Vacation "Out West" circa 1993

For a while now, I've been meaning to scan old pictures to have a back up and have them more accessible with the rest of my digital pictures. Tonight I finally started this project! I scanned pictures of a trip that I took the summer after 5th grade with Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle David. Here are some of the highlights!

We started the trip by driving to St. Louis. You'd expect that I would have taken pictures of the arch and other famous St. Louis landmarks, but instead I documented a picture of one of the "best playgrounds I'd ever seen" (according to my writing on the back of the picture). I think it may have been at a truck stop.

From there we made our way to South Dakota. I remember being amazed at the Corn Palace, where they had murals made of corn. Random!

Here are some great pictures from the Badlands:

Uncle David, me, Grandpa

Uncle David, Grandma and Grandpa

Here is Devil's Tower, also in South Dakota.

 And I can still remember watching the prarie dogs play! So cute!

We visited Mt. Rushmore -

And Yellowstone National Park -

A highlight of the trip was playing in the snow in the middle of the summer when it wasn't even cold outside! I think these pictures are all from Glacier National Park.

This was my first time leaving the United States, since we decided to drive into Canada for a bit. I'm probably remembering this story wrong, but as I remember it, the Customs officials had no problem letting my grandparents carry me out of the country without any documentation. However, when it came time to drive back into the US, they wouldn't let us through because they didn't have documentation from my parents saying it was ok! So I tell the story that we were stuck in Canada, but I'm sure it wasn't for very long at all!

From Montana we drove down to Utah and saw the sights around Salt Lake City...

The great Salt Lake -

 The Mormon Cathedral (if that is what it's called, I don't know!)

 And a cool mine.

We visited Dinosaur National Monument where we saw plenty of dinosaur fosssils and good photo ops!

At some point in the trip, we came across the Gardner River and of courses stopped to take pictures.

Finally, here are some miscellaneous pictures that I'm not sure exactly where they were taken, but they are blog-worthy anyway!

Nursery Decorations!

Justin and I started working on our nursery as soon as we found out that we are having a GIRL, but I haven't posted pictures because it's been such a work in progress. Those that know us know we have quite a few projects going at any point in time... and we start them at a faster rate than we finish them!

I decided as soon as I started looking at nursery decor that I wanted one of those big tree wall decals, so that was my first purchase. I also wanted white furniture, partly because I like it, and partly because then we could buy anything and paint it to match! My good friend Lisa offered me her old crib, which happened to be white, so we had a starting point.

But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself...

We had been planning to redo the floors in our three downstairs bedrooms for a while, but hadn't gotten around to it. They were all shag carpet, and although we had it professionally cleaned, it was questionable how clean that carpet could actually get. I like hard floors where if they are dirty, you can tell it, but at least you know they are really clean. They look better in this picture than they did in real life:

It was quite a project, but we ripped up the carpet in our bedroom, the guest bedroom and the office (that would become the nursery) and replaced it with hardwood, which I LOVE! My only complaint is the pitter-patter of little dog toenails ALL NIGHT LONG! (We still need to put a transition piece between the hallway and the bedrooms, but that will come)

We're also doing work in the Jack and Jill bathroom, but that's a post for another day (when that project is finished!)

Once the floors were installed, we decided on a paint color, painted the room, decided we (ok, I) didn't like the color, picked another one and painted again. I'm really happy with the color now, though, so I'm glad that we took the time to redo it.

Justin and I worked together to hang the pink and white cherry blossom tree decal, which was cumbersome to hang but not difficult. We bought "Penelope" bedding from Pottery Barn outlet, since the pink birds go so well with the tree. Here is a picture of that side of the room -

The blue tape is the (approximate) location of bookshelves that Justin is making, so that will be in a later post!

The next project was a dresser that we will use as a changing table. I wanted something more functional than a plain changing table, with drawers, and something big enough to fill up the wall. We found a used dresser for $50 that was in very good shape. It just needed a couple pieces of molding replaced and a coat (or 3) of white paint!

Mom and Dad were in town this past weekend and helped with this project and others, which we REALLY enjoyed and appreciated. Mom and I made it our mission to pick out curtains and we bought and returned quite a few sets on Saturday and Sunday but eventually settled on these soft pink, pleated ones. Dad also helped us to hang the chandelier properly. This is the light fixture that was in the room when we bought the house, but we replaced it because it's really not right for an office. Luckily, Justin stuck it in the attic so we hung it back up!

We still want to hang artwork about the changing table and I'd love to find a cute rug, but at least the big stuff is done!

Bathroom Shelf Project - An easy win!

At any given moment, it seems like Justin and I have 10 different house projects in process, most of which are half-completed and over-whelming. Right now we have so many things we want to do that I created a list in Excel and prioritized it to keep everything straight. With so many projects left undone, I needed to do something easy that I could mark off the list!

This weekend I decided to tackle the easier thing on the list - a new bathroom shelf. A while back I posted pictures where I used a pretty fabric to cover up this ugly space in my bathroom counter:

This was the result... much better!

It worked for a while, but started to fall down and I got tired of trying to fix it, plus for some reason it just wasn't very functional to reach behind the fabric and grab whatever I needed from the pile of hairdryers, flat irons, etc. that collected in such a hidden spot!

I decided that it would be more functional, and probably better looking, to put a shelf in that space, so I asked Justin to cut a piece of plywood and a face, then I painted them white. Justin made a couple brackets and screwed it in. I had already bought a couple baskets from Target for another project I never finished, so I popped them in the new spaces for the finished product:

I think it looks a lot more "finished" and it gave me something to mark off my list with just about an hour's worth of work! Look forward to a future post with some not-so-easy projects, once they are finished!

European Vacation - England!

For our big vacation of the year, Justin and I went to Paris for the Paris Marathon, then to England to see the sights and, more importantly, visit our good friends Chris and Claire Schmidt. We were in Europe for 10 days total and had a wonderful time! We went to Paris first, but I'm posting pictures from England first and hopefully a blog about Paris will follow after I go through those pictures!

After missing our train from Paris to London on Monday, we finally arrived in England on Tuesday morning. This was my first experience on a high-speed train and it was very enjoyable! We went through the "chunnel" under the English Channel, which is a little scary and really amazing.

When we arrived in London we caught a train to the suburbs, then drove to Chris and Claire's house in Brampton. It was an adorable little town with beautiful countryside. One of the crops that seemed to be everywhere was rapeseed, which is used for making oil. This time of year it is flowering to fill beautiful yellow fields. This is a field just a short walk from their house.

It was good to see Bailey again too!

After going 110 miles/hour sightseeing in Paris, in addition to running a marathon, we were ready for a break. It was so nice to be at a friend's house where we could relax and get comfortable like you can't in a rented room. We spent Tuesday afternoon primarily hanging out around the house.

Wednesday we woke up fairly early to travel 3 hours west to Bath. The weather looked iffy, and poor Chris had to drive in some pretty terrible conditions, but once we got there the rain let up long enough to let us enjoy this cute old city. We first visited the Roman Baths, which I really enjoyed. It's amazing that they have excavated so many ruins and figured out what the baths looked like in the first and second centuries. It was surprising to me how much was still in tact. The museum did a great job of explaining the history of the baths in a way that was interesting, too.

In Roman times, people visiting the baths would write their grievances on lead and toss them into the baths for the gods. Historians have uncovered what they said and it's funny to see how trivial some of their problems were, and how harsh their punishments! For instance, one said something along the lines of "So-and-so stole my gloves and therefore should be put to death."

They also through coins into the water just like people do today! Although I think it was an offering to the gods rather than to make a wish, but similar idea!

They had a fountain where we could drink water from the hot springs that feed the baths. It was pure, unfiltered water, but it looked perfectly clear. It had a metallic taste that was probably from all the iron in the water - that is what causes the rocks in the baths to be so orange and rust-like.

After the Roman Baths we visited Bath Abbey, a lovely church but nothing remarkable compared to all the other beautiful old churches that we saw! I'm not sure we even have a picture. It's funny how after just a week in Europe a church that is more magnificent than anything in the US is "just another church." We also tried a few flavors of British "pasties" that were very good.

Source: Wikipedia

Thursday we planned to go to London, but the weather forecast looked terrible and we were pretty exhausted from our day trip to Bath, so instead we hung out around Brampton. It was nice to have a day to relax. Chris, Justin and I went to base to work out, we drove around to see the city of Huntington and we spent time at home chilling out. Justin and Chris played some XBox soccer, Claire and I played on the computer, Justin and I went for a walk, then we enjoyed a great home-cooked meal. It was a low-key but very enjoyable day.

Friday Justin, Chris and I went on a whirl-wind tour of London, trying to see all the main attractions in one day while avoiding the constant threat of rain. We started the day at Buckingham Palace, where I had hoped to see the changing of the guards. We got there at 10:45 and learned that the changing of the guards was at 11:30, not 11 as it said online. The crowds were already 5 or 6 people deep and we could barely even see the guards at all! I couldn't imagine standing there 45 minutes to barely be able to see anything, so we snapped a few pictures and headed on to the next attraction.

The next stop was Westminster Abbey, but we walked through St. James Park to get there and it was beautiful. We have TONS of pictures of birds, but here is just one of the pictures we took!

This isn't St. James Park, but I had to throw it in here too! Superman! :)

 From the outside it was easy to tell that Westminster Abbey was more ornate and majestic than the other churches we had visited, but I probably wouldn't have been willing to pay the 16 Pounds ($27!) to tour it if Claire hadn't told us it was worth it. Once we got inside we realized she was right! The Abbey was BEAUTIFUL and so detailed everywhere you looked. We weren't allowed to take pictures through most of it, but here are a few pictures from the public areas. Much of the Abbey was devoted to burial sites and memorials for Britains most distinguished citizens. Each grave (if that's what you call it) had a statue of the deceased laying on top of it. It was really interesting!

After Westminster Abbey we walked up to Trafalgar Square where we saw a couple monuments, including the countdown to the OLYMPICS!!! I LOVE the Olympics and we had originally planned to visit Chris and Claire during the summer games, before we decided to run this marathon together. I'm so glad things worked out as they did, though, because I'm certainly not going to be fit for overseas travel in August when I'm 8 months pregnant!

We did a speed-tour of the National Gallery where we saw famous artwork, making a point to see the Van Gogh and Monet pieces. It was a free museum, which was great because we didn't feel obligated to stay a while to get our money's worth! We literally spent about 30 minutes in the museum and don't even have any photos to show for it!

Next we went over to the Tower of London, which was disappointing to me...

But the Tower Bridge was impressive! To be fair, when we walked by the Tower of London it was raining and I was cold, and all I really cared about was not being wet and cold! We crossed the Tower Bridge and about the time we got to the other side the rain stopped. The pictures that we took turned out to be amazing because the sky behind the tower looked like the apocalypse, but the sky overhead was bright and sunny. These pictures are completely unedited and impressive, if you ask me!

Saturday morning we had to get up early to go to the airport and head home. I was sad to leave and sad that vacation was over, but a little bit ready to get back home too. After an hour and 15 minute, very frustrating wait to check our bags, we caught our flight and had an uneventful trip home!

This was a wonderful trip and I'm so glad that we had the opportunity to take it! Some may consider it our "babymoon" but I'm not ruling out the possibility of other quick vacations between now and September! But either way, it was a great trip and wonderful to get to spend so much time together as a couple before the baby arrives, and it was great to see Chris and Claire!

If anyone has lots of time to kill and wants to see all our pictures, they are here -
https://picasaweb.google.com/116852733301428701805/2012415ParisAndEnglandVacation?authkey=Gv1sRgCNGO3fblp4HJXQ