An Update via Brain Farts

We've been back for almost 2 months now. How time flies! We've been chipping (and often jack-hammering) away at our to-do list for this house and we're really getting there. Here goes some randomness:

I couldn't get Jerry to wear a grey suit for our wedding (he felt very strongly about a traditional black tux) and so the next best thing was a grey sofa. Just kidding. Nah, but I really love the look of grey linen. It's the prefect backdrop for pops of color! I am just really happy we don't have that bachelor style leather couch anymore, it was comfy, but only two people could sit on it really. Our new sofa/chaise seats 4 people comfortably, all the better for entertaining! This is Ikea Karlstad in isunda gray FYI.

Almost caught up with all my favorite TV shows (Glee, HIMYM, Nikita, Up All Night, Modern Family, New Girl, Hart of Dixie, House of Lies), and currently finishing up Covert Affairs, Revenge, Keeping up with the Kardashians, Fringe, Pretty Little Liars and Downton Abbey.

It's fun watching bad reality shows with Jerry because we like to make fun of the celebs such as the Kardashians so much. For example, every time we hear Rob say "my sock line" we roll our eyes and laugh together haha!

We're attending two kiddo birthday parties this weekend for our nephews and niece. It definitely feels good to get my craft back on, even if its a small thing like adding some jazz to their gift wrap. I busted out my Silhouette Cameo to cut the "J" and the 6, and used my cuttlebug to emboss a paint chip.

I still have not uploaded our travel pictures to my laptop. So bad, I know! Must do it soon! In the midst of all our unpacking I actually forgot where I put the SD cards, but today when I was organizing I found them again.

In the quest to discover good eats up here, I tried Bambu. Jerry's usual drink of green tea with boba (he ONLY gets this drink, a creature of habit!) was standard (nothing will compare to our beloved Half and Half!). I discovered a drink that had all my favorite things- basil seed, longan, coconut meat, and pandan jelly.  Mmm! It's reminds me of different che components that I love, but more slurp-able I guess?

I don't know what's up with me, but after months of zero canker sores, I had 3 pop up overnight today! My poor mouth. Last month I also had a blood vessel burst in my eye and it was the scariest thing that I had ever seen, I was so freaked out! Luckily, it's painless and harmless and my eye cleared up in about 10 days. It was still so ugly though. If you're morbidly curious, google subconjunctival hemorrhage, but do so at your own risk! It's not pretty!

I am obsessed with the song Good Time by Owl City/Carly Rae Jepson. I'm gonna create a road trip CD...or iPhone playlist and that's gonna be the first song. It puts me in the best mood!

The nice thing about being back home is I can get fun snail mail! I started subscribing to Popsugar's monthly boxes, and am loving the surprises I get each month. I like Popsugar more so than Birchbox, Glambox, etc because I'm not a huge beauty junkie and would prefer to get personal/house related items. My August bag was especially awesome! You can visit Popsugar's site for a full list of the items they've given out, but my personal favorites have been the Baggu bag, the Pop Physique workout DVD (I no long live close to a Bar Method, boo), and the Kind Bars they gave out last month. Jerry really likes the Pretzel Crisps.  Please click on my referral link if you're interested in joining!

Fun coincidences last month- my friend C had her baby K on my birthday! Yay birthday twin :) And our puppy, Mochi, was born the day after. 

So excited to meet baby K next week when we come down to LA, and to bring Mochi home in October!

Now that we're more settled hopefully I can post more often! I've missed blogging!

Perseids in Tahoe

Tonight was one of those perfect summer nights. We happen to be in Tahoe during the peak of the Perseids meteor shower and took full advantage of the opportunity. Rounded up Jerry's parents and watched the most amazing meteor shower (to us) ever, and instead of laying on the ground, we sat in the swings of a nearby school and gazed and gazed. The night was filled with both moments of easy conversation and comfortable silence, punctuated by oohs and aahs as we saw the shooting stars streak across the sky. I'll never forget tonight. <3

Home!

It feels so great to be back, its been about 2 weeks now. We pretty much jumped right into things.  Less than two days after we flew to SFO, we drove down to LA and had reunions with family and friends. Ever since we got back we've dived straight into home stuff, more reunions, and getting to know our new 'hood (essentially the whole bay area, one block at a time haha). What we've figured out so far:

Finalized flooring, paint colors, and identified other immediate house needs. We'll be going with caramel with an ever so slight red tone wood floors to bring in warmth to our mainly gray, blue, and off white color scheme. Pretty easy decisions so far, we just needed to educate ourselves on what's available.

Decided on some big ticket items- sofa and area rugs. I already picked out our couch (btw, what's the diff between a couch and a sofa??) last year and I just had to figure out what size and shape fit best for our new living room. The area rug size was dependent on the sofa. Here it is, I ended up with a 6x9. I didn't really need to order it right away but 75% off is a huge deal and so I'd rather get it done with.  I also picked up a herringbone rug for one of the bedrooms, I haven't decided which one yet. Good thing I bought it anyway, looks like its only 35% off now. So yay, tangible purchases!

There are a ton of other house decisions to be made, but I feel like I need to live in the actual house for a bit and slowly tackle the other items one by one. I used to want to have the house completely move in ready and "perfect" prior to move in, but honestly now I want to live there first to figure out what our needs are. Really the only immediate priorities are safety issues like rekeying the locks, painting and flooring (for obvious reasons, if you've ever had to prep for painting you know how annoying it is!), and wiring for lighting. Other than that, I don't even need cute curtains or perfect kitchen cabinets before we move in. I'm willing to live with the ugly blinds and an unkempt yard for a while until I have more time and energy to tackle those things as we're ready. Hence, our Pinterest board is called an "evolution."

Striping off 4 layers of paint on our fireplace. A priority for sure! It's a messy and stinky project.

Spackling is a biotch. Ugh, I think I hate it more than painter taping.  But it's so worth it!

Other stuff on our list...Olympics watching, job hunting, more bay area discovering, and I am super excited for the day we move in and I can go to Trader Joes and stock up our kitchen, AND sleep in my own bed! I've missed my Kind bars, homemade smoothies, and my beloved Oregon Chai with warm milk! I think once we get the big stuff done with, move in, and then we can take care of everything else at our own pace. Traveling has really changed me! The pace we are doing things right now is pretty manageable and reasonable for the amount of time and energy that we have. More updates to come!

July

Whoa, we're coming home THIS month! Haha I just realized in my last few posts I keep mentioning the number of days that I'm coming home. I guess I am getting a little homesick. After all this is the longest I've gone without seeing my mommy!

A week left in Paris, a few days in Amsterdam, a week in London, and our adventures abroad end and our adventure at home begins!

PS: the BEST soft boiled egg EVER. Wow, where can I get these eggs at home??

PPS: not supposed to take pictures at l'Orangerie, but oh well! Too pretty to not photograph!

Paris

Out of all the places that we've been to, only Paris conjures up such romanticism and nostalgia. Plans for our two weeks here:

Shopping, shopping and shopping
Macarons galore
Aquaboulevard (Speedos for men rule!)
The usual sightseeing
Watching Euro Cup
Strolling with no destination in mind (that's the good thing about a weekly unlimited subway card!)
Hanging out with our friend who happens to be here at the same time too

We've got 18 days left. Whoa!

My Travel Tunes

Sometimes I relish long train rides and road trips because I can listen to music without much interruption. At home I'll put on a playlist but then I'll get distracted by something else. On a semi related note, our hotel in Madrid had speakers in the bathroom so I had Jerry play DJ with the radio unit in our room. Now I want one for our home as well! So much fun to sing in the shower. It really is the little things in life :)

So here's some songs that have really been our travel anthems, or call it what you will.

Bruno Mars- The Lazy Song
Our Machu Picchu hiking group sang this song in our van ride back, and it was the perfect thing to belt at the top of our lungs after a 4 day hike. So many happy memories :)

Without You- David Guetta feat Usher
I know this song came out last year but I still can't get enough of it. The video makes me nostalgic for Rio. I think Rio is one of the most beautiful cities ever.

One Republic- Good Life
We listened to this song a lot in anticipation of our trip earlier this year. Love the lyrics!

Enrique Iglesias- Escape and Don't Turn Off the Lights
Jerry and I spent a full day in Jordan pretty much watching MTV non stop. One of the shows was entirely on Enrique. It was quite fitting as we were on our way to Spain the next day which is where he's from. Then we proceeded to play those two songs on repeat on Jerry's phone.

And here's my top 25 of songs played on my iPhone. Can you tell I am sort of obsessed with Lady Antebellum? And that I like the different versions of the same song? :) Ahhh I love music! I am excited to also go home and listen to the music that I've discovered while traveling. Thank goodness for Shazam and Soundhound!

One Month and I Don't Feel Like Doing Anything...At All

We've got one month to go! Crazy. We are pretty much ready to go home next month. Right now I am really just try to soak everything in. I am glad we picked Europe to finish our our trip. Our original plan was to do South America last...so glad it didn't work out that way. I can't imagine doing Machu Picchu right now, in the words of Bruno Mars, I don't feel like doing anything...nothing at all!

Europe has been treating us so well. Spain turned out to be one of my favorite countries so far, and we've had a blast visiting my family in Berlin. My last visit to Germany was 2001, so I met my cousin's kids that hadn't been born yet at the time! We only met the kiddos 5 days ago, but we completely bonded and already love each other so much. Despite the language barrier we had tons of fun just playing random games. Jerry and I also watched the most soccer we ever have during our time in Berlin, I had no idea my family was such huge fans! I also think it's hilarious that they gamble on games as well. In fact we got so caught up cheering for Germany that we saw last night's game from our hotel room in Prague. It was sad to leave my Berlin cousins yesterday but we had to move onto Prague as our next European leg. However in a few days we'll be bound for Heidelberg where my other cousins live! Yay for double family time.

So after Prague and Heidelberg we've got Paris!, Amsterdam, and London. We might throw in a side trip or two, we'll see how ambitious we feel like being. Jerry has a friend in Copenhagen, but we might have to save the Nordic countries for another time. Otherwise I feel perfectly content just doing nothing but soaking in the atmosphere of wherever we're at!

Random Obsessions

Podcasts- Jerry had been listening to podcasts (mostly sports related) for ages now but I barely got on the bandwagon until recently. Now I'm obsessed with finding all sorts of podcasts! My favorites to watch on the iPad are Mark Bittman's NYT The Minimalist episodes and random fashion videos. I like video podcasts cus they are short and sweet, I can learn/indulge in all sorts of things in a matter of minutes! I also like listening to the iTunes Celebrity Playlist Podcast, it's where a celebrity will introduce snippets of songs they like. Definitely a great way to get introduced to new bands. NPR has some great listens as well, like Pop Culture Happy Hour. Podcasts have been super useful during the long train rides we've been taking, or when my video screen on the airplane doesn't work.

Downton Abbey- I saw the pilot episode for free on the iPad and now I want to watch the entire seasons when I get back! It's so good!

Without You by David Guetta featuring Usher- okay I know this song is old but I can't stop listening to it. I also like the music video! Rio looks so pretty in the background!

On a more superficial note I've been looking for a new overnight bag and I think I'm going to go with Longchamp for the lightweight factor. Pretty much everyone around the world has the nylon Le Pliage bag which comes in multiple colors and sizes. I was going to go with that one until I found out that a new version came out this spring called the Cuir, it's all leather and has some nice buttery looking colors as well. So I've been obsessed with reading reviews to see if it's really worth it. It's been over 2.5 years since I last bought eye candy for my shoulder so why not in Europe, where prices are relatively cheap/comparable to the states, AND I get VAT back? We also specifically planned to be in Paris during Soldes, so hopefully I'll like the stock available! FYI, sales in France are strictly regulated and are only available twice a year during Jan/Feb and June/July, so pretty much this is when the Parisienne chic stocks up their wardrobe. A far cry from home where sales happen all the time, we're spoiled!

Watermelon. We've been eating it nonstop in Spain! Our place in Barcelona has a generous sized kitchen so we bought a whole watermelon from a local market and finished it in less than a day. I think we might get another one tonight!

Homestretch and Happy

We're in the homestretch of our trip- Europe! Landed in Spain a couple days ago from Jordan. Hard to believe that we're coming home in about 1.5 months. Time really flies.

While this trip has been everything and more, I'm also looking forward to coming home and starting a new life in the bay area with Jerry.

Other things I look forward to:
Checking out books from the library
Cooking in our own kitchen
Hanging out with family and friends
Typing on a real keyboard
American TV
Not being at the mercy of public transportation
Eating homemade salads (I feel like restaurant salads costs more than meat in many places around the world!)
Going on a fat ass refrigerator stocking trip at Trader Joes and Costco
Decorating and pimping our new house
Bumming it on the couch and watching the Olympics!
And bringing our puppy home!!

This trip is an ultimate experience, but what makes it special for me is that eventually it will end and it'll be time to move on. For example, you think back to the dorms and how fun it was, but you wouldn't want to be bunking it with a bunch of undergrads now, right? So that's how I feel about traveling personally. We're not cut out to be indefinite travelers. We crave the life we created at home and can't wait to move on to the next stage.

Howeverrrr since we're in Europe, I'm going to embrace the chill lifestyle (siestas, love it!), decent exchange rate, and tasty bakeries for the remainder of time that we have left :)

I'm incredibly happy, relaxed, and at peace right now. Kind of like this elephant!

Beijing-Pyongyang

We're leaving for North Korea today. Crazy! Will be back next week. Somehow the great firewall of China blocked blogspot but not blogger. Go figure. I'm also able to receive FB private PMs, but nothing else. Google docs is also blocked, but pinterest and feedler aren't, whew! Giving up our phones while in NK so talk to you all on the flip side!