Sleepy Sunday 6-29-15

Chris unexpectedly was able to come home this weekend so we were so excited! Ares especially doesn’t like when Daddy is gone and behaves like a sulking child. Chris has to leave the shirt he last wore before going back to work so Ares can sleep with it. We learned this trick before the dogs went to boarding for the first time. Having something that smells strongly (to a dog) of their people helps to calm them while they are away. It definitely works for us. But Ares and the rest of us were very happy to have Chris walk in the door in the flesh Friday night. We took it easy watching Hawaii Five-0 on Netflix and eating leftovers. It’s pretty cool when they show scenes of areas we have been on Oahu.

Saturday morning was nice and cool, although overcast and dreary, but the boys loved taking a morning walk. Chris and I then headed out to get my new driver’s license since I officially changed my name last week. It was so strange to sign with my new signature and see it printed on my ID.

We met friends for lunch (cheese fries for me!) and ran some errands the rest of the afternoon. In the evening we went to a grill out and it was feeling like fall instead of summer! I was pretty cozy in my sweatshirt but it’s not what you expect for a late June summer night around here, especially after it’s been so hot the past couple weeks. We definitely weren’t complaining though, I love when it’s a  little chilly but not cold. And Chris was very excited to play cornhole with his buddies until dark.

 

Nail Polish

 Leggings

Sunday morning Chris was back to work very early before any of the rest of us were awake. It turned out to be a beautiful day and perfect for both lounging and snuggles with productivity (grocery shopping, nail painting, bathroom cleaning) and iced coffee in the mix! I’m the girl at Kroger at 9AM on Sunday morning rollin’ in with my pjs still on and coffee in my cart. I swear it’s the best time to grocery shop. I’ve mostly switched over to iced coffee since it’s been so hot out. It’s pretty convenient to drop by Starbucks if I go to the Kroger with one inside but I’m fine making it at home too. I know the iced coffee k-cups are available now but I still have some regular ones left I want to use before I try them. What I do now is use Starbucks Vanilla k-cups in my Keurig on medium brew using a mason jar and then add almond milk and pop it in the freezer. After about 15-20 minutes I take it out and add a few ice cubes and a straw. By the time I feed all the furballs, take the dogs out and make my own breakfast, the iced coffee is ready for the drinking! A cute paper straw just makes me smile, especially when I found the whole pack in the Target $1 bin. YES!

Recently I’ve been hearing a lot of people talking about giving coconut oil to their dogs. I personally love to use coconut oil as a moisturizer and to cook with, but we also feed it to Ares and Chaos. It helps to keep their coats skinny and digestive tract in good shape plus it’s been known to help with allergies and Chaos needs all the help he can get! Our dogs LOVE the taste so it’s no problem getting them to eat it. We just spoon it into their dog food and they chow down.

Is it just me or has anyone else just now discovered the awesomeness of La Croix sparkling water? I bought a pack of Passion Fruit yesterday and oh my goodness I’m in love, not to mention the can is really pretty! I typically just drink water and the occasional coffee so this is a nice alternative with a little flavor. Let me know which flavors are your favorite!

Have a great week friends!

Bad News Bears + Friday Fun

Well the bad news bears paid us a visit this week. Just as we were finally scheduling closings we found out our buyer lost her financing. I was in shock when I first got the call. I mean after all this time of waiting and waiting and right when the end is in sight, BAM, it’s all ripped away. We released our contracts with both our buyer and our seller so we are now back at square one. I was joking that I went through the stages of grief all in one day but it was bit of an emotional roller coaster. I was in shock and sort of denial at first and then really upset and then off the charts angry. Chris being away for work made it that much more difficult. But then I figured well I can sulk about it or I can just get on with it. That would be the acceptance part. So now I have a home full of boxes that I need to get ready for showings again. I won’t unpack much because the plan is still to try and sell our place and buy a new house as soon as possible. I think the worst part was that the whole experience was so stressful and we felt like we kept getting strung alone with empty promises (from the buyer’s camp). But, shit happens. We are hoping round 2 of selling/buying is much less painful.

Since it’s Friday, let’s switch gears to more fun stuff. Lately I have a serious headband obsession. I love that they can be a fun accessory and also make you look put together after throwing your hair up in a 2 second bun or pony. My go to shop is Mint & Arrows. I wear them everywhere.

Running Errands

At Work

On the Beach

With my friends

On my dogs

Chris was little upset about that last one. I explained the boys totally volunteered to model. They are super secure with their manhood. Nobody tell them they don’t have balls. Okay maybe is Ares is giving me the "Really, mom?" face.

Fourth of July is next week and it’s for sure one of my favorite holidays. I have such great summer memories of 4ths past and I’m sure this year will be no different. I have some very patriotic gear to wear like this baseball tee, this bikini (on sale now!) and of course an American flag print headband (modeled by Chaos above but sold out). Stars and stripes all the way!

The weather has certainly felt like summertime around here so we moved our daily walk to later in the evening. It’s still a little toasty, and humid most days, but it’s nice to get out and get moving. The honeysuckles are in full bloom and I LOVE that smell.

Speaking of smells, I was gifted some amazing soy candles from my favorite candle company Candelles. I’ve loved all the scents I’ve tried so far so I knew the lemon pack would not disappoint. Not only do these candles smell fantastic, but they are soy so they don’t put off any icky chemicals, and they come in the cutest packaging!

Happy weekend y’all!

Back to Reality

It’s been a little while since I’ve done an update on our moving situation. To say the least, it’s been nothing short of a giant circus filled with all kinds of hurry up then wait peaks and valleys. Honestly if the rest of my life wasn’t so crazy on a pretty much daily basis I probably would have lost my sanity completely over this fiasco by now. But I’m still hanging onto the last shreds of it..for the time being. I will spare you all the gory details because it’s Father's Day and I don’t want to be all negative Nelly over here. So I will leave it at this: we didn’t get to close when we were supposed to last week and as of right now we do not have a new scheduled closing date. Optimism and faith are running low at this point so your positive vibes out into the atmosphere would be much appreciated. 

But it’s Sunday night and I think sillier subjects are in order. Chris has been gone for work so flying solo with the furballs is always an adventure. Saturday morning is one of the reasons I can at least maintain the appearance of a sane person in the middle of what other people might consider chaos. I woke up and made myself some tea. I left it steeping in a mug on the counter and went to wash my face before taking the dogs for a walk. When I came out of the bathroom there was pee sprinkled on the floor by the back door. I can’t be sure because I didn’t actually witness the crime but my bet is on Ares. It’s very rare that either dog would go potty in the house but since Chris has been travelling for work my little Boston has been quite upset about daddy being gone. And just like a human kid, he tends to do things he’s not supposed to for attention. As I was cleaning the pee I noticed it had gotten on the bottom of the curtain that hangs across the back door. So I then had to get the step ladder to climb up and take the curtain off the rod to soak it with stain remover. Going into the laundry room I almost keeled over at the awful stench that hit my nose. I found out pretty quickly that it was coming from the litter box, well partially. A kitty apparently had diarrhea and didn’t make it all into the box. So onto clean up round 2. After washing my hands I walked into the living room to get my shoes and found a lovely surprise of vomit on one of the dog beds and a “mommy I’m sorry” look on Chaos’s face. I also realized that the wax I had changed out of the warmer and set on the coffee table was missing. Clean up round 3 and a call to the vet. As I suspected, the wax was harmless but of course I had to keep an eye on the wax thief. Just when I thought I could drink my tea and we could get to that walk, I noticed something missing, the tea bag. My eyes then followed the liquid trail all across the bar counter and then halfway to the table in the living area where the bag of tea lay, half eaten. Kitty diarrhea mystery solved (Little O, stealer of everything) and clean up round 4. 

We did manage to finally get to the walk, which surprisingly went without mishap. But later that day I tripped getting out of my car at a shopping center where 3 hot firemen were taking donations and of course they all saw me. And after washing the pee soaked curtain I double checked to make sure it could go into the dyer, but it turns out the instructions lied. The curtain is now about 2 inches shorter than it was and it looks like we are preparing for a flood. I guess that’s kind of plausible right now with all the rain. But like Kristina and I were talking about earlier this week, these things are nothing a glass of wine and some furry snuggles won’t cure.

Happy weekend and Father's Day to all the awesome dads!

The Wedding Diaries: The Honeymoon Part 2: Aloha from Oahu, HI

Today is honeymoon picture day! I’ll give you a little recap of our trip but for this post I plan to let a lot of pictures help me do the talking. We did get some good shots, but they don’t do what we actually saw with our eyes justice. Oahu, HI is one amazingly beautiful place.

When I went to Waikiki Beach the first time my family and I stayed in the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Hilton created a property with 7 separate hotel towers (and one more on the way), pools, shopping and restaurants all right on the Waikiki Beach front. It’s so convenient to just walk out of your tower and have pretty much anything you need or want steps away. Plus, you never have to carry cash or credit cards if you don’t want to because you can charge anything you buy on the property to the room. We splurged and stayed in the Ali’i tower with an oceanfront view that was absolutely worth it. Every night we would sleep with the balcony, or lanai as the Hawaiian say, door open to fall asleep to the crash of the waves and wake up with the sunrise.

Since we were used to being about 6 hours ahead of the actual time we woke up early every day. But waking up with the sun (which rises by 5:30AM) was so much nicer than an alarm ripping me out of my sleep. The best part was that everything opens early so we could get coffee and breakfast and walk around for a while before really starting the day.

I’m a lay on the beach or sip fruity cocktails by the pool kind of girl, but I also don’t mind getting into a little adventure. Chris would go balls to the walls beach activities all day long but we compromise and meet in the middle (I even tried paddle boarding!). We spent time hanging at the beach or by the pool as well as did some exploring. It wouldn’t have seemed like a real trip to Hawaii if we didn’t attend a luau. Chris even wore a Michigan Hawaiian style shirt, courtesy of my parents!

Waikiki is on the East side of Oahu so one day we rented a Camero convertible and drove up to Hanauma Bay for some beachin’ and snorkeling. It’s breathtaking just to see from the top and amazing to snorkel with all the sea life once you’re in the water. It was a little easier for me to navigate the shallow areas with coral since I’m smaller than Chris but he managed just fine. Before you enter the beach park you watch a short video about how the bay was formed and what you might see underwater and they remind you to never touch anything, including the coral. It’s a little difficult when it’s almost touching your belly!

We also drove over to the North Shore, famous for its surf towns and giant waves including the Bonzai Pipeline. In the summer months the water is pretty calm so we were able to go over to Pupukea Beach (aka Shark’s Cove) and Waimea Beach. Shark’s Cove has a rocky shore with tide pools for snorkeling and Waimea has big rock formation that juts out into the water where people spend all day climbing up to jump off. Chris and I took turns taking the plunge so we could video each other.

There’s nothing quite like a Hawaiian sunset, especially from the water, so we took a catamaran cruise out one evening to watch the magic happen. There were drinks and snacks and a cool breeze sailing out to look at Waikiki Beach in all its glory. It was a little cloudy at first but they made way for the sun just in time for us to watch it fall from the sky.

Every Friday night there is a fireworks show at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. People clamber for good spots on the beach and the walls lining the beach front. Chris and I had the perfect view from our balcony and our tower even provided free snacks. I love the way fireworks light up the sky and they just bring up happy summertime memories for me so it was awesome to have a front row seat.

Our last morning in paradise Chris and I got up before the sun and boarded a bus to the West side of the island for a snorkel trip. It was a beautiful sunny morning and the boat crew served homemade banana muffins and coffee as we arrived. We saw dolphins as we cruised 40 miles up the coast, passing amazing scenery along the way. We even got to swim with 2 sea turtles! One was a little baby that kept following our group around the water. Lunch included the BEST pineapple I’ve ever had in my life and if I wasn’t stuffed to the brim I would’ve kept eating it.

Oahu was the perfect place for us to honeymoon. We relaxed, had fun, ate good food and drank tropical cocktails, shopped and missed our kiddos back home. I can tell you how wonderful it was and show you all these pictures, but you really need to go see it all for yourself!

In Hawaii the word Aloha means hello, goodbye and love. Our Hawaiian trip was full of aloha and we were said to say aloha when we left, but a big mahalo (thank you) to the island and people of Oahu for making our honeymoon unforgettable in the best possible way.