New House Pictures - Before

I am posting these because I have some anxious family members. :)  I'll post the story about why we moved, etc, later.  I will also need to take a picture of the front of the house. Oops.

Front entrance:

Living room area with sliding door to outside porch:

Dining room area (the fireplace is just off the picture to the left) with sliding glass door to covered porch area:

Right half of Kitchen:

Left half of kitchen (all new appliances):

From kitchen to laundry cave:

Laundry cave, with exit to back patio:

From front hallway, a small hallway with a closet that leads to the bedrooms and baths:

Master bedroom:

Master bedroom--again California with their mirrored closet doors:

Master bathroom (entrance from master bedroom):

Master bathroom:

Guest bathroom (old lady-esque, with a sliding glass door to the outside--handy for swimming):

Guest bathroom:

Guest bedroom--will most likely be our office:

Back porch (stairs lead to 3 terraces--one we will plant sod on for the dogs, the top has the pool):

The back porch extends the length of the house:

The front door side with a covered patio:

Sarah and Andrew's Wedding

The initial reason for Ben and Stacey's visit was the wedding of our mutual friend, Sarah. It was incredibly convenient, because Sarah's wedding took place about a mile from our house (in fact, the location for the wedding is what I run by each time I need to do a 5K!).

The wedding took place at Orcutt Ranch. I am very excited to go back and explore there a bit more, because the grounds are so beautiful! We took the opportunity to take some photos before the wedding started--we made sure to do this, because we realized we don't really ever have pictures of ourselves taken!

I loved these doorways--and Look! W's!

The wedding was lovely and low-key. It took place in this little clearing, with trees all around. I loved the little bridesmaid and groomsman announcing the bride's arrival:

Mr. and Mrs. Curry!

Between the wedding and the reception, we walked around the ranch a little bit. Not exactly sure what these statues are supposed to represent. King Otter?

Got some nice photos of Ben and Stacey, too:

They had a photo booth set up. We all realized that we were much too tall for it, though! But it's okay. The Irish props are because Sarah's (now) husband is a Northern Ireland native--in fact, after he is finished with seminary, he and Sarah will be moving there!

Nick was excited about the fish tacos (not me so much). He was trying to convince me to get one, and I refused (I do NOT like fish AT. ALL.). After he ate his, he said, "you would not have liked it." See!

Pin for the Wednesday

I LOVE doing my nails. I haven't been able to a lot recently, but when I worked at Old Navy, I had some customers come through my line SPECIFICALLY so they could see what I did with my nails that day. :)

I have an entire board on Pinterest devoted to fingernails. Here are a few things that I have tried:

Crackle black over hot pink:

Mauve-ish color with gold sparkle tips:

I think these look like a gumball machine. Just use the tip of the brush to put a dot.

These took a while, but they were fun. The silver line was with a nail polish pen (Sally Hansen). The black dots I did with a Sharpie--but be sure to put on a top coat on, though, or they'll wear off!

Talk about time-consuming! These nails took all day, because you have to let each coat dry. Base coat, 2 coats of yellow, 2 coats of orange, 2 coats of white, top coat. So that white layer has 8 coats of polish. These didn't last long because they were so thick.

Used a quick-dry polish to make "bloody fingers" for Halloween:

This is my go-to technique for something fun. Black polish with white polish pen dots. A lot of times I'll do this all over, but I liked the off-kilter look this day:

Candy cane stripes. White base coat, cut thin strips of scotch tape (leaving bits that hang over the end of your nail), then put quick-dry red on top. Pull the tape off, and voila! Got LOTS of "how did you do that?" when I had these nails.

Happy winter! Since there's no snow in CA, I brought snow. Again, simple white polish pen.

This was my thumbnail. Again, used a sharpie for the black accents.

There are some others that I didn't take pictures of for whatever reason or another. There are also some that I didn't take photos of because they were major fails. :)

Yes, I have "too much time on my hands". Literally.

Happy Birthday Nick!

We hadn't really hosted many get-togethers at our house since the Super Bowl, and I wanted to have a good ol' shindig for Nick's birthday.

I invited a bunch of people from Facebook, and told people to bring whoever they would like. I wanted to get to meet new people, and even if they were perfect strangers, that would be okay! Well, maybe not okay--I at least wanted to know someone as a connection. :)

I made my first ever carrot cake for Nick:

Melissa and Alex came!

Shepherd kept watch over the grill. :)

Waldo, get your nose out of the cake!

We taught some of the native LAngelinos how to cornhole. :)

Shepherd was very...helpful...with the beanbags!

Rhett and Nick vs. Slim and Allison: Most Epic Cornhole Game Ever!

When the sun went down, we amazed our friends with some typical Ohio party tricks: Fireball and Flame Breath. :)

Thanks to everyone who came! We had a great time!!