Archives for June 2011

How do I put two weeks worth of a visits to Vegas, Disney and an island stay in one post?  Well, I don’t.  I didn’t really mean to make all two weeks of our summer vacation into a big blog break.  In fact, I thought without work and any real schedule to follow that I would have tons of time to do what I love but it turns out we were always busy doing something, even if it was doing nothing beside some sort of body of water.

So I just wanted to say hi and say that we’re back.  And I can’t help it, I’ll leave you with some favorite moments in pictures.

Finally seeing Vegas for myself (and realizing it’s not for me)

Revisiting our Honeymoon Island

Eating at that little shack down the pier

Watching the magic on Lexi’s face seeing the princesses at Disney for the first time this year.

Watching Scott cackle at turning at teacup into a tornado

Having a little buddy all week when he normally is obsessed with Scott

Being with my family

And this generally being my life for a week

A pretty busy weekend here!  We started out watching Lexi test for her purple belt.  She did great and I can’t wait to see her in that purple belt!

Friday evening the girls had a sleepover so Scott and I went for a late dinner at Beef and Bottle with a recent LivingSocial deal.  The food was awesome but to be completely frank all I could think about was all the Compassion posts I read last week and how our one meal, even with a coupon, could have sponsored a child for a month.

Right or wrong, it felt good then to wake up and volunteer with my work’s Day of Caring over at the Plant a Row garden at the Dairy Barn.  A master gardener in the area started this entire garden for charity.  We painted the shed, picked carrots, potatoes, green beans, squash and radishes as well as planted some pole beans.  The men also built new boxes.  All the food gets donated to a local church and mostly gets dispersed to senior citizens as well as a local program called Meals on Wheels.  If you are in the area I highly recommend getting a group and going over.  It was so fun for the kids.  You would have thought the kids had struck gold when they were pulling up the carrots and potatoes.  We were only there for 2 hours but were able to shave off 2 weeks of work for the owner.

Scott got his Highway Patrol corner in the closet completed with his framed picture.  I think it looks great.

Sunday we went church and then I was in complete packing mode.  I did laundry all day, packed and then rested at the pool in between.  Very nice relaxing day with the kids before I head out to Vegas today.  In case you missed it, Mom and Heather won two trips to Vegas with a guest.  Free airfare, lodging at the Bellagio and a ticket to Cirque de Soleil.  I certainly could not turn down the offer as I’ve never been.

I didn’t feel comfortable yet taking the kids to Vegas so Scott was awesome enough to take a few days off and play Mr. Mom.  My only comfort is that when I get back we are taking off together for a week to Florida.  What a week this will be.

Neither Heather nor I are taking laptops so I’m not sure how much blogging I’ll be doing while I’m gone.  If not much, be sure to follow me on Twitter as I’ll be tweeting my way through the trip!

Well it’s looking like no cabinet or mirror until first of next week.  In the meantime, we have ordered and installed our custom blinds!

If you didn’t know, my mom owns a custom blinds and window treatments business, Diana’s Blinds and Designs.  We are lucky to get such wonderful Hunter Douglas blinds at great prices.  Let me show you what cool things we got for the addition. 

The bathroom and closet both face the road so we wanted those two rooms to match.  We decided on the bronze metal 2” blinds (Natural Elements line) that I LOVE.  They go perfectly with all the dark wood in the closet and really ties in the dark color into the toilet room.  I love that the bronze gives it a little bling.

In the bedroom, our number 1 requirement was that the blinds were black-out.  When Scott has to sleep during the day, it’s really hard when the sun comes up in our corner of the house.  The other thing we wanted was top-down bottom-up.  This is great for bedrooms where you want privacy but you also want the blinds open.  We went with a Duette Honeycomb.  Let me know show you how it works.

Here the blinds are shut.  You can see that not a peep of light is coming through the blind, just a little around the edges.  I had to turn the lights on just to get a decent picture.

You can also pull them up like traditional blinds.  You can still see how much light it’s blocking.

Or, here are the tops down.  This is my favorite and usually how I set the blinds for the day.  Plenty of light is coming in but no one sees us walking around.

And if you’re feeling funky, you can do both:

I didn’t picture it but of course, you can pull the blind all the way to the top, exposing the entire window.  The other thing I love is that these have NO CORDS.  Just a tab on the headers and up and down it goes!

Aren’t they great? 

We have matching ones on the French doors although they are not top-down bottom-up.  My blind lady assured me we did not want them that way.  So these get yanked up all the way to the top every day and I really do love all the light streaming in. In fact, it’s why I insisted on French doors anyway.  But the black-out really helps Scott when he needs to sleep.

We love all of them.  I think they were the perfect fit for us.  The cool thing is there are HUNDREDS of options and combinations.  You probably don’t realize how many things you have to pick from.  The great thing about Hunter Douglas is their personalized service (free consultation!), installation and a guarantee that doesn’t compare to any store-bought blind.  Seriously, by the time you replace that metal mini-blind from Home Depot a few times, you could have had an awesome Hunter Douglas one the whole time!

Ok, Mom, how’d I do?  LOL  If you’re in the area, definitely give them a call or hit them up on Facebook.  Mom seriously loves to help people find the perfect window covering to finish a room.  Speaking of, Mom, we need to talk panels!