Incredible Beauty

A friend of ours and his wife just recently returned from a vacation in Bora Bora. He shared the most beautiful pictures of the trip, and I thought I'd share one of them with you. I think it's one of the most incredibly beautiful places I've ever seen. What do you think?

Guest Bedroom

Okay - I know it's crazy, but...

I've already decorated the guest bedroom of our new house. Yep, that's right - the house we don't even own yet! Well, at least in my mind I have. And I've collected a few things - paint chips for the wall color, a few accessories (hey, they were on sale!), and the sweetest little writing desk you've ever seen (thrifted, of course, so a wonderful price!). When I first thought about the room, I envisioned it as very cozy (read: small), and both very comfortable and functional. And I think that's exactly how it will turn out. The colors will be a pale blue and chocolate - with creamy accents. I've collected a few of the 'Cottage Collection' accessories (see photo) and I even found a pair of thrifted valances that are the perfect color! ...now all we need is the house!

Happy Anniversary, Mom & Dad!

It isn't often that one has the priviledge of congratulating a couple on celebrating their Golden Wedding Anniversary -- but two weeks ago, we had the honor of doing just that.

As requested, we kept the celebration small and very low key - just close family at a wonderful restaurant, celebrating an amazing milestone.

Congratulations, mom and dad! You're an inspiration. Thank you both for being such wonderful role models. I'm so proud to have you as my parents. Much love always.

Update on the house...

Wow, it's been quite a while since I last spoke about this subject. It's nearly the end of April and our house fund continues to grow. Yay! We've done extremely well with our savings plan and are currently at 45% of our goal -- way ahead of schedule! Originally we were thinking that we would like to begin looking for a house in March or April of 2009; as it stands right now, we're thinking that we'll begin looking in earnest in September/October of this year. The change is due, at least in part, to the fact that we are way ahead of our schedule in savings, but also the fact that housing prices have been coming down at a pretty phenomenal rate. It's both an exciting and frightening prospect. Neither of us has ever bought a home so we've been trying like mad to educate ourselves on the subject. There is so much to learn! The nice thing for us is that, to date, there has not been one offer on the house we're renting. Again, YAY! Because the rent is so incredibly low (at least for our high COL area), we'd really like to be able to stay there - and moreover, paying the same rent - until we actually buy our home and move. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

The Dodgers, the Red Sox, the Weir's, the LaLa's ...

the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum...and 115,300 of our closest friends! Holy moly - I've never seen so many people all in one place in my entire life. Yes, there were lines. Yes, we had to wait. Yes, it was cold. Yes, the food and drinks were expensive. But all in all, a GREAT time was had by all and we wouldn't have missed it for the world. And, oh yeah, we'll be in the Guiness Book of World Records as the largest crowd in history at a baseball game. Making history is fun!!

Elvis lives!

The king would be so proud.