Ball So Hard

This weekend our good friends Stryker and Kathy were getting married in San Juan Capistrano so we decided to make a SoCal trip of it, our first vacation since buying the house! I spent Monday to Thursday in Charlotte and from there flew to Los Angeles first class. Again, weekends like this make me appreciate the perks of consulting so much. Using points, I booked Thursday night at my new favorite hotel, the SLS Beverly Hills.

The SLS!

To my surprise, we got upgraded to ridiculous suite in this gorgeous hotel. I love L.A. so so much so it was fun to have a great experience our only night there. This will be my go-to hotel for future trips to L.A., I was super impressed.

Pictures don't do it justice!

We were exhausted but decided we had to get one drink at the hotel bar (I really wanted to see a celebrity). Apparently, the new "it" thing in L.A. is craft cocktails, so we got the most beautiful gin and tonics I've ever seen.

It was an early night with no celebrities but we were stoked to be staying at this swanky hotel. The next morning we grabbed a delicious breakfast in the hotel lobby before going on a hike at Runyon Canyon!

We stopped in L.A. before heading to Hawaii for our honeymoon and we really enjoyed hiking Runyon Canyon. Since we were on east coast time and up so early, we made sure to head back.

Good morning LA!

After our hike, it was time to head to Orange County! All the out of town guests were invited to a rehearsal dinner Friday night so the girls decided to get nails and hair done while the boys went to the shooting range.

pretty hair :)

The trip was a great opportunity for me to get to know my Accenture co workers on a more personal level and also let them meet Andrew as well. Unfortunately, I did not do a great job taking pictures at the rehearsal dinner but it was lovely! The next morning, we were up early again to explore Orange County.

so beautiful

Lovely morning!

Andrew spent the morning mountain biking with my co worker so his fiance and I went on a walk around our hotel. Again, just so lovely and the weather was perfect.

After our walk, it was finally time to head to the wedding! The whole event took place in a family friend's back yard and it was just beautiful.

My favorite date

We had so much fun on this little trip and I will miss Stryker and Kathy so much when she moves to London in January! We will be making a trip to Europe next year to visit :)

Our only picture from the evening :(

Love this girl!

Feels Like Home

My parents moved to Kutztown, PA a month after I graduated high school and now that we live in the city, going home always brings me a quiet peace. The setting is beautiful and we always enjoy the best of country food and living. 

Beautiful morning

This weekend we took a quick trip to Kuztown for Andrew's cyclocross bike race. It was the perfect fall day and we were overdue for a trip home.

The race start

Unfortunately, my dad was on a business trip in California, but I did have an opportunity to spend some time with my mom, Aunt Hallie and Uncle Larry. Andrew couldn't help but smirk as we screamed his name every time we saw him. He loves having a cheer squad :)

Biggest (and loudest) fans!

Andrew had a great first and last cross race of the season so now it was time to take advantage of everything Kutztown has to offer, including my mom's house decorating advice!

I have always been his #1 Fan

First we had to do a little bit of shopping in the local market. Andrew is always so super hungry after these cross races, so it was smoothies, donuts and egg sandwiches for the little cyclist.

So so so good!

Next it was a trip to our favorite used furniture store, somewhere my mom goes every Thursday to check on the latest furniture for us. This place is convenient, cheap and full of furniture with a lot of character. My goal is to find a similar place in the Philadelphia area to do my furniture shopping!

Random furniture everywhere

We were in need of just one more piece of furniture for our living room and my mom had the best idea for us. She has had her eye on this buffet for awhile, I just needed to be there to see it and approve. You were right, Mirk, good job :)

so fancy

We weren't exactly planning on buying furniture so we had lots of fun trying to figure out the best way to get the buffet in our car, along with everything else we were carrying around.

Not a chance.. 

Bam Bam

Leave it to our trusty Civic to fit everything in the car: the bike, a bed frame, the buffet and a new piece my mom gave us to use as a coffee table.

It all fits!

Next, we had a date with our good friends, Mel and Keegan, whose daughter just turned 1 and I had never met! Luella Linder is the sweetest and most pleasant babies and it was a pleasure finally meeting her!

Just the sweetest little girl

I was not convinced on carpet for the bedrooms, but the Linder's home is wood floors with carpeted bedrooms, and it really made the bedrooms feel comfortable. Their house was awesome inspiration for me so we made my mom come to Home Depot with us to pick out carpet.

We felt so many different carpets!

I was so happy my mom came with us since I have no idea what I am doing when it comes to carpet. We decided to put in a light and comfortable carpet, which I cannot wait to have installed! 

Our new carpet!

We also picked out lights for the second floor bathroom, which needs some love before we have anyone over for a housewarming party. 

what a fox

Mary teaching Andrew about lights

Again, I am so happy my mom was with us to help pick out the lights. She has great taste and you cannot beat 25 years of house mistakes and experience!

These two.

After our Home Depot trip it was time to get back to Philly to unload our new furniture! It was an interesting trip home but we were super happy with the look of the new buffet.

Looking good!

This weekend we are in L.A. for a wedding so I had to be strategic about which housework I did when and when to schedule a manicure (my first manicure since buying the house, so sad!). I decided Saturday night would be the best time for me to finish painting the stairs so I could do manicures Sunday morning.

Hopefully my last time using oil-based paint

We are definitely feeling the crunch to get as much done possible in the limited time we have before our tri party and housewarming party. Poor Andrew spent all day Sunday completing a homework assignment, so it was limited house time. 

Cool curtains, right?

We will get there, slowly but surely :)

Wood Flooring... Again

Last Saturday Dan officially moved in and it is so much fun having a roomie! He is such a sweetheart and always willing to help with house chores so I think we all made the right choice having him move in! He has been sleeping on an air mattress since last week and Thursday night he finally had his bed delivered, which he found at Sam's club. The bed he chose is called "Night Therapy," and it came tightly rolled up in a box.

So strange

You cut it open and it unfolds completely

The bed is surprisingly comfortable and super reasonably priced so we are considering buying the same bed for our guest room! 

Brother bonding moment

After putting the bed together, we decided to do a light night tile ripping session of the third floor tiles.We have been living with boxes of wood in our office for the past couple of weeks and we are ready for the wood floors to be done. 

Before

During

It's amazing how much faster things go with an extra person! We were able to have all the tiles ripped out and in our favorite dumpster down the street in less than an hour!

We went to New York on Friday night so Saturday was a very light day of house work.  After having a very lazy day, Andrew prepped the floors for Sunday's flooring while I painted every other step black!

Ghettooooo

This was my first experience using an oil-based paint. It was definitely much different from working with normal paint and so difficult to clean but I was very happy with the end results! 

The paint needs to dry for at least 12 hours before painting another coat and we can't walk on it for about a week so the poor cats had to spend the night in the basement :( In hindsight, it was not the best idea to paint the stairs the day before we did hardwood upstairs since we had to run up and down the stairs all day, but lesson learned for next time. Is there ever a right time to paint stairs?

After

Sunday morning we were up bright and early to finally install our second to last wood floors (we are carpeting the bedrooms and putting wood floors in the office)! The first, and trickiest part, is starting the floor at the stairs to ensure the floors are square. Andrew measured the stair and realized that we needed to cut it to make it fit over the old step.

My little table saw-er

Andrew was a quarter of the way cutting through the stair when the table saw suddenly turned off. At this point, we had already picked up the nail gun rental at Home Depot and we were fully invested in starting the floors. All three of us played with the table saw for awhile to try to make it work.

Why won't it work!?

After about an hour of trying to make it work, Dan finally said, "Hey, did you guys try the reset button?"... and we were back in business! Welcome to projects with Andrew and Emma, Dan :)

Finally getting started

And of course the cats helped

When Andrew and I installed the second floor we were up and ready to go at 8:30am but it wasn't until 12pm that we finally nailed our first board. We ran into so many unexpected issues and by 8:00pm we weren't finished. This time, we used 12pm as our benchmark and, after the saw mishap, we met it! We started the floors just before 12:00pm. I was the board selector, Andrew was the nailer and Dan helped wherever we needed him until he got the hang of it.

Dan working hard

It is amazing what a difference an extra hand makes! While Andrew was busy cutting the boards for the trickiest areas (doorways, closets, ends of the hallway), Dan and I were able to make some serious progress. Dan was even impressed at my crowbar abilities! We all quickly realized how not square our walls are so we did have to get a little creative with the wall edges to improve the gap. We hope that it won't be noticeable when we put up the trim!

By 6:00 I was able to take the nail gun back to Home Depot! That doesn't sound very impressive but it is HUGE for us! I got home at 7:00pm to one of the best sounds, a vacuum! The boys were cleaning up the mess because we actually finished the floors!

Yay! No more nasty tile!

The only remaining wood! Not bad!

Only a few more weekends left before our triathlon party but we are making progress! I need to finish up the stairs (sorry family) and put up the trim for the floors to be in a good place. I never could have imagined that it would take this long - our original plan was to do downstairs and both hallways the first weekend after we moved in... so funny! Next weekend we are going to start looking at carpets so we can finish up the bedrooms! Stay tuned :)