The Great Kitchen Re-do of Summer 2012

Here is our horribly outdated kitchen before we started our big project. It had way too blue tile, a nasty brown sink, an original brown oven from 1964, 3 layers of outdated vinyl floors, brown water and grease stained cabinets, a yellowish- tan laminate countertop with gaping seams, and one light, ONE! Can you believe we lived with this kitchen for 1 1/2 plus years! I sure can’t. It was Yucky with capital “Y”.

And below is our kitchen in progess, but not 100% done… is anything ever 100% done when you are renovating your house yourself? It took my husband about 1 month of putting in at least 8 hour days everyday to get our kitchen from looking like what you see above to what you see below. Amazing isn’t it? I helped when I could which wasn’t very often since I was on babysitting duty. Playing with my baby while my kitchen was getting transformed, what more could a girl ask for? Not much. So thanks to my wonderfully talented husband our kitchen now has a beautiful glass and Greek marble backsplash, a shiny WHITE sink, a white smooth-top oven range so yucky crumbs can’t fall down below the grates and hide there for months at a time until I get up enough courage to tackle cleaning those nasty burners, lovely 18X18 vinyl groutable and realistic looking floor tiles, refinished cabinets painted white, totally seamless and rock-solid granite countertops, track lighting, under cabinet light, and a pendant light for a grand total of… 18 lights, 18! So without further ado here is how our kitchen progress stands just in time to be getting back to work for the school year.

A Tea Party

My first baby shower was a couple weekends ago. My lovely sister-in-laws threw my husband, baby, and I a very pretty pink, white, and gold baby shower. It was a tea party too! This was a shower with my in-laws so that is why my husband came along.  I was so excited I got to use my teacups my gradma bought me for my 20th birthday I spent with her in her homeland of Prague, Czech Republic. Here they are…

The daffodils were picked from the farm by our little nephew Corban. Elsa’s name in the background is hanging from a cute tree limb which isn’t visible in this picture.

Each person wrote a piece of advice or inspiration on these rocks using a paint pen:

My beautiful sister-in-laws hard at work getting the snacks ready…

Sugar cookies made by my friend Cheri…

 

 

Peek-a-boo

We have been working on our baby girl’s nursery pretty much since we found out we were expecting. We wanted a somewhat gender neutral room anyway so there was a lot we could do before her gender was revealed at our 19 week ultrasound. After that we went to Ikea and had fun with purchasing more gender- specific items such as these curtains here. Before we knew what we were having we had already decided to leave the room the same butter cream/ yellow wall color and we ordered this two tone white crib here. I like this crib because of the extra storage drawer underneath and the clean, modern lines. We also purchased this white rhino from Z Gallerie. We figured any gender would love it. Elsa will especially like it since rhinos really are  unicorns that gained weight and now are called rhinos. Boy or girl either way, I wanted a nice light, airy, and bright room that didn’t have a theme that I might grow tired of.  My goal was to go for a Europe/ cottage/ shabby chic look.  Elsa’s room is not 100% complete but I can’t wait to reveal it so I am going to post a few peeks of it…

Expecting…

If your guess was that we are expecting a new roof for our house, new appliances, or a new bathroom, you are wrong. We are expecting a little baby of our very own! He/She is coming soon. May 12, 2012 is our due date.  Yay!!! Even though it does not look like I am pregnant, I am about 3.5 months along. We heard Baby Price’s heartbeat last week. It sounded beautiful and strong.  I am very thankful for not having any morning sickness. I have been eating healthy but have also been craving strawberry nerds and homemade macaroni and cheese. yikes! I am eating/drinking tons of fruits and vegetables throughout the day thanks to our wonderful Vitamix blender. Oscar is very excited about being a big brother. He will be great.  We are already busy preparing our nursery. We were so excited to find out the good news, we got started right away with setting up Baby Price’s new room. I will keep the blog updated with nursery posts as soon as we finish. In the meanwhile we have been starting a prediction sheet. Place your predictions for a boy/girl, due date, and my final weight before delivery (my starting weight was 114). The lucky winner wins something special so place your prediction!

The Beginning of a Love Story

Today is our 3 year anniversary. In honor of our marriage, my husband is sharing a sneak preview of his book, “When Love Comes Around”. It is about us in the beginning stages of our love and how we blossomed into what we are today.

Warning: This is a fiction story loosely based on real people, events, and settings. Conversations among characters are made up. Mom, I was NOT that mean, it is a fiction story meant to draw humor not tears.

 Click on this link to his blog to read some of his story:

Just a Tad Over

I hope you enjoy!

Most Enchanting

The beautiful Princess Libuse  proclaimed; “I see a great city whose glory will touch the stars”  and she named it Prague which means “threshold”. Enchanting means charming or captivating. We rate Prague, Czech Republic as the most enchanting city in the world. It is also referred to as “The city of a Thousand Spires”.

The cobblestone streets and gothic, baroque, and renaissance  architecture fill the city. It is so easy to imagine Franz Kafka walking the streets that look the same today as they did in his day. This city was saved from most of the destruction caused by WWII. It is so easy to imagine the hooves’ of  old King Wenceslas’ horses crossing Charles Bridge, or hear the soviet tanks rolling over the cobblestone streets.

Prague is  captivating because of the its culture.  The people have a very strong national identity due to their stubbornness  to hold onto their culture (which isn’t a bad thing). There is little diversity within the country. Unlike most major European cities, most Czechs only speak their native language. For being the only country in the world who speaks Czech, you would think they would require students to learn English in school, but they do not.  They are Czechs forever and proud of it.

One cannot help but be captivated by the legends of Prauge. There are so many of them. There is a water goblin who lives under Charles Bridge and keeps the souls of the drowned in pots at the bottom of the river. There is also the horse named Semik who saved an innocent prisoner by jumping over the fortress wall and swimming across the Vltava river to free the prisoner.

The city of Prague is enchanting because of its legends, the culture, the buildings, and it’s past. When you go there you can feel the enchantment oozing out of every statue, cobblestone, cathedral, and opera house. I think Kanye West would agree with me. “Czech” out his awesome music video here. It was filmed in this city because Prague is truly a very enchanting place.

The Wealthiest City in the World

Welcome to Monaco City, Monaco. It is one tiny country, made up of one tiny city where 35,600 people live. We just so happened to be there the week of the big royal wedding.  Everything was super clean and shiny. I actually fell walking down some steps and had to put my hand down on the cobblestones to catch myself.  Of all the places I have been, I think Monaco is the best place I could have fallen and have to touch the ground. I did use sanitizer after, but anywhere else I probably would have had to go get a shot.

Here is me just after I fell on the step. I am in the process of applying my sanitizer…

Anyway, the city was all decked out with South African flags which was confusing.  I knew nothing about the Prince of Monaco or who his fiancée was. It turns out the new princess is some swimmer gal from South Africa. They hung her flags for the wedding.

Everything was spotless, there was not a crumb on the ground or a hobo in site except for the Prices. Walking around in Monaco with billionaires made us feel like bums. I was wearing tennis shoes, and everybody looked at them like they had never seen anything like it. It was probably the opposite effect of walking into a Wal-Mart wearing a pair of Manolo Blahniks.

There were tons of cool cars, and fancy people wearing clothes that cost as much as our house. And, you should have seen all the yachts. Holy Crow.

Even the seagulls are living the high life. They eat whole baguettes….

Here is a glimpse of where the rich and famous dine…

and what they drive…

If we were rich enough to live here we would probably both be sporting bulldog jewelery…

And we probably would even pay the 10 euros to get inside the gambling room of the Monte Carlo. For now, we were content with just walking inside the hotel and doing a few walk bys while trying to look inside. The gambling room did not look anything like the obnoxious casinos in the US, but more like a fancy dining hall. Word has it, Leonardo Dicaprio was here a few days ago. Im sure he paid the 10 euro to gamble.

It was such a fascinating evening. Being that close to a billionaires lifestyle was pretty cool to see. However, they did not seem to be having anymore fun than us. I actually think we were having way more fun, but who am I to judge? I might take a ride on one of their yachts but I would not trade lives with them.  I think it is way better to walk in my shoes than theirs. High heels are hard to walk in and they make me too tall. As fascinating as their Manolos may be, I am very happy with my tennis shoes.

The Most Beautiful City in the World

Walking from the Paris train station may feel more like you are in a developing country rather than in Paris. However, once you get well past the train station and into the city center, we have decided that Paris is the most beautiful big city we have seen in all of Europe.

Paris streets, monuments, museums, cathedrals, and other buildings just can not be beat. They are breathtakingly beautiful. The image of the Eifel Tower is everywhere, sometimes I get tired of looking at it. However, seeing it up close  I can understand why people think it is so awesome. When you are standing right next to it you can appreciate how enormous and really cool it is. The first time I went to Paris back in 2004, the taxi driver drove us right along side the tower at night and I was blown away. Seeing it for the second time, was just as marvelous.

We actually weren’t even going to go to Paris this time because all the seats were sold out for Eurail Pass holders. Unfortunately Fortunately we got on the wrong train. Even though we had to pay 96 euros for a reservation on the train we were so happy we didn’t get fined on top of the reservation fee. If you board some trains without the required reservation you can get in big trouble.

Without planning we were on our way to the city of lights instead of Belgium like we originally planned. Paris is very expensive but well worth it for us to get to experience it together.  This is a perfect example of why it is fun to travel by train without any schedule or itinerary. As long as you are okay with just going with it, you are in for a good adventure.

We were questioning ourselves after we got on the train and the first class seats were a little too nice compared to the other first class seats we were riding in. We got served two meals and bottomless drinks. Come to find out this train was a private one that showed up 20 minutes early at the exact time of the train we were supposed to get on, and they were both going to Brussels. After we had to pay for our reservations on the train we were sure to stock up on extra cans of mineral water for our backpacks. We were glad we did so we could get our moneys worth and because Paris was the first hot weather we had experienced in 8 months.

Paris is modern and classy. Even with its ancient buildings like Notre Dam, the city still feels so young, fresh, and new.   The buildings, streets, and monuments are stunning. For these reasons it earns the beauty award.

Obviously we have not been everywhere, but from what we have seen of the world, these are our opinions. Stay tuned for what we think is the most charming city, the most enchanting city, and the wealthiest city we have been to.

If you have been to another most beautiful city in the world, let us know. we want to go there too.

In the words of Rick Steves, Happy Travels~

Inspiration From Abroad

Greetings from Europe. We have been traveling all over the continent and I have been finding decorating inspiration in every country. We have been going non stop and have landed in about 11 countries so far.  Europeans sure do have some great style.  Here are some things I wish I found in my house, but instead they live over the ocean. Here is what I have found…

This super cool globe light was found at an antique fair in Monterosso in the the Cinque Terre of the Italian Riveria.

More cool lighting and chandeliers were found in the Netherlands.¨

I love the shape and colors of these chairs. Europeans definately are not afraid of color.

These large baskets would be great for storage, laundry hampers, or planters. These were on display in Haarlem, Netherlands.

I think these turquoise tiles with grey grout are so pretty. I was not at a spa when I took this photo but I was actually in a train station in Malmo, Sweden. There is inspiration everywhere.

Our first stop in Europe was in Copenhagen, Denmark. There, we spent our first 2 nights in a brand new hostel called Generator. It had such amazing decorations I had to take some pictures. I loved their chairs and all their ottomans. Look at the animal heads on the walls. I want that horse head.

Here is a picture of their beautiful swan furniture in the lobby. Does furniture like this exist at home…. I did not see it at FredMyer.

warning= sorry its sideways, cant get it to rotate on this crazy czech computer.

Here is the sofa…I am in love

I have stayed in a many of hostels in my day and I have not seen decor like this until I got to the Generator Hostel in Copenhagen. We love Copenhagen. I dont think I have ever felt more safe in a big European city. Everbody seems so happy,  friendly and trustworhty of one another here. The Danish people seem very family oriented. You will often see the entire family out playing at the park together on a sunny day. They are also the most beautiful group of people I have seen anywhere. They all look very healthy, maybe because more people ride their bikes here than in Amsterdam even.  As a reflection from this hostel, the Danish people have awesome style, they look like they are all models, modeling amazing clothes. If I cant be a Dane, I am glad I am married to one.

European Vacation

It is summertime and we are spending 5 weeks of it in Europe. We are going to miss our home but we have big plans for it when we return. We can’t wait to do all the fun outdoor fix-ups. However, the Price place will be well taken care of while we are away.

Since we purchased our home, all our extra money has been going toward home improvements. Before being home-owners our number one hobby was traveling. We think it is important to take time for ourselves and do what we love so we don’t get too burnt out on the whole home thing. So we are using our home improvement money to make another journey through Europe! We are so excited to put our packs on our backs and our passports stamped again.

Throughout our 5 weeks we will be traveling, visiting my family, and also meeting up with friends. All we are taking is 1 backpack each. Here is my backpack:

Here it is compared to our bulldog:

It’s not that big right? Especially for 5 weeks! I am forced to be a minimalist for this trip. I am strictly following Rick Steve’s Packing List found here. I am only packing the minimum essentials. As Rick says, it is best to  “Pack Light and Right”.

Once we get across the pond we will be traveling only by train. We are traveling on a shoe string budget just like we have always done. We are packing very little and spending as little as possible by only staying in hostels or sleeping on overnight train rides.

Below is our optimistic traveling itinerary. We probably won’t have enough time to get to all these places but they are definitely on our list.

Price’s European Fun List 2011:

Denmark 

Sweden

Netherlands

Brussels

Luxembourg

France

Italy

Switzerland 

Germany

Czech Republic

Slovenia

Bosnia

Kosovo

Albania

Greece

We will try to update from the road but can’t make any promises. What we can guarantee is that we will journal so we don’t forget any good stories or places. We will be frugal and continue our budget even while we are on vacation. We will take lots of souvenir photos to decorate our house with when we return. We will also be on the look out for some European design and decorating ideas to bring back to inspire our place.

Let the adventure begin!