Kauai-Day 3

I don't know what it is with me and sleeping in, but sometimes it is just not possible! We are on vacation and I woke up at 5:45! Seriously!? At least I can watch the sunrise each morning.

Today we left by 8:30 and headed to the West Side of the island. We went to Waimea Canyon. It took about 1 1/2 hours to get to the top from out resort, but the view was completely worth it. It was gorgeous. I keep feeling like I'm in Jurassic Park and I expect to see a dinosaur run by me. It's very prehistoric.

After the canyon, we hit up a taco stand for lunch. We found a glass beach! It was very similar to the one we frequent in Ca, in Fort Bragg. Then we headed to shipwreck beach. Is it picture perfect or what?!

We spent some time there swimming, watching people jump off the cliff and napping on our straw mats.

Tonight's dinner and my date!

Kauai-Day 2

This morning I woke up nice and early. I crawled out of bed at 6am and was faced with this gorgeous view at the door.

We 

Today we celebrated 3 years of marriage! It feels like it was just last year that we got married, not 3! But it also feels like its always been Erin and I. I love being a wife and know the Lord has placed the two of us together. That is why we are in Kauai after all, it's our anniversary trip! Pretty sure this will be better than our honeymoon. We were just talking about that tonight. Mexico is overrated. Kauai=so much better. 

We headed out the door at 7:30am and hit the road in our sweet convertible. 

We went to see the spouting blow horns on the South Shore. (We are in Kapaa, on the East Shore, just so ya know :)).  These were very cool!

 Then we headed to Poipu Beach and did some late morning snorkeling! Erin's sinuses are still bad, so he wasn't able to dive down. Mine were just fine! Praise the Lord. We brought our own snorkels and fins so we can jump in whenever we want. After that we headed to Koloa for some snacks and coffee.

 After our lomi salmon snack, we went to see some botanical gardens. So fun!

 

Kauai- Day 1

We made it to Kauai today! Last night (Monday) we stayed in Oakland overnight and took the free shuttle from our hotel to the airport first thing this morning. Like, first first thing. We were at the airport by 5:45am. Dang.

On Monday we took our time getting to the bay area. We made a happy hour pit stop in Vacaville to see my family. Then we stopped in Emeryville to do some window shopping and walking around. We ended up in Oakland around 8:30, locked ourselves in the room and called it a night! We chose to stay in/fly out of Oakland because 1) They fly non-stop to Kauai and 2)We stayed one night at this hotel so we could park our car there for free for 10 days and 3)It was just cheaper all around to do that! Hopefully our car is still there when we get home ;)

We left this morning at 7:15am and arrived around 9:45am in Kauai. Side note: Erin and I have been battling sinus colds all week and my biggest fear about getting here was flying with our sinuses all screwed up. Guys, it was awful. I was basically crying when we landed from the pain in my ears and head. It was probably the worst pain I've ever been in. Hard to want to be in paradise when you can't hear anything and are miserable. We are doing much better now. Please pray we can do some diving later this week! 

Complimentary Mai Tai's. Yes please!

When we went to pick up the rental car, we (me) decided to upgrade to a convertible!
Why not!?!

We found our resort and were met with this view. Not bad, right?

So far we have seen lots of chickens! Like, there was one inside the car rental building! And there were some outside at the grocery store by our feet waiting for us to drop crumbs. They must be Hawaii's seagulls or squirrels or something. Too funny.

I hope to blog regularly while we are here :) Aloha!

Decorating My Home

Lately, patterns and prints have been speaking to me. My house has turned into a wonderful, eclectic, and homey style. Of course, It still doesn't look like a man lives with me. Whatever. He has a whole man cave he can decorate store junk treasures in. 

As lovely as I am making our home, we will soon have to change things up a little bit. And it sure ain't my style.

Pretty soon this guy will be joining us.

Not the guy on the right. I'm talking about the other thing. The big guy in the truck bed. Poor Bambi. Yes guys, my man shot a deer. And not only are we eating it, but now I get to look at it hanging on my wall.

It's not here yet. The taxidermist is still working on it in Alabama. Erin had it mounted. We will see where it ends up. I'm still 99% sure it should go in the man cave.

I have other lovely things to look at. Like this:

 I just recently recovered all of these pillows except for the super cute, antique coffee sack pillow my mom gave me. I love mixing different prints. Erin thinks we have too many pillows. I don't know what he's talking about. 

And this:

I found a home for the cork board I made a few weeks ago. It is above our trash/recycling and next to the pantry in our kitchen. I like the pop of the mustard against the grey.

And this:

This is a lovely shade of yellow. I scored this at Target a few weeks ago for $19. It looks lovely in our living room. I like all the different patterns I got going on. 

Lastly, I love this print too:

This is a super cute hamper I bought so my husband could put his super dirty clothes in it! Seriously though. He must roll around on the basement floor. He knows to immediately remove all dirty clothes before coming in, so now they are hidden in here instead of a pile on my floor.

So back to the deer head. My style of adding some cute antlers would be this

 

White. Just a little fun decoration on the wall. Clean looking. No eyeballs. Or fur.

My man is thinking something more like this

 

 Oh deer.

Bagels

I have been making all of our bread for the last several months now. I love it. I'm no expert, but I am learning a ton and really enjoy it. Erin really likes eating the baked goods too. Things I make regularly are soaked whole wheat bread, biscuits, pie crusts, crusty bread, bagels and I'm working on the sourdough :) 

I tried out this recipe last night/today and I think it is a decent one. I have tried a few others too, but am looking for my ''go to" recipe and I haven't found it or mastered it yet. The only thing that I found negative about this recipe is that it only made 6 bagels. However, I think next time I will use this recipe again and shape them into smaller bagels and could probably squeeze out 8. I also liked how 
I had all of the ingredients on hand.

They ain't perfect, but sure make my house smell good :)


Bagels take time and are not necessarily easy, but not hard either. I really enjoy making our own breads and this is just another thing I enjoy spending time on. I let the bagels sit overnight in the fridge and then boiled and baked them when I got home from work. Now I can have some with cream cheese for breakfast, or fry an egg with a slice of cheese on top. Have you ever made bagels?

What's Cookin

I had a very nice day off, even though it was cold and rainy outside. I'm not complaining. This morning I spent some time with a dear friend and her sweet kids. Then, I headed to the mall to meet my Nana for some shopping and lunch. After that, I went and worked with my friend who owns a lovely business that makes custom bow ties, ties, kids accessories, etc. Check out her shop at The Belle and The Beau.

As I was driving home and thinking about dinner, I remembered that I was missing the key ingredient for the dinner I had planned. My bad. The original plan was to use some ground venison I am trying to get rid of use up and make scalloped potatoes. That recipe is here. I have made that before and it is wonderful. When I went grocery shopping yesterday I decided to get sweet potatoes instead, forgetting that I had planned to make scalloped potatoes. Booo. 

What's a girl to do? When I was at the store, I had randomly bought jalapenos. Why? No reason. So, tonight's dinner consisted of left over olive bread from St. Patrick's Day, quinoa made with chicken stock, stuffed jalapenos, roasted sweet potatoes with onions and a kale salad. Random, but generally pretty healthy. 

This was our kale salad. It has feta cheese crumbles, croutons, cranberries, walnuts, sunflower seeds and balsamic dressing.

 Yummy.

The recipe for the stuffed jalapenos is from Pinterest. If you're not on, you should be. It's awesome. The recipe is from here. Your welcome :) I just roast the sweet potatoes with some garlic flavored olive oil, salt and pepper at 400 for 30 minutes or so. 

I don't know why I felt the need to share my dinner with you, but I did. If you are looking to make some sweet napkins, check out my tutorial. 

I will also show you my new toy! 

Sorry that its blurry for some reason. But it is bamboo, and very thin so I can store it easily.

A kitchen scale! I've been wanting one and finally used a BB&B coupon, making it only $35. It is digital and touch screen. YAY! I am so excited. I believe my bread making skills will improve even more once I am properly weighing my ingredients. For example, a recipe that calls for 8 ounces of water and 8 ounces of flour?? Water weighs more than flour, so that won't be accurate if you don't weigh them and just use a measuring cup. 

That is all folks. 

P.s. My first scale initiation is bagels. I am making the dough tonight and will be baking them tomorrow. We shall see how they turn out :)

So, about my blog...

Well, the last post I have on here is from June 2012. Oops. If you have a blog of your own or know someone who had a blog, it can be very easy to stop blogging. Let's be honest.

 I personally love reading blogs. Some of my favorite ones are The Elliott Homestead and Young House Love. I don't mean they are just "good" blogs. What I am really saying but not saying is how I could spend hours and days reading their posts. They inspire me in many ways. Check 'em out. Anywho, I have been caught up in other blogs and neglected mine in the process. But, I am back!

I often feel like I don't have anything special to blog about on a regular basis. When we were remodeling our home, I had tons of things to post. Like this. And this one. Okay one more. But now that that is all done, praise Jesus, I want to start blogging about other things. I do a lot of things I guess that are "blog worthy", but I need to be consistent and possibly have a theme or goal. My mom helped me come up with some ideas. So far, they are still ideas :)

But, today I did a fun little paint project. I woke up today and said to myself, "Self, you need to paint something." So I did. I have had this cart in my kitchen for a long time.

Plain. Not stained. But today I painted it and stained the top. I like it a lot! Pretty easy. The part that took the longest was painting the shelf slats. Just a little time consuming is all. I sat out on my little deck in the sun with Pandora on. A great way to spend my day. I already had the stain and some brushes. Not to mention the cart. It cost me a whopping $9 for the paint. And it kept my entertained for 3 hours! :)

I also made this sourdough bread tonight. It doesn't look anything like the picture. HAHA its actually really funny how opposite they are. But the taste is great :) I am really trying to perfect some sourdough bread. I will keep trying. Sorry husband.