Making Progress

The backyard is really coming along!  Here are some pics of the progress made this week, just a few more days and we're done!

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent prepping to pour

Concrete was poured Thursday

Concrete was stained the color Sandstone Friday

We have foliage!

Woo hoo!  Just a few mor days until completion!

Under Construction

We've spent the last 18 months updating and renovating the inside of our house and the outside has been all but ignored.  We have a beautiful covered patio in the back but we hardly sit out there because our view is dirt, weeds and a crumbling retaining wall. We love to entertain but when we do have people over the party rarely goes outside.  As I've mentioned before, the reason we bought a house rather than a condo was for the outdoor space and now that the inside of our house is done (well it will never really be done to this DIYer) we figure it was time to put some love into the backyard.  We met with several landscapers and settled on Angel from Promised Path Landscape who really had a vision of what our yard could be.  Construction started Wednesday of last week so here are some pictures progress so far.  We are most excited for the lounge area with the fire pit!  We should be ready for an evening of drinking Pinot Noir outside by the fire pit on October 15th (if there are no delays).  The front yard is still all sorts of ugly, but we plan on having Angel come back to do that sometime next year.

Before pic of the patio

Before pic of the yard

The Vision

After day 1

After day 1



End of day 3



Bye bye patio!

Wino Country

Last week we had the privilege of attending the wedding of our good friends Ryan and Rebecca.  Although the couple now lives in Minneapolis, the two opted to have the wedding in Ryan's hometown of Napa, CA.  I've known both Ryan and our mutual best friend Nate for 12 years now and have never been to visit their turf, even being the lover of wine that I am.  The wedding was on a Thursday evening so we decided to make a loooong weekend of it and flew up Wednesday morning and the wine tasting commenced immediately.  We ended up going to 18 different wineries in 4 days (our 5th and final day was wine free as we just couldn't bring ourselves to taste another drop) and had such a great time.  It was also a reunion of our entire San Diego crew so it was a lot of fun to all be together again.  I know these reunions will be few and far between now that we are all spread out.  Below are some pictures of our adventure, unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera to the main event (the nuptials).  You can view all the pictures of the trip by clicking here.

Our first stop on our first day

The Boeders in front of Luna

Darioush was built by a wealthy Persian.  It was over the top beautiful!

Tasting with the Colemans at Cuvaison.  Gorgeous views.

Family portrait at Raymond

Reserve tasting at Mondavi.  Do not drink the '96 Cab

Bubbly and cartwheels with Jenny at Domain Chandon

Rombauer Chardonnay is so good!  The view ain't bad either.

Pinterest

If only this existed when I was wedding planning!  Pinterest is the best thing ever.  It is a virtual pin board so whenever I'm blog surfing or internet window shopping if I find something I want to come back to later you just 'pin it' it to your selected board and it posts a pic of what you pinned and by clicking on the pic it takes you to the link for that item.  You can also see all the neat stuff other pinterest users are pinning and repin it to your board.  It's basically a bad ass one upper for your 'favorites' button.  You can take a look at everything I've pinned so far here and you can follow me by clicking on the Pinterest button on the far right of the screen.  Happy Pinning!

SDBeerbus.Com

My cousin Amanda and my brother Peter both work at Bridlewood Winery in Santa Ynez which is lucky for me.  For one, I'm surrounded by winos when I go home to visit and second, they have access to lots of wine.  I told them they should head down my way for a day of wine tasting in Temecula so they could compare our wines to the wines of the Santa Ynez Valley.  I finally got a text from Amanda saying "we're coming" but curiously enough they did not want to go wine tasting.  They wanted beer!  My brother has always been a 'Beer Snob' and I say this not with negativity but that is just the best way to describe his taste in beer.  When he came of age and started drinking beer, he started with Guinness and sneered at my cans of Tecate and Corona.  My bestie Nate has also always been a 'Beer Snob' and saved me from the clutches of Bud Light and MGD at many a college party.  Much like he did with wine, Nate introduced me to the different styles of beer and even learned me a few things about the history of the brews.  In college, he took me to Stone Brewery's 5 year anniversary celebration at their first location and I began to realize there is quite a microbrew culture here in beautiful San Diego!  Last year, as Nate's going away last hoorah, we bought tickets for the beer bus which on the weekend takes you to 3 breweries, serves you lunch and gives you  a souvenir pint glass.  The best part is that they pick you up at your house!  We had a ton of fun and I thought the beer bus would be perfect to introduce my guests to the San Diego Craft Beer scene.  We booked it again and the beer bus rolled up to my front door around 11 am and headed to our first stop, the now world famous Stone Brewery Bistro and Gardens in Escondido.   We were given 5 tasters over the course of an hour and also had time to roam the beautiful grounds (I love taking out of towners here) and the gift shop.  Stone makes some really hoppy beers and while I enjoy tasting them, their beer isn't really something I could drink on a regular basis.  We did get a keg of their Pale Ale a few weeks ago and it was pretty tasty, definitely one of their more mellow beers. 


Discussing the tastiness of our brew




Taking a picture break as we roam the gardens of Stone




Beer makes you think about things...

 

 After 5 tasters and a shared pint of their Imperial Russian Stout we hopped back onto the bus and headed to San Marcos Brewery for a few more tasters and some lunch.  While the beer was so-so the food was delish and after drinking beers with 9-12% alcohol content at Stone, there was definitely a little bit of a buzz starting so the food was much needed.  At this point the various groups on the bus began socializing and we started to get to know our fellow beer lovers.  We also started talking to our  bus driver Steve who was a plethora of SD Craft Beer knowledge. 



Me and my brother, captivated by something

 After filling our bellies we hopped back on the bus and by this time the bus was much louder than when we first got on.  The driver announce we were heading to our last stop and it was all the beer you can drink for the 50 minutes we would be there.Woo hoo!  Our final stop was at The Lost Abbey in San Marcos.   When Stone moved into their current, ginormous facility, The Lost Abbey moved in and took over.  They specialize in monastic and Belgian style brews but also have Port Brewing which is their more American style beers.  Needless to say, we had quite a selection to choose from!

Decisions, decisions



We had a lot of fun trying various beers from both Port and Lost Abbey.  The place was pretty crowded but we had no problem getting refill after refill.  The bus driver, Steve, gathered our group and a few other from the bus that had expressed an interest in the brewing process (and not just getting drunk) and gave us a behind the scenes tour of the facility.  He pointed out all the different machinery and told us various statistics so it was also educational and piqued my interest a little on the home brewing front.  Could be a fun (and tasty) hobby! 

See how happy The Lost Abbey makes us???



Amanda and I snuck into the Awards Room



When you are overserved, things like pretending to pee on a wall like a boy are funny

As our time at Lost Abbey came to an end our now rambunctious bus mates turned the beer bus into a party bus as we headed home.  It is amazing how in five hours and after a few beers people you never met and will never see again are your best friends...Jeff and I were the only San Diegans on the bus so we enjoyed telling our new friends where they had to visit and where they should go eat while in SD.  It was a fun day and I think our guests enjoyed the taste of the SD Beer scene. 

Our Beer Bus Family

Give Me a B!

I finally put up the monogram in the master.  Here are the before and after pics!

Before 1

Before 2

After 1

After 2

I like it!  What do you think?  I contemplated leaving off the flourishes on the sides but decided to put them up just to see what they looked like knowing I could just peel them off if I wasn't feeling it.  I like them and Jeff said 'it ties it all together.'  Love that hubby of mine!

A Little Birdie Told Me...

There is a giant blank space above the bed in the guest room begging for some art work.  I've been on the lookout for some wall art that would go with my black/white, Parisian, damask themed guest bedroom but never really found anything that would be a fit.  I thought about putting some floating shelves with knick-knacks above the bed but we are in earthquake country and our guest bed gets used quite a bit.  I can just imagine a piece of wall art or a shelf full of decorative candles crushing the skulls of my peacefully sleeping guests...I follow several DIY and decorating blogs and came across a post on House*Tweaking where she had this beautiful, large monogram above her TV.  I am currently obsessed with monograms and using letters for decor and decided I just had to have one of these monograms above the giant blank space above my bed in the Master Bedroom.  While searching the website mentioned on House*Tweaking for the perfect letter 'B' I came across this set of decals which finally gave me that 'this is it!' excitement.  These little cages and birdies would be perfect for the guest room.  The best part is that they are not permanent and easy to apply.  If I decide later I don't like them, they peel right off!  Also, they are earthquake proof.  This afternoon I put them up (we have guests coming in tonight and getting the guest room all purdy takes priority over making the master purdy).  It only took about 45 minutes and was super easy.  I'm really happy with the results.  Below are some before and after pics.  You might have to click on the picture to maximize it to really see the decals.  Now, off to get the master nice and monogrammed!


Before




After with Dali Decals

The kit came with lots of extra birdies so I'm contemplating where to put some more of them.  I'll keep you poste!