Girl's Weekend in NC

I got to spend time with two of my best friends from childhood for the first time in a LONG time! Katie, Lauren and I grew up playing together from a young age and have stayed close over the years. Lauren drove to Knoxville (from Lexington) and we met Katie in Huntersville to spend a weekend in our hometown celebrating Katie's 25th birthday!

Of course, we spent Saturday on Lake Norman like old times.

Being the sentimentalist that I am, I had to drive by the house I grew up in...

Celebrating Katie's 25th birthday at Mickey & Mooch and then out in Charlotte

Lunch & shopping in Birkdale before heading home

It's weird to go back "home" and makes me miss old times!

Wall Stenciling

I really wanted to paint our master bathroom because there was not a single ounce of color with the white cabinets, white marble counter tops, khaki walls and stone tile.

I love the circle window over the bathtub and I wanted to breakup things up a little bit, so I decided to take a stab at stenciling that wall. I read several blogs to get other's "do's & don'ts" on stenciling, found a cute stencil, bought some paint and I was ready to go!

It really wasn't difficult at all, but it required a lot of patience!

Notice through the window that it was day light when I started the top row of the wall...

And it was well after dark before I finished!

Almost done! The edges were the most difficult part....

Before & after, or, more like in progress. There is still a lot that I want to do...just have to remember it is one thing at a time!

 

Wall Art Makeover

I have had a set of three wall hangings that I have tried to sell on Craigslist a couple different times (tried once in Nebraska and once again in Pennsylvania). Since I have never gotten any bites, I thought that was a sign that I should use my craft skills to update them.

I really wish I could sit here and tell you how much I enjoyed this project and how fun it was, but if I knew how frustrating it was going to be, I probably wouldn't have done it. I think everything that could have gone wrong, did indeed go wrong.

First, I disassembled the frames. Easy peasy.

Then I wrapped the matting in burlap (to match the burlap lamp shades on my buffet lamps). Easy.

Don't mind the crazy tape-job. (I used tape incase I ever want to switch out fabrics or something)

Lovely lamp shades.

And taped the fabric over the old art. This was a sinch!

Then I spray painted the little boarder piece. I think this little boarder adds a lot to the frame, so I really like it! This was also very easy.

It's all coming together! I put the almost-finished product together to make sure I still wanted to paint the frames white. The answer was yes.

I took the frames outside to spray paint and Alice guarded the burlap...

While I was spray painting it started to rain, so I pulled the sheet that the frames were laying on into the garage until it passed over. I went back inside to do something around the house and about an hour later, I heard a cracking noise in the garage. I opened to door only to find the sweet hubs had accidentally ran over the frames. Whoops! I'm glad I can laugh about this now...

We back our cars into the garage, and you really can't see anything on the garage floor when you are backing in. In the grand scheme of things, I'm really glad we figured this out by running over measly frames rather than something more important! Now we know.

After calling around to Hobby Lobby and other craft stores, I learned that these are custom size frames and will be a minimum of $50/frame to get new ones. I new at that point that we HAD to fix the ones we have. Jake did an amazing job of gluing and sanding and making the frames look like new!

The next issue was the spray paint...it wasn't adhering well to the surface of the frame. And then it would chip off really easily. And then it got scratched. And then I realized I didn't like the bright white frame and I wanted more of an off-white. So we tried to re-spraypaint. And then one frame broke. And then the glass shattered in one frame when I was trying to put it all together. And then the fabric on one was bunched up instead of laying flat.

Until FINALLY, it all came together...

Western Caribbean Vacation

I am happy to report that the semester is already over! Well, almost. Classes are DONE and I have two finals next week. Praise. the. Lord. These past couple of months have gone quickly. I am excited to have a break from school during the month of May to which I have already made a list of things I want to do:

• COOK DINNERS! I miss being in the kitchen so much!
• Make several batches of granola. We love our granola.
• Get the garden going. We've already started a variety of seed in the house
• Catch up on wedding stuff. I am doing a little wedding coordinating on the side.
• Decorate the dining room. Jake has challenged me to do it as inexpensively as possible, so I told him I could do it with $20. We will see if that is possible. I am determined...

Ok, so moving on to the purpose of this post...

In March, Jake and I took a week off and headed to Texas to meet up with Andy and Andrea - two friends that we met during our time in Pennsylvania. We love these two and have been looking forward to vacationing with them ever since we moved to Tennessee in May 2012. We were originally planning on a summer vacation in 2013, but the Meeker's called us in January asking if we could planning something in the Spring because they are EXPECTING! Their little boy is due in August.

We had an awesome time and took LOTS of pictures...

When we arrived in Honduras I saw this outside of our cabin window...

A shipwreck!

We spent the day in Roatan, Honduras just relaxing on the beach!

Jake and Andy heading out on kayaks!

The boys playing volleyball

A real life Mr. Minkey!!!!! I have always had a love for little spider monkeys!

Jake ruining a romanting Meeker picture!

The Meeker's brought their awesome waterproof digital camera!

 

Learning some dance moves!

We didn't plan for our outfits to be so coordinating...

In Belize we hiked into a jungle to do some cave tubing

Loved these little desserts!

Crowd participation experience #1: Jake confidentially volunteered to participate in the martini demonstration.

And his prize was a free drink!

Crowd participation #2: Coach Meeker got to spin some soccer balls on pencil tops. He did it like a pro. I'm sure his soccer team would be impressed!

Crowd participation #3: I was the lucky one chosen to have knives thrown around me. I did not volunteer for this.

Arriving in Playa del Carmen

Jake and I went to see the Mayan Ruins in Tulum

We were greeted by a ton of these little monsters...

 

Jake and I were climbing on these rocks to get a good view and I almost stepped on this iguana! 

So beautiful!

 

Jake was over all of the pictures...

We found this snake in the bushes

 

 

Jake was happy to get some authentic Mexican food before we headed back to Cozumel

We had such a great time and can't wait to see them again!