Things are moving quickly now at this stage in the remodel process. It’s been an intense past few weeks from appointments to choosing trim, tiles, handles, faucets, valves, shower heads, etc. for the master bathroom. We can now finally say it is complete (with the exception of the tub installation because we need to wait until all the painting is done before the plumber can come back and work on the rest of the connections in all the bathrooms). Here are some photos of before, during, and after! Looks incredible right?
The past couple of weeks have been crazy! From picking out cabinet stain tone, to buying handles, knobs and hinges, to choosing our granite from the slab yard, and deciding on the cut and style of the edges, the kitchen is finally complete! What a huge difference it makes to the look and feel of our home! It’s like it’s not even the same kitchen! Now just need to work on the travertine of the kitchen floor and get the appliances delivered and installed. What do you think?
We have some big news to share! It’s true! We will officially be Ladera Ranchians in a few short weeks! After discouraged searching for our “forever home” since just after the wedding, we were so lucky to just happen to find this beautiful 4 bedroom home in beautiful Ladera Ranch, CA on a family street, walking distance to schools, parks and shopping centers! The best part is that it has a driveway, mailbox within walking distance and indoor laundry! All things we wished we had in our current place.
With the help of my amazing father-in-law, we were able to get the loan at a very low APR and with an amazingly low mortgage that is unheard of these days, especially for coveted Ladera! We found out in January that it was pretty much a done-deal and just had to wait through escrow and papers to clear, and heard finally it is 100% going to be our new home! We are so excited because we want to start a family in the near future and Ladera is such a wonderful family-oriented community and we just love it! We anticipate to live here for a very long time! Thank you so much Joseph - it wouldn’t have been possible without your help! We are so so grateful!!!
We are currently going under construction and I will post some updates as we go along!
Don’t you just love when you get an “a-ha!” moment? They seem to happen at the most unexpected times…
I went on a “spring cleaning”/organizing spree in the house and noticed that I had about 5 huge shoe boxes full of birthday, holiday, etc. cards people had given me, dating back from 2006! Well, if you’re anything like me, you cherish those memories and don’t really ever want to throw them away. But you also can’t keep a stockpile of old cards that you’ll never look at, in your spare bedroom closet for very long. So, when do you throw cards away? Well, after staring at the pile of cards that seemed to keep getting bigger throughout the cleaning process, I decided to just throw them out and not think about them for one more second… or so I thought.
As I made my way out to the trashcan, one of the cards fell on the ground. As I knelt to pick it up, a glimmer caught my eye. I noticed that the card was way too beautiful to throw out. I thought to myself, “Cards are so expensive, and so much time and care seems to go into making each one… only to be thrown away!” And literally, just like that, my eyes went from the single card on the asphalt, to the giant box of cards I was just about to throw away… and in an instant I saw the potential each card had, to be able to recreate! I said almost aloud, “no way am I throwing these away, I know JUST what to do with them!” And thus, card-scrapping was born!
My mind was going a mile a minute as I grabbed scissors and began chopping the cards up. From quotes, to verses, poems, and words, titles, numbers, pictures, fabrics, textures, embellishments, ribbons, glitter, gems - the list goes on! I just couldn’t help myself from getting more and more ideas as I went on. Not only was “card-scrapping” a way to save the elements from beautiful greeting cards to use to create something else, but it was also a way to reminisce and keep the significance from those cards, alive! Here are some photos of card scraps I derived from my collection. It was such a fun process and I can’t wait to use these treasures!
There are soooo many things you can use card scraps for!
*scrap booking
*collages
*wall-art
*gifts
*home-made / remade cards
*gift tags
*frames
*jewelry
*crafts
…and more!
Happy scrapping!
Today we had nothing planned at all as far as tours but we woke up late and had a delicious breakfast at Toscanini’s (definitely their strength is Breakfast!) After that we had heard that there is a fort within walking distance (Fort Rodney) which cost only $5 U.S. to enter and hike. We took our time snapping photos of everything we could see and made our way up the mountain. It was WAYYY harder that it looked…. thank God it was a little overcast. Once we got to the top, we saw amazing views from every angle. We took a few minutes to breathe and soak it all in, appreciating the beautiful scenery. As we hiked back down, it began to rain! It was pretty refreshing and it was still hot so it was nice.
We headed back to the hotel and ate an amazing buffet lunch at the Bayside grill and then decided we wanted to try sailing. Everyday had been booked since it was free… so we never got the chance - but we figured we would give it one more shot. To our luck, there was one boat left and it was just in time to get instruction/training! The guy helped us figure out how to work everything and then we dropped him off and took it out on our own. It was so relaxing, and a really freeing experience. Loved it! After about a half hour, waves became choppy so we headed back to shore and to the pool for a bit to relax on our last full day here.
We got back to the room and cleaned up a little. The sun started to go down and we started to hear some loud music playing outside and got curious. Mike realized something funny - that in our whole relationship, we had never seen the sun actually sunset! So we ran downstairs and watched it together. It was very romantic and so beautiful. We got a little nosey and wondered what the loud music was - where we realized there was a wedding taking place on the beach and it was pretty neat to see. So we just got back up to the room and are relaxing a bit before dinner - tonight is Steak Night at the Bayside restaurant and Mike is reaallllly excited about that :)
Today we woke up and scarfed down some breakfast before meeting in the lobby to go ziplining!!!!! I don’t know who’s idea it was…but somehow we ended up on a bus full of people where we learned that we would be ziplining through the rainforest 12 times with the highest one being over 250 feet off the ground and 1500 feet long…and that there would be snakes and tarantulas hanging around so not to worry….. I don’t even know which detail freaked me out the most. But again, we thought “when would we ever have this opportunity again?” You only live once…so why not??? Right?
So we got harnessed up and made our way though the super humid rainforest and approached the first line. I was soooooo freaked out but I just bit the bullet and took off the platform. BOY was it FUN! WOW…I was so surprised that the fun-ness to it, overcame the scariness of it! After We got over the initial fear, we couldn’t get enough! It was a great time. We told each other we would skip the highest one… but once we got there, we couldn’t resist! It was SO amazing seeing the rainforest on a cable!
After the adventure, we got back onto the bus with our guide, George who introduced us to a real cinnamon leaf, a real coco bean in its original form (which tastes sooo NASTY), and then some real, fresh, RAW coconut. So amazing. AND Mike tried it all! I was super proud.
When we got back to the hotel we decided to eat lunch and hung out at the pool for a little bit before dinner. They were also doing tie-dye tee-shirts at the pool so I caved in and got one :) For dinner, we really wanted to try the Toscanini’s place but couldn’t get reservations…but we decided to use the same plan we used on Kimono’s a few days before and pretend they lost our reservation. AND it worked! :) But the food was nothing special! Kind of a disappointment. But oh well! It was a good time… the waitress told us they serve breakfast that DON’T need reservations for, so we said we would come back in the morning.
When we got back to our room, for some reason the key wouldn’t work. After going back and forth to the front desk to get new keys made, we realized there was something wrong with the door. A technician had to come down a fix it which was only supposed to take 20 minutes, which turned into over 2 hours. Mike is passed out while I stay up to make sure the job gets finished. Sucked cuz we had to stay in the room (we couldn’t leave because when we would return, the door wouldn’t work to let us back in….) Patiently waiting for this to get resolved then time for bed!
