The One with Au Revoir

There are only 11 more hours until I will be leaving my warm comfy bed and heading to the airport! And yes, that means I will be getting up at 4 am!

Tomorrow I will be flying away to Amsterdam and will spend three weeks in Europe. I hope to keep in touch with friends via facebook chat or skype (if I can figure it out). Otherwise I will be completely UNPLUGGED for 3 weeks. Wow. So excited.

Matty and I made a little video tonight about our expectations and excitement about our trip. I think it will be fun to watch that afterwards! I thought it would also be a good idea to write a list of expectations/excitement here on the blog, so that I can see if it all pans out.

1. I am super excited for gelato in Italy. This has been abundantly clear in our house because I have been RESEARCHING like crazy. Apparently there is REAL and FAKE gelato. In Rome, our B&B is nearby the oldest and one of the best gelato places.

2. I am super nervous to ride those crazy trains.

3. I am super nervous to ride on a plane all the way across the Atlantic. Speaking of this, I am so NOT excited about jet lag. Today Matty and I woke up super early (as I will tomorrow) and maybe this will help???

4. I am SO excited for Paris. Even if it rains. I want to eat some real French pastries. And photograph them, of course.

5. The Cinque Terre has completely enchanted me. I have no idea what to expect. So far I am thinking it will be astoundingly beautiful, yet overrun with tourists. I am trying not to have high expectations.

6. I am SUPER nervous to try to speak French and Italian. I am not nervous at all about Amsterdam or Germany because I am just going to let Joy talk and translate!

7. I am so excited to run in each city we visit. I probably will not run daily, but at least one time while we are at each destination.

8. Photography is really exciting me the most.

9. I can't wait to tape things in my journal with washi tape. That's why I brought four rolls, ha! Oh, and I brought my Tim Holtz tiny attacher. That's probably my most random thing I'm bringing to Europe.

10. I plan to climb the Eiffel Tower and take photos from the top. I also plan to photograph it from the ground. I also plan to photograph it at night with all the pretty lights.

11. I simply do not have time to see everything in Rome. I want to see the Colessium, Roman Forum, St. Peter's Basilica, Trevi Fountain and Pantheon.

12. I want to get lost in Venice.


I thought I would leave this wonderful USA with some parting photographs of my favorite little six month old baby that I got to hang out with yesterday! :)

Pippa was delighted to eat a spoon while Ellen and I lunched in Edmonds. I will miss these two while I'm gone!! :(

The One with a Scrapbook Tip

How to turn branding strips into something awesome!!

I am a super saver of all scraps and random nonsense. I simply cannot throw anything away. Now that scrapbooking companies have started making their branding strips super cute, I keep them all!! (Of course.)

I emptied out some packaging that used to old border strips and fill them with all my branding strips. I keep them with my embellishments so that I will use them up!

But of course, I don't. :)

 A couple weeks ago I decided to whip them out and make something awesome. I took some fancy cell phone photos so you can see the lovely process and then the finished page.

Here I show my "little" collection of branding strips. I chose a few that I love and thought went well together. I also showed a photo of the backside...you can see these are all just off cuts from a piece of 12x12 pattern paper. I think the companies with the cutest branding strips are Studio Calico and American Crafts.

It was easy! I just taped them all diagonally onto computer paper and then trimmed the excess. 

This little collage shows a little more into my process of making the page. As you can see, I didn't tape the pattern paper strips onto the ENTIRE sheet of computer paper...just planned to cover it up with the photos.

And now the finished page! I also added some Mister Huey on a diagonal line, and sewed on some buttons. Button sewing is not my favorite technique because it is SO time consuming, but at the end I always love the result! I just need to get some more patience!!

Thanks for looking at my little tutorial. I hope to share more scrappy stuff here on the blog in the future, HOWEVER, I am leaving for Europe in just TWO DAYS....so who knows when I will find time to blog!!

(And to Renae...See you in PARIS!!!)

The one where Matt turns 29

Happy Birthday Matty!!

My cute hubby just entered the last year of his twenties yesterday. We had a little BBQ party for some friends yesterday.

I made my first Paleo chocolate cake!! It turned out okay, but we ate it with ice cream...otherwise it may have been a little dry.

I also made some broccoli salad for Matty, since its his favorite food. Yesterday I cooked in the dark since it was so hot in the house. I failed to really take any photos of the cooking, or the event. That is so unlike me, but also good I suppose because I really enjoyed my day. I love having people over, but its rather rare for us.

I bought Matt a CoolPix camera (that is waterproof and shock proof) so he can join me in my photo taking adventures.

Happy Twenty-Nine, dear hubby!!

The one with the Odd Photo Challenge

I took a random photo this week as I was preparing to take enough photos to fill Project Life. Sometimes my SLR just sits around all week, and this week I didn't get it out until Friday! I snapped a few photos of the cats and then this random photo of my messy dresser.

Then I realized that even though my dresser looks messy and awful, the photo really says a lot about me. I "labeled" the photo with text that describes what's in the photo. Fun!

 (If you click on the photo it will get much larger and easier to read)

The challenge is to take a super random photo in your bedroom (before its clean!) and then label it with text. See how much that little photo can say about yourself!!

Or maybe I'm the only one with a messy dresser. I guess a clean dresser can say a lot too. :)

The one with the Little Green Steam Cleaner

This week finally feels like summer. Maybe its because of the blackberries that I picked this morning! (See instagram feed for a pretty photo!)

Life around our home has been pretty normal and boring, but in a good way.

Matty purchased an adorable steam cleaner so we could take care of a lovely little cat accident. It was expensive, but I LOVE it. So cute.

I recieved a brown paper packaged tied up with string. Yay! My bag that I'm taking to Europe arrived from France! A picture of the bag will come later, but of course I snapped a photo of the package.

Matty and I had a little date night last night at an Italian restaurant. I have been OBSESSING over online travel guides for the past week, so when I'm hungry, its usually for French or Italian food. I remembered that I had a gift card to Via Tribunali in Fremont, so we decided to go. We loved it!! We both had glasses of red wine and shared a really awesome appetizer...prosciutto, cantaloupe and figs.

I chose a margherita pizza and Matt had one with meat on it, of course. Both were delicious! We felt like we got an "authentic" italian experience, especially since it was really hard for us to order without the waiter's help. All the wines were Italian of course, and not labeled as "Cabernet" or "Merlot" etc. So how do you ever pick? The waiter picked our wine for us and we were both happy with the result.

I wish I had taken more photos! It was almost pitch black in the restaurant, with only lighting from a small candle and the window far away. Oh, well, maybe we enjoyed our dinner more without the constant snapping away!

Only two more weeks until I board that plane to Amsterdam. I'm getting a little excited.

The one with all the Yes and Nos

Yes, I have been a bad blogger.

No, nothing has been going on to give me a good excuse.

Yes, I have been watching the Olympics like crazy. Like CRAZY.

No, I have not been inspired to work out extra hard because of all those crazy fit athletes.

Yes, I have been running and taking classes and lifting weights. Just not as much as I should be.

No, I have not swam even an inch since my triathlon. (I plan to!)

Yes, I have been eating healthy. Sometimes. Its summer right? The season for light beer and cold white wine. The season for chocolate (Okay, that's every season). The season for ice cream.

Yes, I have been so excited for my Europe trip in just three short weeks. I have been obsessed with travel blogs. I am on the edge of my seat waiting for this awesome once-in-a-lifetime trip. We have to do something exciting before inviting a VanEenoo kiddo into our home right???

I am SO, SO excited. I just finished making my last reservations and buying my last train tickets and stashing my last bit of cash into the bank. Now all there is to do is wait for my super cool camera bag to arrive and start packing! I hope to take tons and tons of photos and eventually scrapbook this awesome trip.

So that's all for this week. Just a bit of Saturday night gibberish. I better leave you all with a current photo so this isn't a completely wasted blog post.

So happy August! Only 22 days until my VACATION!!! And Yes, I am counting down the days. :)