new addition

So...I have been a terribly bad blogger lately. Blame it on the over 100 degree heat in our neck of the woods. Blame it on the fact that my honey has been home all week which has meant lots of family time. Blame it on me just not having the energy to get it all done. I love blogging. I really do. I have a zillion ideas and inspiration floating around in my head at all times. But working full time, raising two kids and trying to be a good partner sometimes just takes all I've got and doesn't leave much time for blogging. Sometimes I guess its just good enough to be thinking about the blog - rather than actually blogging!!

Right now, it appears that every room in the house has some unfinished project lurking about. The kids new a new dresser/clothing receptacle. The bedroom needs curtains and a decent duvet. In fact, every room needs some new curtains. I've got a garage full of furniture I'm meaning to refinish/reupholster. You get the idea...

Our newest addition is no different.

We added an old wine barrel to our cellar. Plans are in the works for moving some junk out and into the garage, adding some stools and hanging up various posters I've collected from some wineries we've visited.

Looking forward to getting it squared away and then giving the full reveal.
Speaking of which, I've been asked to share a little house tour on a friend's blog and I'm hoping to get a few little projects done to make it photo-ready.

What projects do you have lurking around?

XO,

Chelsea

new sport - urban extreme walking

Please forgive me for my extreme laziness upon returning from vacation. I think I've managed about 2 posts in my post-vacation haze. Somehow the saying, "need a vacation from my vacation" keeps ringing through my ears. Which is strange because our vacation was extremely restful and not too over-packed with activity. I guess my main issue was readjusting to the fact that I actually had to do stuff for myself again. No waiters, no steward, no love. Hahah. Truly though, it is an adjustment to be launched from vacation mode to work mode with no happy medium :)

So, in our adventures in Miami prior to boarding the boat, we invented a new extreme sport. Urban walking.
We were told we could each bring one bottle of wine or champagne on board and we certainly weren't going to pass up the opportunity to pick out some bubbles or vino. Trusty smartphone in hand, Carl searched for grocery stores and found that there were several not too far from the hotel. Armed with a strong sense of adventure and a thirst for some bubbles, off we set.

Came across some cool graffiti

We were enjoying our little stroll around the self-proclaimed historic district, although not finding anything but hole in the wall liquor stores where the "groceries" were supposed to be.

After a particularly sketchy little store (along with some neighbors very interested in our happenings there) we decided we better high-tail it out of there. Pronto. Sure enough, that's always when you turn the corner and its a dark walkway under a freeway. Nice. And that's when a very nice individual on a bicycle rode by and tried to sell us a snazzy gold necklace. Our walking pace increased. Ten-fold.

We did manage to finally find an awesome little store with a guy who suggested a great bottle of wine. And we got some pretty awesome exercise.

After completing our new sporting event (we placed first!!), it was time to hustle over to the Port and board the behemoth that was our home on water for the next 4 days. 

I'd never been on a cruise ship before and the whole thing was just surreal to me. The lobby for checking in to the boat, getting your picture taken as you board, and then entering the actual ship was pretty overwhelming. In a good way.

Our little window to the world. Being on the first floor of staterooms turned out to be a good thing when the seas got rough and the boat got to rocking. Some friends up on the 7th floor looked pretty green once that business started.

Our extreme sport from earlier in the day and the shuffle of getting on-board had us pretty wiped out. While everyone else was hitting the deck, giant margaritas in hand. We took a nap. Awesomeness achieved.

weekend wrap-up + wardrobe wednesday

Yes, I am actually doing Wednesday's post on Thursday. A crazy weekend and busy week have pushed me all the way into Thursday without posting! Not to mention the lack of internet at home which causes me to do all my posting (shhh) on breaks at work. I'm happy to report though that we are all hooked up to the interwebs and now I can actually do some posting at home! And I'm hoping to enlist my honey's help over the weekend with some photography skills. He's pretty good and has a sweet camera!

Our last weekend was pretty crazy! Lots of progress on setting up the house - its even to a point where it might be worthy of getting some photos over this weekend!!

The two littles weren't feeling so hot, so we had to skip out on a birthday party.

Sutter loves this old fashioned key. I told him it was the key to my heart.

Harper loves makeup and headbands. I'm in serious trouble

We tried to make it up to them with some playtime at IKEA. If that didn't work, the ice cream at the end definitely did!

We spent all day Saturday at IKEA - super fun to get all the odds and ends we were needing, but there's something about spending all day doing that that just sucks a little bit of your soul!! It was pretty fun though to have Carl in tow to pronounce all the names of the items. And he got a bit of the homeland to bring home. We bought a ton of packages of Swedish meatballs and sauce. Plus I surprised him with 6 jars of Sill. We also picked up a GIANT projector screen on the way to IKEA so our movie theater experience is just about complete :)

We were rewarded for our hard day's work with a fun night out at Carr Winery. Its an awesome local winery who's tasting room is in a quonset hut. Its pretty awesome. Barrels of wine aging to perfection, shuffleboard, backgammon, great sounding music, good friends and good wine. They had an "Open That Bottle" evening where they were offering library wines for the price of the current stuff. With my industry discount it made for some pretty affordable juice, so we ended up going home with a half case. Oops. Well, we needed something to fill our new wine rack!!

Check out Carr, its pretty awesome. 

Carl is double-fisted with the drinks there. I guess he's probably holding my glass...

no idea why Chantal keeps trying to hide behind her wine glass...

 the quonset hut creating some serious love mood ;)

we got some great video of a guy dancing the funky chicken, but I'm still working on figuring out how to get that here! anybody know how?

a robot with a heart. and a glass. guy after my own heart!

Sunday was full of more organizing - mainly by Carl! I snuck out for breakfast with the girls and perused downtown SB. Kass - I popped into Anthro and managed not to buy everything in sight! It was hard!

Sunday night was the best though because we had the crew over for some delicious lasagna and great wine. Finished the night off with some peach cobbler and a little Motorcycle Diaries. Great day!!

Now for some Wardrobe...

Its been sort of a wet week here. I thought I'd brighten the mood with my new tights from Anthro - on sale for $7. Hard to say no to that!

 

 

This heart dress is my favorite. Its a go-to that never fails to make me feel happy when I wear it!

I'm looking forward to our guest this weekend and lots of happy home nesting!!

What is everyone else looking forward to?

XO,

Chelsea