Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Christmas comes but once a year....UNFORTUNATELY!

Oh Christmas, how I love you! I am super sad you are already over. I plan and wait and prepare for this season ALL year long and then it is gone in the blink of the eye. SAD DAYS!!!


Now, on to the good stuff. 
For the past few months I have been slaving away on a quilt for my mom and an amazing doll house re-do for my favorite little Rylie. I am not sure how I decided upon these labor intensive gift ideas....but I did. Of course once I settle my mind on something it must be done and I am so excited to show off my handy work!
 I spent many long and sometimes torturous hours on these projects and I must say, I am pretty pleased with the outcome. 

My mom's quilt was a true labor of love. I can honestly say that my first true quilt experience was met with blood, sweat, and tears. Oh how many hours were spent unpicking and re-sewing that blasted quilt! 
Then, today when I gave my mom the 90% finished quilt (I still need to bind it) she opened the box and with and excited face said, "It's a quilt?". I lost it. I started crying like a freaking psycho. My mom was so worried that she said something wrong, but in reality I was just overwhelmingly relieved that it was over. That I had finally accomplished getting this quilt as good as done and to my mother. Who knew quilting was so darn emotional?!?
 Really though, am I the only one on the planet that has done this? It was kind of pathetic. Any way, here she is. Ta Da!

On on a side note, Freyja seemed to really enjoy the quilting experience. Every single time I pulled it out to work on she immediately came over and laid right on top of it. Freyja just really wanted to contribute.

Now, on to the doll house. 
I had originally planned to construct a dollhouse from scratch after I saw an amazing DIY one on a blog. After cutting the frame for it we decided it was massive! Don't get me wrong, it would be freaking awesome, but we had a bit of a space constraint to consider. So we scrapped that idea and I moved on to plan B. Refurbishing my vintage Barbie dream house from my youth. This was a pretty darn cool house. It had window shutters and doors that opened and closed. Plus three separate buildings to play in!
 The only problem was,  it was HIDEOUS! Really, really 70's, and not much to look at. However, I saw potential, like I usually do, and figured a few coats of spray paint should do the trick. 

I started with the roof and used a textured, shimmery black spray paint to imitate shingles. Then I chose a nice stone grey for the floors and a white for the walls. I originally was planning on painting the trim and doors purple, because that is Rylie's favorite color, but in the end I went with mine...aqua. I also had to think of something to do with these plastic sleeve things that went over the columns of the house. They were discolored and cracking but kind of necessary. I opted to reinforce them with duct tape and lucky for me, they make all sorts of colors these days. 


After that task was done I wanted to camouflage the duct tape so I sprayed them with a textured stone spray paint. These pillars turned out to be my favorite part of the house. They are SO COOL! 


Here are a few close ups of the details.




Next, I had to furnish it...of course! I had gotten a bunch of doll furniture on ebay and repainted it for the house but I needed a dining table and chairs as well as some side tables. Thanks to the good 'ol web, I made some tables out of a candle stick, craft board, votive holders and coasters. I basically spent like $8 because the coasters were on clearance. I also found a great tutorial on how to make chairs out of wire hangers. They turned out great!



I had so much fun putting this house together that I really wanted to just keep it! Unfortunately I knew I wouldn't get as much enjoyment out of it as little miss Rylie. 






After ripping off this fabulous wrapping job, Rylie immediately when to work playing. 



Thursday, December 20, 2012

I have been so busy getting ready for Christmas that I am just getting around to posting on our amazing Orlando trip!

Jeff and I have wanted to go to all the Orlando theme parks since they opened The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, however long ago, and this year we were finally able to do it!! Woot! 
Over the last few months I've planned everything ten million times....because that's what I do. Then on November 30, 2012 we set off for our adventure. 

The first day on our trip we went to EPCOT...because that is what Tour Guide Mike told us to do! Thank you Tandy at work for letting me in on this little website secret!! 
Epcot was pretty awesome...except for the fact that we walked 7 miles that first day.... just inside this park! Um...we were feeling pretty old by the end of that day. Achy joints and all. My favorite part of EPCOT was the World Showcase. This is where they have all the different countries. There weren't really any rides here just shops and excellent food. Oh, and amazing fireworks at night. 

This was an awesome troll at the end of a ride in Norway...Ok I know I just got finished saying there weren't any rides and they really are more like old people rides not ride rides. Any way, this ride in Norway was in a little viking ship and it takes you through troll country, the fjords, etc. 
It was kind of cute but super anti climatic.  Oh, and the narrator totally sounds Swedish NOT Norwegian. I still make fun of his voice. 
Cracks me up!
BTW We have a troll that looks just like this at my parents house....

This is a Stave church...well, its a likeness of a Stave church. They are amazing and beautiful in real life. 


Inside this one they had displays of viking statues. They told about a few of the vikings in history. 
Jeff and I barely got away with our lives. 
One of the vikings they told about was Erik the Red....yeah he is TOTALLY my great great great great, some odd, great grandfather. True story!


I think that Norway, Germany, and England were my favorite countries in Epcot. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that I have been to these countries in real life...
Naw! I know I am biased towards Norway but Germany had the best food and England had the best musical entertainment. 


When we ate at the Norwegian castle restaurant we were graced with a fabulous buffet of yummy Norwegian foods like shrimp salad, cucumber salad, smoked salmon, poached salmon, Gietost (brown goat cheese), fresh breads, etc. Delicious! AND that was just the appetizer portion! 
All this wonderful Norwegian food made me want to go to Norway for real! 
Oh, we also were visited by the Princesses. HA!




The second day, we went to the Magic Kingdom...Florida's version of Disneyland.
My first impression of the magic kingdom was...holy crap we have to park where and ride a shuttle to where in order to take a ferry or train to get to the freaking gates!?!?!?!?! 
Yeah, the parking lot was a JOKE! 
When we finally got into the park, we were disoriented and tired from the trek to the gates.
 It looked like Disneyland but was deceiving because it is so much bigger and spread apart. Not to mention, the layout is different. 
The verdict ...Disneyland is better. ;-) 
Except for maybe splash mountain. The MK splash mountain was awesome. WAY better. Oh and the castle. Cinderella's castle was AMAZING! 

They posed us by the way...

 While we were there they had the new Fantasy-land grand opening. Disney added a new Beauty and the Beast themed restaurant in Beasts castle...which was so cool. It was made up Disney style to look just like the inside of the castle. 
We ate in the ballroom, but they also had the West Wing and other castle rooms. It was just plain cool! Did I mention that it was cool? It was so cool!

  






The new Fantasyland also had Gaston's tavern which had an amazing special drink. It was like a carbonated apple, mixed with roasted marshmallow flavor, topped with a whipped passion fruit cream. Ok, so it sounds weird but it wasn't. Just trust me!


Then there was this great new Little Mermaid ride that was so adorable. I made Jeff ride it twice. I also loved that it had Prince Eric's castle on it. 

Ok, so the new Fantasyland and the Cinderella castle were pretty epic.  I guess MK wins on those things. 

In December they close the MK park early on certain nights and have Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. They dress the castle up in "ice" and pass out cookies and hot coco. It was pretty fun. I mostly liked the pretty castle. It was a bit difficult to enjoy hot coco when it was 75 degrees with 60% humidity. Meh, what do I know. 





The next few days were spent at Disney's Hollywood Studios and the Animal Kingdom. Hollywood studio's was pretty much like California Adventure but much smaller and they have the Star Wars stuff there.  It definitely didn't need a full day.
Now, Animal kingdom, on the other hand, was one of our favorites. Except for the part where I barfed all over some of the tropical vegetation in Asia. All, I have to say is, if you have a weak stomach do not, DO NOT ride the Everest roller coaster  Backwards twists and turns through a dark mountain does not end well for the one with motion sickness.
Aside for the incredibly embarrassing barf, Animal kingdom was fantastic. It had beautiful landscaping of the tropical variety and was made to look like you were in either Africa or Asia, depending on the side of the park you were in.

Yes we met Doug and Russel. Be jealous. 


  The tree of life was one of my favorite things. It was so beautiful. It had carvings of animals in the trunk. 


I also was a BIG fan of the African safari.





Holy Crap! Are you guys on picture overload yet? Don't worry we are almost done. :-)
After our Disney adventures, we excitedly spent time at Universal. Oh happy day!! I was beyond excited for Harry Potter. Eeeeeeeeee!
The Universal parks in Orlando are ten million times better than the one in California. Seriously! Ten million times better! They were so much fun! 
There was a Dr Seuss town (or whatever) and it was all done up Grinchmas style. Loved it! So Cute!


See?! So Cute! Ok, I know, I know. You really wan't to see Harry Potter Land. (That's what I call it any way). You SHOULD want to see it! It was beyond fabulous. It was small...it's true...BUT still SPECTACULAR! Everything I had hoped and dreamed...except for maybe more gift shops. 





BTW, chocolate cauldron...blek. Bertties every flavor beans....great, except for earwax. Fizzing wizzbees...super yummy. Imagine chocolate with poprocks inside. Mmmmhmmm.  Chocolate frog...to be determined. Let's hope the chocolate is better than the cauldron. 


Mmmmm Butterbeer. It was like a slushy cream soda with butterscotch flavoring and a butterscotch whipped cream on top. So Yummy!

We ate at the Three Broomsticks. I had that massive turkey leg and it was delicious! 


The castle was so much better than I had imagined. 





All I can say is, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter was pretty darn MAGICAL. Bah! could I be any more cheese ball....yes, yes I could. Just give me time. 

Now the last day in Orlando we decided to take a much needed break from the amusement parks and headed to Discovery Cove. 
We were able to snorkel, feed tropical birds, float around the lazy river...which ended up being not very lazy and rather long... and swim with the dolphins.  







It was a great end to a great trip! 
Where to next? I am ready to go again!