Wine Closet

Would you like to know what happens when you move out of your parents house and they take over your old bedroom?? They turn what used to be a nice little closet for all of your clothes into a wine closet. Seriously? A wine closet?? Not to mention, it is stocked pretty well! haha My parents actually turned my old bedroom into a guest room, once I was married and all. They left the shrine to Megan at peace until I said I do. Mom Claire did a really nice job re-painting it (what? not everyone likes green & blue walls with a yellow ceiling?) and refurnishing it - there is now a queen sized bed in there, so 2 people can spend the night! But I did get a kick out of it once I realized the refinished closet (it had 4 doors that opened by folding into themselves, which didn't work as well once the giant bed was in the middle of the room... so they bolted the one closest to the wall into the closet frame & left the other one to open) had been turned into an ebay storage shed & wine closet. haha And yes, that is a wine cooler fridge thingie on the bottom. My dad got some great deal on it from the other Matt, his nephew.

Our little garden

My mother in law has an amazing garden. I mean, seriously, any space in her yard is prime garden space. Talk about not being wasteful. I can't even imagine how much money she has saved us with her free fruit & veggies (well, free to us, she paid for the seeds and spent a lot of TLC on that food). She is a gardening inspiration. I was so excited to have my own garden once we got the house. I remembered my little radish and carrot garden as a child and saw that I could do it again. So my big push when we first moved in was to clear out space for the garden. I think I was in a bit over my head. My dad was amazing and laid out my garden and cleaned up our fruit trees. The pomegranate and lemon trees were incredibly overgrown! Terry helped me start out some seedlings and I transplanted them when I thought they were ready. But I was a bit overzealous. Some of the seedlings were not big enough to transplant and they died. Others needed more shade than our little garden patch could provide. So we rigged up this tarp thing that shaded the garden. But it was too much shade for other plants. And don't get me started on the weeds! Our neighbor has a palm tree and it drops these little pods which turn into the biggest freaking weeds you've ever seen. And you have to dig them out. Because if you just pull them out then you don't get the root and they keep growing. I spent many hours in that garden cursing Adam for his sin & making the land hard to work. haha

But I did learn a lot. Next year we are going to move the garden to an area with more natural shade & filtered sunlight. We will get the drip system to its maximum potential. (My dad put in a great drip system, but I did not have things planted in the whole garden patch, so it wasn't working correctly for what we needed). This way the garden will get watered and my hubby won't be upset that I spend more time caring for plants than for him (okay, so I talked to the pumpkins a bit, no big deal!). I will choose plants that grow well together and that are good for this area (cactus? haha). I need plant that take good care of themselves, like my fruit trees. And hopefully we won't be doing as much work on the house, this time next year.

In the meantime, enjoy the pictures of some of the good things that happened in our yard!

Check out those sunflowers! (the rest of the dead garden is to the right)

We had so many tomatoes from these plants. Although the ones on the left did not bear much fruit. But I got these 5 plants for free (1 was a gift from the Whites) and took great care of them!

Fruits of my labor: Yummy tomato sauce for pasta!

The insides of my cute little pumpkin

I was very excited that I grew this pumpkin all the way from a seed into a full plant! This was the first thing we picked from our garden

Our New House

Finally here... the pictures that you have all been waiting for. These are the standard "we are homeowners" pictures in front of our house. However we took them on a day where we had been working and I look like junk. but it's okay, so does our house. Hopefully we will have better after pictures in a few months. And hey, at least our window A/C unit isn't in the window for this pic, making us look even more ghetto!

If you can see the clear blob on top of the garage roof... it is now off. That is one major improvement!

Our Secret Baby

When we went camping (in July), we had some surprise visitors. First Brad showed up on his bike... then the Fortunas & Steve stopped by. Well okay we called the latter 2! haha Anyways, Lauriana took a picture of us with our tent, and then Bella handed us the baby. So here's our picture with our fake baby... maybe it will be on our Christmas card. haha Matt would kill me!

B Squared

Brooke and Bryan are officially engaged! Bryan popped the question last night and had all of their friends waiting (at our house) to celebrate with them! Here are a few pictures that I took. For Brookes story, read here!

Aww twinnie love!

I made the cake that's falling apart in the back. Lil Strum made the 2"B n B" cakes

There she is with her creation! And the awesome heart inside the cake!

Soon to be Mr & Mrs Bilicke

Old Friends

So this picture is about 2 months late. This is my good friend Sarah from way back in the day. I remember reorganizing her Nana's garden furniture to make houses and such (Nana lived next door to me). We also made friendship bracelets and tried to sell them to neighbors. We kept in contact throughout college and shared emails and letters. Once she sent me a video of her house, after she moved to Alaska. I still owe her one of those! She ended up being in the Bay Area for a funeral while we were there for the prebuild. It was great to see her and meet her husband and son (I think she was 6 or 7 months preggo with baby boy #2 here), and she got to meet my Matthew. We spent about an hour chatting and just getting up to date with each others lives, I think it has been about 4 or 5 years since we have last seen each other. I miss her already, and hope to make it up to Alaska to visit her sometime... oh and I bet she's had that baby boy by now... I'm just waiting for the text! Love you Sarah!

Engagement Party

I'm only a little over a month late... here are a few pictures from Kevin & Lindsey's Engagement party. Matt and I are both honored to be in their wedding, as best man and matron of honor... how cool is that?

The bride and her attendents, minus Catherine

There's a guy missing... I think Kevin's cousin Jason?

To anyone who knows Kev... can you hear (just imagine) the sound he's making right now, cuz I can... it's signature Kevin! hahaha

Praciticing cutting the cake and smiling for a million cameras! Aren't they just the cutest?

Camping

Four our first anniversary / needing to relax 3 months after our anniversary, Matthew and I went camping at Heart Bar. I was excited because I got to sit on my lazy behind and read a lot of books.  Matt enjoyed feeding chipmunks and running around in the field and cooking over the campfire.  We had wine coolers on our first night (and the next afternoon) as a way to toast one year of marital bliss!  Brad came by to say hello on Saturday morning (he found us as he was riding around on his motorcycle) and we invited the Fortunas over for smores on Saturday evening.  They took a picture of us by our awesome tent with doggie doors.  We just need a dog now!

City by the Bay

Before our Bay Area prebuild, Matt and I got to play tourist with Kev and Linds. We had been talking about going to San Francisco for a few years, so it was exciting to see this finally come to fruition. My mom was an amazing tourguide and took us all over the City. I saw a few things I had not seen before (like the Victorian houses aka FULL HOUSE house! woo!). This picture is from that place:

Next stop, Baker Beach. This is the scene of the Beach Party in the Princess Diaries and also of Matt and I's engagement photos. Here's a picture of me and my lovely Mutti.

This sign said 0.7 mi to Land's End. 1.4 mi to the Golden Gate Bridge. and 775 mi. to Mexico. That's where I was headed. Although it looks like I'm pointing up. Oh well.
View of Coit tower from Lombard Street:

My love and I at Lombard Street.

View of the City from Coit Tower...

A drive-by picture of City Hall.

And that is about it for our quick little tour of San Francisco. I have some pictures of us all eating lunch and of Lindsey sleeping. But I thought I would be nice and spare everyone from seeing that! Thanks for visiting today!

Recent Craft Endeavors

Well I'm officially t'ed off with blogger. I can' edit a dang picture once it is uploaded. Grrrr. And that is why this first picture is sideways. It's correct in my file, but 3 times trying to upload and no dice. It is a picture of an apron that I made with this tutorial, and a matching pot holder and dish rags. Part of a wedding favor for Staci.


This is a gift basket that I made as a prize for bingo. The large pink heart is a bath fizzy. the green soaps were made with shavings of some bar soap. And then the white soaps were made with this awesome tutorial from Anne Marie.


A close up of some of the soaps and the stamps that I used. I also made some as favors for stacis shower, and totally forgot to get pictures. But I learned thatI need to use a non-bleeding colorant or the white will slowly fade to the back color!

Oh and an Easter soap with a bunny and eggs inset. Don't you want to buy some?


Fixed a giant rip up the pocket of T-Pains (a girl named Taylor)'s pants. I loved how it turned out so much that I am making my own!

And there you have it, just tast of what I've been crafting lately!