agree to this, but I told him he would benefit because I would be able to bake again. Therefore, he did this: 

 And this is what it currently looks like. Mitch will be putting shelves where the hole from the oven is. I will have to store pots and pans there because of the cabinet space lost, but I don't even care. I'm so excited to have our new oven rangetop in the kitchen instead of in the garage. Also, when we pulled the oven out, we found out that there was an electric outlet in the wall! Therefore, goodbye orange extension cord!

Also, as a side note, if you are wondering what 40 years of dust accumulated looks like, here is your answer:

Our 1st Anniversary

I know......"Gosh, Stephanie. That took you long enough!" Our 1st wedding anniversary was July 10th and life's been way busy since we got back and although I did look at the photos I took, I just never got around to putting a post together until now. So as you may know, Mitch and I returned to Kauai for our 1st wedding anniversary. We were so blessed to be able to go 2 years in a row and we LOVED every minute of it. It was so amazing and beautiful there, just like it was on our Honeymoon! Here are some pics of the week. Enjoy!

While we were there, we drove around alot of "off the beaten path" roads and found this beautiful little fishing hole with a beautiful home in the background.

 We also did a lot of 4-wheeling on the many hunting roads that we discovered Kauai has

 Mitch was bound and determined to park as close to our condo as possible....jeep, meet curb

 Beautiful sunset

This beach (Tunnels Beach) has a reef so large you can see it from space. We spent most of the day here going snorkling.

Looking at the coast from our Na Pali Coast Dinner cruise we took

This tunnel was in Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Johnny Depp goes through it to finally find the Fountain of Youth. Our Captain said in another movie they actually flew a helicopter through that hole. Not sure how though.....

On our dinner crusise, we saw a school of dolphins!

The boat we were on

On the flight home, the pilot came in from the North and flew over California for about 25 minutes. Pretty dang cool.

Hope you enjoyed all the photos. We absolutely LOVE Kauai and the peacefulness and beauty that exists there. We were feeling so blessed to be able to go two years in a row and decided to take a break before trying to go back. However, we recently found out that we will be attending a wedding on Kauai next summer! Going for year 3!

B-I-NGO!

My office does an annual Bingo event for charity and we have always been out of town every year during that weekend. This year we went and almost our entire small group went with us along with one of my friends Amber with her boyfriend Jonathan. It was really alot of fun, even though none of us won a darn thing!

The Great Hiding of the Boxspring

So sometimes these creative ideas just pop in my head and I decide to do them without giving much consideration to thoughtful planning or difficulty. I pretty much just wing it off of whatever I am picturing in my head. On Saturday I go the bright idea to sew a bedskirt for our bed. I absolutely LOVE our bedset that we bought from West Elm, but it didn't come with a bedskirt and it has always bothered me that when the bed is made you can still see the boxspring. So, I was determined to fix that!

This post is not going to be really step by step, because as I said before, I kind of just "winged" it. So I bought fabric that closely matches our shams (yay Walmart! JoAnns actually disappointed me this time). I bought a super cheap flat white sheet to act as the top lining. First I laid out the sheet and cut it exactly to the width and length of the bed.

***WARNING***

Do not even consider this project unless you are patient (ironic that I'm not). The total project time for this was literally about 16 hours. My husband can vouch for that because thats how long our house was torn apart. Also, because he had to cook dinner two nights in a row so that I could finish sewing.

Added a pleat

Soon after starting, I realized that my single one stitch sewing machine wasn't going to cut it, so I went out and bought a new one. As soon as I set it up, I realized that the blasted thing doesn't accomodate normal sized thread bobbins! Therefore, I had to set my bobbin up on my old machine (background) and thread the thread through the front new machine! How ridiculous! Needless to say, I took it back......

I measured up from the floor and cut slits in the material. This was the most frustrating part of the entire project. It didn't take me super long, but all the measuring to accomodate the bed frame was ridiculous. I later finished the cuts with a seam.

  Lastly,  I sewed finished edges on two panels. I then sewed these panels to the backside of the bedskirt at the foot corners. This provided a covering for the boxspring on the corners so that you can't see it.

 The finished product! I'm so happy with it! (Just don't look to closely at the seams...haha)