Real Trees... Win.

I grew up with fake trees. (Alan is too classy to say 'fake' and says they are Artificial trees.) This year, we wanted a pre-lit artificial tree, but they are sooo expensive. So I thought, 'hey, why don't we just put up a real tree this year and we'll hit up the after Christmas sales on the pre lit after!' That is just what we did. The problem is, I think I fell in love with Real Trees!!! We found the most beautiful tree that fits so perfectly in our house, and as a matter of fact, I have yet to remove it because it is just so beautiful. Also, I never went to the after Christmas sales because I'm sold that for at least one more year we can get a real one...
I will say, however, the problem with picking the perfect tree is that I honestly felt bad leaving others behind. Pathetic, right? I really did. Darn near teared up as we left the others that "weren't good enough"... maybe were a little too short, or not full enough, or too skinny or .... Man, I felt so guilty. All that grief that doesn't exist when you pull the thing out of a box! Well, the guilt was short lived because that tree has lit up our downstairs for a good month, and I have enjoyed every second of it. I love Christmas trees. I love the glowing elegance and the peace it brings to a home. I love the beauty and grace, and yes, I discovered I love the smell.  So, here's to our first real tree... Sniff. (We try not to name things we have intentions of throwing away. So she has no name. But I LOVE her all the same!)

I love my lumberjack husband.

Yea, the house may be a mess, but we were busy having FUN!

 Warm and fuzzy inside. Come on, you know you feel it, too!

Home for the Holidays part I

Wow. Finally a chance to breathe, right? Christmas and New Years were a blast with so much family here to share with us, but wow, what a busy couple of weeks! We finally  finished with the kitchen (aside from painting the ceiling and the drapes I have yet to make.ahem.), and were able to enjoy using it during the holidays. We LOVE our home. I love everything about it and can't believe how lucky we are to have it. Of course, it has been so tempting to buy everything under the sun/sale signs in order for it to look 'just so', but we try to remind ourselves we will be here a while and want to take our time furnishing it with items we love. It was so awesome for our first Christmas here, to fill our house with lots of voices and children playing. We had such a blast! First the kitchen:

 under the cabinet lighting... LOVE!

 Fixtures for the lights and the knobs and handles all placed. 

Our freshly painted walls... It's a gray with greenish undertones. MUCH better than that awful brown, I would say... It really makes the space look huge! 

I know it isn't incredibly decorated yet, but I am sure I will take more pictures later. There are so many neat features to this kitchen, and I sure feel like the luckiest girl alive to get to call it Mine.  

Like I said, I am sure more pictures will follow, especially when I put up my drapes. I am really excited for the splash of personality and color it will add to my already favorite room in the house. But for now... Welcome to my Home!

Home Sweet Home

Been a while, right? I have debated whether or not to post pics of our brand spanking new house! I finally decided to do it, even though it may ruin the surprise for those of you coming for Christmas this year. I am so excited about our kitchen remodel, but even more so just thrilled that we have our very own home! It is such a wonderful feeling and a huge blessing for us! What a big year we've had.... Here are some house pics. PLUS some kitchen pics. You can get a feel for the before and after this way. We sure love it. It has been super stressful, but really neat to get to design the kitchen basically from scratch. I just can't wait to start using it!!! So here ya go-

First day in house

We tore up the carpet and wood entryway... Took forever!

After Alan finished our hardwood floors... Yeah-he's hot.

KITCHEN REMODEL:

BEFORE

Don't you love the brown walls? Me: not so much a fan.

AFTER

 (and still goin')

Did our own demolition. Ok--Alan did it. I helped. Twice.

Tore up the floor in preparation for Alan's handywork. I did that myself:)

New Cabinets

 Plus an Island! (trying to decide on a paint color.)

Painting completed...at least around the sheetrock work.

 Countertops in. I love the color. Wish you could see closer. It's a gray with flecks of black and taupe... Don't forget Alan's gorgeous floors. His brother, Chris came up to help him on the weekend, and it was done within the two days. Done Perfectly, I might add. So impressed by them! 

 Beautiful backsplash...

 To come... lighting and plumbing, handles and knobs, appliances, and the final product! Get excited. I think you'll love it Almost as much as I do!

Lucky

Have I ever mentioned how lucky I am to have married such a great guy? I really am. And he really is. (a great guy. I don't know how lucky he feels)  I have had a life long dream of going to Europe and we did it! We spent 3 amazing weeks with backpacks and cameras, and a whole lot o' excitement. We flew from Charlotte directly into London and flew from Rome back to Charlotte. I really wanted to edit some of the pictures before posting them here, but I know some of you aren't facebook users so I'll put a few of the pics up now.

We had such an awesome time, and even though it was a little more stressful not having every detail planned ahead of time, we actually really enjoyed being able to be flexible and change things up whenever/however we wanted. We used Expedia to book hotels/B&B's from night to night and actually got some really great deals! We got to stay at a Hilton one night. I decided we should be Hilton people:) I like the sound of that!

In London, we got there just as the Changing of the Guard was happening, which was neat since it was raining the rest of the time we were there... Thus, no changing of the Guard. We Loved all the gardens in London, especially the Queen's Gardens, and we even went to check out the London Business School... Just in case Alan decides to go in that direction;) We got to tour the inside of Buckingham Palace, as well as see the Royal Mews, and the Queen's Gallery which had an exhibit of original, recently acquired Leonardo DaVinci drawings of the human body. These drawings were incredibly detailed and accurate, and would have transformed medicine had they been seen at the time they were done. However, Because they were not, we waited 400 years to "rediscover" what he had already known. Pretty amazing stuff.

                         

                       

If you look close, you can even see he knew all about the numbers of/types of teeth!

 We went from London to Paris and stayed in Paris for a few days. We did it all in Paris. The Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Pantheon, a boatride on the River, La Chapelle (LOVE!), the Arc de Triumph, walked Champ d'elysse, mass at Notre Dame(I kept crying and Alan kept telling me I was weird. But when the organ started and you looked around where we were, I just couldn't stop...) We took a day trip to Versailles, which we loved, and I basically lived on croissants and ham n' cheese crepes.  We then took an overnight train from Paris to Venice. That was quite the experience. I liked it. Alan...not so much. Venice was beautiful, but my heart belongs to Florence. Ahhhh Florence. I LOVE Florence. I am torn between Paris and Florence being my favorite places on Earth!
Florence is absolutely gorgeous. I love the Tuscan feel, the food is just a little different but delicious, and I found my favorite gelato place off one of the bridges. Not the Ponte Vecchio. It was one off from that.They had beautiful streets full of jewelry and leather, and the Duomo was pretty amazing. We went to see "the David" and wow... Talk about spectacular. I couldn't stop staring up at it. Alan says it looks just like him. :) Keep in mind the pics I am putting up aren't edited, so hopefully they aren't too dark or anything.

There really is nothing quite like when the tower started sparkling...

Mass started at Notre Dame. There was such a sense of reverence. Such a neat experience

 Alan said he tried to take the picture so it looked like I was about to be hit by the bus. Awww!:/

 Future home?

 Future bedroom!

  My favorite picture of them all. Not edited at all, and it captured exactly what I was seeing. I love it! This is why Florence stole my heart. Just look at how beautiful it is.

OK, OK...LET'S TALK GELATO. 
So. I love Pistachio. But not as much as coco. And I can't decide if Stracciatella is equal to coco or above it. The mint was pretty tasty. As was the banana. Alan liked the crema, and he tried a really nasty burnt sesame. The blackberry was tasty, but not really creamy, and overall, if you gave me a scoop of just about anything at all, I would be totally happy! I LOVE GELATO!!!! :)

Gelato...

                         

 Gelato again... 

So romantic, no?:)

 Every day at 6pm, they light a ceremonial flame for the 'unknown fallen soldier'. This burns at the base of the Arc de Triumph. 

We were going to go to Prague and/or Switzerland, but vastly underestimated how tiring travelling would be (walking 10-12 hrs a day is tough!), so we kept it simple. I'm so glad we did. We got a chance to really spend time in where we were and experience so many new things. We went from Florence to Pisa (you know.. with the leaning tower?:), then on to the Cinque Terre. There are five 'cities,' if you will, that are on the coast of Italy and look like fairy tale lands. They have been largely untouched by modern upgrades and have such a charm about them. You can take a boat ride to the furthest one, and then hike down through each town and explore the different areas. The hiking path was closed when we got there, and it poured rain for a few hours, so we just hung out and ate some of the best focaccia I could have imagined. It was so good. As was the pesto. We went back and from there we went down to Rome. We spent the last few days exploring Rome and laughing at ourselves for getting lost so often. We went to the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Pantheon, the Spanish steps, Trevi Fountain, St Peter's Basilica, the Vatican Museum, St somebody's castle (I can't remember now), Piazza Navona (and other Piazzas while we were somewhat lost), and basically just had a blast. I just can't believe all the history behind such incredible places and it truly inspires one to look back on civilization and how much progress we have...and haven't made.There is so much out there to remind us of where we have come from. So many wars have been fought, freedoms won and lost, pain and joy experienced, and art/buildings/cities left behind to express all of it!  

 "It looked like he was...Leaning." - movie?! (While You Were Sleeping)

We took this pic for Dad and mom. If they really want to live in the middle of nowhere, we found the spot!! Plenty of land for ya! :) hahaha

Trevi Fountain

 The Roman Forum

 Look carefully. Isn't this beautiful?! This is a record of a marriage between these people a REALLY long time ago...

 The Sistine Chapel. pretty amazing. Although surprisingly, not my favorite place.

Vatican Square

I'm sure I missed some things that we did, and I will have to add a post later with a bunch of pictures from Alan's phone. (There are some really cool ones.) For now, that is basically how we spent our time as backpackers in a new land. We thought the showers were a little odd, but it just added to the experience I suppose. Alan really liked the bidets (sp?), and kept watching tutorials on how to use them, though I'm not sure he ever did. There were many nights we slept on separate twin beds, and it felt a little like being on a campout or something with my best friend. We could stay up late laughing at how we couldn't sleep because it was a 6 hr time change, and we got a chance to kind of get to know each other even more. I am so grateful we had a chance to do this and even more grateful to have somebody in my life who shares the same interest/passion for traveling and for other cultures. It was so much fun and I just can't thank him enough.