Vegas Vacation

Last month, I flew to Las Vegas to meet up with some of my old college friends. We're scattered about the country now, from Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago and Orlando and haven't all been together since my wedding (almost two years ago!). It was great to spend a weekend catching up on everyone's lives. It couldn't come at a better time either – Erin's moving to Australia, Colleen's starting vet school, and Annie's applying to graduate schools. Needless to say, getting together as a group isn't a frequent part of our lives, so we took full advantage of the few days we had together.

Welcome to Las Vegas!

First night out exploring. Annie and Meghan arrived the next day.

Seattle buddies, Erin and Annie.

Wolfgang Puck's restaurant, Spago, inside Caesar's Palace.

Interior of Spago.

Relaxing in the pool at Harrah's.

Riding the spiral escalators in Caesar's Palace.

It wouldn't be a night out in Vegas without fabulous dresses!

Annie and me.

Standing in front of Caesar's after a fabulous dinner at Spago.

Exploring the sights and sounds of Vegas (can you tell we're tourists??).

We were given passes to the Caesar's Palace pool, so we took full advantage!

Erin and Colleen at the pool, searching for an open pool chair.

Money shot–standing in front of the Bellagio.

Enjoying the Bellagio's fountain show to Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On".

Classic photo, with all that is Vegas behind us.

Group shot in front of the glitter wall.

Our last group photo before we graduated college! (May 2005)

Eight years ago, I was blessed to meet this amazing group of girls. Our lives may have taken us to different parts of the country (and the world!), but we're still the same old U-dub crew and I can't wait for our next reunion!

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Air Conditioner: Major Fail

About a two months ago, we had our air conditioner serviced–it got a good ol' deep clean. A few weeks later, we started to notice that the wood in our dining room was rippling. We thought it was the sun, streaming in from the large window. The wood progressively worsened over the next week or so, until one night, I stepped down and water seeped through the wood.

Shoot.

MAJOR problem.

Jason and I discovered that our air conditioner condensation had not been flowing to the spout outside, but leaking into the house and seeping underneath the hardwood floors.

Discovering the source of the leak...the A/C vent.

Jason on the phone with his dad, trying to figure out the best way to stop the leak. We ended up turning off the air conditioner that night, since he had to cut the pipe. Our house was 85 degrees and humid. The dogs were panting and we tossed and turned all night long. The condensation filled up the 5-gallon bucket in three hours when we finally turned the air on the next day.

Some of the floor boards were starting to grow mold.

We moved all the wet boards into the office, laid them upside-down on towels, and turned the ceiling fan on high. Our house smelled like wet wood for a week!

You can see here how far the water had seeped under the floor. That 5-gallon bucket that filled up in three hours? Imagine that pouring out, for hours, days, even weeks!

This is after we picked up the floating floor (foam stuff that sits under the wood). The concrete was even soaked. We immediately thought that our serviceman had done something wrong when he had fixed our air conditioner unit. That is, until Jason poured bleach down the condensation tube and went outside to see if it went through...

Apparently a little black snake had crawled into our condensation pipe and died, thus causing ALL condensation to back-up into our house.

After all was said and done, the damage appeared much worse that it was. Jason had extra wood planks and floating floor in the attic, so the only cost to us were few pieces of quarter-round and a little PVC piping to replace the one he cut.

But when life hands you lemons...you know what you do. We decided to start a new home improvement project. Stay tuned!

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Fourth of July Celebration

We had a fun-filled, relaxing weekend. Friday was spent cleaning the house and running a few errands, getting ready for Saturday's cook-out. 

On Saturday, we slept in until nine, and then it was time to prep for the afternoon's festivities. Family and friends started showing up around 3:00, and the food started to flow. 

The ladies gathered in the kitchen to prep the appetizers:

Lisa works diligently on the tortilla roll-ups, made by my mother-in-law, Kathy.

Jason's wonderful grill creations: pork tenderloin, barbecued chicken, peach-glazed chicken and ribs.

Kayla and Tim's dog, Tug, enjoys his tennis ball and diving into the pool.

Our final spread of goodies!

Amber stopped by to visit-husband Zach was out of town for a wedding. Check out her cute fireworks shirt she made!

After eating a hearty meal, we headed out back for a game of horseshoes.

Yes, it was hot and humid. And yes, that is a paper towel I'm using for a sweat rag. Dad would be proud!

After horseshoes, we enjoyed a bowl of homemade ice-cream (my first!) while playing Banana-grams.

Sisters!

My adorable husband

Fireworks time!

Time for the grand finale!

After our backyard fireworks show, we headed inside to watch the New York fireworks on the big screen, complete with surround sound. It was a wonderful day and a great weekend! Happy Fourth of July everyone!

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Kitchen Update

We've lived in our wonderful home for almost two years and have always talked about re-doing our kitchen. Granite, stainless steel, fabulous lighting...the list was more than a few items long. While our dream kitchen might look something like this:

or this:

...our current kitchen looked like this:

So, how could we update our kitchen without breaking the bank? Well, our first stop was Lowe's, where we walked up and down the aisles, notebook in hand, and listed out pricing for appliances, countertops, etc. With only a few items on our list, we were already over $6,000—not quite in our current budget. Armed with inspiration from HGTV, we set on our quest to update our kitchen on a budget. Here's the steps we took:

Remove cabinet doors.

Measure doors to drill holes for new hardware.

Prime all wood cabinets and doors with an oil-based primer.

Attach base molding for a decorative element (nails were not cooperating, so we used Apoxi).

Paint cabinet doors with secondary color. We were attempting an antiqued, textured look and were planning on wiping away some of the primary color to reveal the antique white.

Paint black onto decorative elements. Use putty knife to gently scrape away wet paint and reveal antique white below.

Paint remaining cabinets black. Allow to dry overnight before putting doors back up.

Attach doors to cabinets. The night before, we painted the edge of the doors that were on the hinge side. This way we could paint the remaining doors' fronts and backs and leave them open to dry. It saved time and cleanup!

The final product (we're still working on the accessories above the cabinets):

Our kitchen update included:
• Brushed nickel hardware for drawers and cabinet doors
• Lighting for underneath cabinets
• Crown molding above cabinets (we bought extra for potential cutting mistakes–and we used them!)
• Base molding below cabinets
• Paint, primer, supplies

Our total project from start to finish was June 13th-21st. All this for under $250! Not bad, considering a brand new kitchen re-do can cost $10,000+.  What do you think? Did we pull off a modernized kitchen?

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