Our New Home!

We have been in our house for about a month now and I figure its time to show you some pictures.

Our house was a fixer upper when we moved in.  We took lots of pictures before we moved in so I will show you the before and after of each room and explain what we did.  We are still not done and look forward to improving our house over the next few months and years.

Living Room-The only difference you may see is that we painted all the walls.  Some day (hopefully soon!) we will add furniture to our front room.  We love the blinds that open up and there is so much light.

Dining Room-Here's our dining room.  I don't have a before picture because it keeps getting downloaded in the wrong direction and I have not figure out how to rotate it.  There's really no difference anyway so you'll just get the after picture. 

Kitchen-As you can see, previously the kitchen had lovely wallpaper.  We chose to forgo that gorgeous decoration and paint it a plain brown.  This brown is darker than the rest of the house.  We love the color!  We also got new appliances which we love!  Sean installed all of them.  The pictures don't show it very well but the old kitchen had the old school fluorescent lighting with the plastic sheets over it.  We removed it all and put in some canned lighting.  It really opens up the kitchen and brightens it up.

Family Room-This room had no light so we had an electrician add a light in the center of the room.  Sean also added a fader button to the light so we can adjust the strength.  He switched out all the light switches to be the more flat button ones.  He's become such a handyman!  We will install a fan/light soon.  It gets hot in Valencia in the summer time so we will definitely have to do it before then!  We also switched out the light in the hallway to a more updated one.

Powder Room-This room was a nice sea foam green before.  We painted it with a nice fresh blue.  I love this blue color!  We are going to have a antique beach theme for this bathroom.  I'm excited for it!

Laundry Room-We painted this room the same blue as the powder room.  We also got new appliances which Sean installed.  It makes life so much easier when you have your own washer and dryer!  Again I don't have before pictures because its being stupid and not rotating them.

Stay tuned for the upstairs pictures . . . .

We're Moving!

We bought a house in Valencia!  That means are new neighbors will be Magic Mountain, Taylor Lautner and the set of NCIS.  Personally I'm excited about the latter and Sean is excited about the former.

Friday marked the official day of our new ownership.  Sean went and changed the locks and discussed with our realtor the few upgrades we want done before we move in.  After we move in we'll be sure to add some photos.  But for now here are the stats: 3 bedroom house, 2.5 bathrooms, laundry room (is it dorky that i'm excited for this one?), dining room, living room and family room with fireplace and a large backyard!

We absolutely love the neighborhood and it's in a great location.  We are just down the street from the grocery store, gas station and the church.  This area of town is known for their Paseos which are paved and lighted walkways through the hills connecting the various streets and neighborhoods.  They even have bridges over the main roads so you don't have to cross the street. 

We feel very blessed to have this opportunity of owning a home.  Stay tuned for photos!

Christmas Vacation 2011

 

Both Sean and I had the week after Christmas off so we went to Mammoth Mountain with Sean's family for a super fun skiing trip. 

Our condo  was very nice and of course it had amazing views!  The best part of the condo was that it was literally right off the slopes.  We just skied to the back door.  Talk about great location!

 

Sean's a boarder and he took me boarding for my first time a couple of years ago at the Canyons.  I had fun but on this trip I really wanted to get back to skiing.  I've never been skiing for more than one day at a time so after this two day visit I was exhausted!

The Nativity

Here are my Nativities from around the world.

Jordan

Netherlands

Philippines

Mexico

Naples, Italy

Vatican City

Ok, so this isn't from another country, but I made these in High School.

Out With The Old, In With The New

This has been my phone for the past several years. 

 

I never really had a problem with it.  I didn't even feel left-behind when my parents upgraded to the new iPhone 4S.  My entire family had iPhones which meant that they were constantly iMessaging each other so I became kinda out of the loop.  I'm sure my parents didn't want a "left out" child so as a Christmas gift, they upgraded my phone to this . . . . .

Sean was kind enough to set it up for me (I think he was on it more than I was during the first 48 hours).  A definite pro is staying in touch with my family.  A definite con is the stupid keyboard that I dislike a lot.  I've always said that today's luxuries become tomorrow's necessities and that was one reason why I didn't want to upgrade.  I didn't want to waste my time on it and become so dependent.  I don't want my world to turn upside down if I accidentally left my phone at home.  So far I find myself not wasting too much time on it.  

Maybe I need some more interesting games, any suggestions?

New York City!!!

Last weekend we went to NYC for a quick getaway.  We went with Sean's brother, Daniel.  He had served his mission in New York City but never got to see the Manhattan sights.

Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty

We took the ferry out to Ellis Island which got some pretty good views of the lower Manhattan skyline and Lady Liberty. My advice to visitors to NYC is to buy your Statue of Liberty tickets online.  We got to go through the security line before those who had just bought their tickets and therefore got good seats on the ferry.

 

 I was glad we had some time to walk through Ellis Island.  The boys were excited to see this room since it was featured in Hitch. 








You can see Lady Liberty through the window of the Ellis Island Museum.  The Statue was closed so we didn't get off on Liberty Island but the ferry provided enough views of the statue. 

Brooklyn Bridge

The bridge had a lot of construction on the Brooklyn side so it limited our view.  

 

 We went near dusk so the lighting was perfect for good shots of the city.  We couldn't get over how many skyscapers there were in NYC. 

I don't know the significance of these but I did see it a couple of times on the cables of the bridge. 

We took some great shots on the Brooklyn Bridge.  I love these shots of Sean because they are so candid. 

Rockefeller Center

 We went to the Rockefeller Center.  It was SO crowded!  I have been to New York 3 times before, once in summer and twice during Christmas and I have never seen it this crowded!  There was a super long line to ice skate and it was pricey.  We just walked around the square before heading up to the Top of the Rock.

Top of the Rock had really great views of the city.  I had done the Empire State Building twice and I can say that I enjoyed the view from the Top of the Rock much better.







Central Park

 After three trips to the Big Apple I have never gone inside Central Park.  I have walked on the street bordering it but never through it.  This time we did and it was a very pleasant walk.  It must be so pretty in the summer time when the trees are so full.

Our Apartment

Hotels were super expensive in December.  I had some friends who always get apartments when they visit places and there happened to be a couple listed online at half the price of a hotel.  We decided to try it and it worked out perfectly!  We were located in the heart of Midtown, around the corner was literally the Empire State Building.  We had a small kitchen which allowed us to keep breakfast food in the fridge.  The only problem was that we were located on the 4th floor and one of the landings was very squeaky, but we survived! 

Grand Central Terminal

Apple just opened their largest store at Grand Central Terminal.  It didn't feel like a store.  It was all open and it basically took up the balcony of the terminal.  

 

How to Succeed

  I really wanted to see this show.  We were told they sold rush tickets for $30.  We got up early and headed to the theater two hours before the box office opened.  There were already 30 people in line.  We made friends with the people around us who gave us some good insider information about tickets, the show and how to get Daniel Radcliffe's autograph.  We ended up getting third row but they were off to the side and considered "partial view" seats.  But for $30 we loved it!  I'll admit, I was excited to see Daniel Radcliffe in the show.  He was pretty good.  After the show Sean and I ran out to the stage entrance to wait for Daniel Radcliffe to come out to sign.  It was a madhouse!  The highlight was a woman who feigned an anxiety attack to get to the front and convinced the bouncers that her daughter needed to meet Daniel Radcliffe because she made him a gift.  As the daughter was squeezing by to get to the front, she apologized to the crowd saying her mom was a compulsive liar and she was a very bad daughter.  It was classic!  In the end, I got his autograph!  But only after the girl in front of me grabbed my playbill and passed it forward to another person who grabbed it from her to get Daniel Radcliffe to sign it.  Then they passed it on to me.  Very considerate fans.
 
World Trade Center

 Word to the wise:  You need tickets to get into the memorial.  Get them online and print them, it will save you TONS of time!

I really like how they did the memorial.  I saw lots of it via the coverage during the anniversary but it was still neat to be there in person.  I like having the footprint of the buildings there and the names of all the victims (flights, pentagon, trade centers, first responders and even the 1993 victims) engraved around each building.  The above picture shows the famous tree that survived the ordeal and the new 1,776 ft tall building in the background.

The End

We had a lot of fun during our trip to New York City.  We had authentic pizza, delicious Chinese and yummy Italian.  It was a little bit chilly but our apartment was toasty warm.  We saw almost everything we wanted to see so it was a big success!

The Cinnamon Bear!

Can you imagine sitting around this and being entertained for the evening?  People would have their thriller shows like Suspense or Lights out, their comedy shows like Abbot and Costello or the Burns and Allen show and sometimes their were special holiday shows like . . . . The Cinnamon Bear!

I first heard the Cinnamon Bear back in high school.  There used to be an AM station on the radio that would play old radio shows.  The Cinnamon Bear was a series that played everyday between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It was the adventure of Jimmy and Judy trying to find the Silver Star to place on top of their Christmas tree.  With the help of Paddy O'Cinnamon they go to Maybeland in search of their star.  If you haven't had the chance to listen to The Cinnamon Bear than you can listen to it here.