The View from 15,000 Feet

After a little bit of a rocky 4am start this morning, this beautiful sunrise at 630am on our way into Charlotte, NC made it all better! We arrived at the Inn at Spanish Bay at Pebble Beach this afternoon and it's so beautiful here! More to come soon!

The Resident Carpenter/Woodworker Has Been Busy!

I’ve been pretty lazy busy lately and haven’t had a chance to post about the latest projects that Ryan has finished. We’re heading cross country to Pebble Beach and San Francisco, so I figured I’d at least draft a post while sitting on the 5-hour plane ride. I am now sitting outside the airport in amazing 62-degree weather (without the humidity that hit us in the face when we left for the airport this morning) waiting for Ryan to show up with our rental car (pretty great system if you ask me - he gets the car and I get to hang out with our bags and we don't have to deal with them on the shuttle bus). I’m hoping to also post some highlights from our trip while we’re there, but we’ll see how well that goes depending on how tired I am each day from all the spa treatments sightseeing. Anyway, back to the projects…

The first project is the flower box. We decided to give this to Ryan’s mom for her birthday since she is quite the gardener and loves flowers so much. It has been finished for a few weeks, but I couldn’t post about it until we had given it to her. We spent the past weekend with the LeNoirs playing beer pong to celebrate Linda’s birthday. I didn’t do a very good documenting the actual flower-box-making process, but I do have pictures of the finished product.

The inside is pressure treated wood and the outside is teak.

Up close

What project wouldn't be complete without a "Handcrafted By" nameplate?!

The next project on the list was a mantel for Mom-Mom’s fireplace in her condo. Ryan built the mantel at our house, but didn’t put it together completely until Maryann painted it. We dropped it off on a Friday night and came back on Sunday after the Phillies game to install it.

Putting the mantel back together after Maryann painted it.

Putting the glue on it to put it up on the tile

The "naked" mantel without all the trim

Ryan putting the trim on. You can tell he was working hard by his sweaty shirt!

The 99% finished product. The brown marks are the wood filler that was used to fill in the nail holes. This will be painted over in white by Maryann.

And, the name plate.

Sunflowers!

I came home from work on Thursday to find that my dad had left us some sunflowers from his garden! So pretty! Thanks, Dad!!

If You Build It, They Will Come

The latest project is finished - the poker table!

Before staining.

The staining station.

The felt. If you look closely, you can see that it has spades, clubs, hearts and diamonds on it.

The finished product!

Honeymoon Recap - Kauai (Part 1)

We finally made it to Kauai after our debacle of a trip that I posted about here. We got there pretty late and headed to the hotel.

The next day started pretty early because our bodies were so confused by the time change. We got up and explored the property and found some yummy breakfast.

The view from our balcony.

Mimosas at breakfast to celebrate our first day on our honeymoon.

After breakfast, we went out to explore Kauai and promptly found this!

The next day, we decided to take a helicopter tour of the Napali coast. Here we are waiting for take-off. One word of advice - if you've never been in a helicopter before, take some dramamine! I felt so sick by the time that we landed after our 1-hour flight. Here are some of the sights from our helicopter ride.

We flew through a short rain storm and saw a rainbow!

The first waterfall sighting.

The Napali Coast

The waterfall that was used in the opening of the TV show Fantasy Island.

Ryan and I with our fanny packs on after we landed from the helicopter ride. I was definitely feeling nauseous in this picture.

After the helicopter ride, we went back to the hotel so I could try to rest until I felt a little better. We went back out to explore the island some more and ended up in Poipu/Koloa and the Spouting Horn Blowhole.

Random roosters & chickens at the Blowhole. There were roosters EVERY. WHERE. on the island. They were crazy. They crowed at all hours of the day - not just in the morning.

Spouting Horn Blowhole.

After checking out the Blowhole, we headed to the beach at the Sheraton in Koloa.

After a long day, we went back to our resort and had dinner at Duke's Canoe Club.

This post is turning into a marathon post, and there is still more to write about our time in Kauai, so I'm going to split it into a couple posts. To be continued....

Observations from the Gym

• People (mostly guys) who wear jeans, cargo shorts or work boots to work out. How could that possibly be comfortable?
• Spandex (need I say more?!)
• People who use the weight machines and put so much weight on the machine that when they go to lift, it is so heavy that they are literally lifted off the floor. If you are being lifted off the floor, clearly, it is too heavy for you.
• Women who go to the gym with freshly applied makeup and their hair done and their best jewelry on (I'm talking pearls here and not just earrings). Is that really necessary?
• People who spend a good 30 minutes riding the bike, but put forth so little effort that they aren't even sweating at the end. What's the point?
• The girl beside me on the treadmill who turned the speed up so fast that she couldn't run without basically putting her whole upper body on the railing and holding on tightly. Seriously?

Droopy

This is exactly how I felt today.

It was so hard to go back to work after spending an exhausting wonderful weekend with our families. We were able to say it in person yesterday, but I'll say it again. Happy Father's Day to two absolutely amazing dads! We are so lucky to both have such great role models in our lives, and we hope you both had a great day yesterday and know how much you mean to us! I have included a couple pictures of each of us with our dads below.

Me and my dad (without his beard!)

Dad and me at a freezing cold O's game last year.

Ryan and his dad - Aren't they cute!?

Ryan and his dad on our wedding day.