Where Has The Summer Gone?

 It's hard to believe school starts next week!  I started this summer thinking I would have all the time in the world to just lay by the pool and do home projects.  Well, we did do a lot of swimming, but it seems like every week was filled up with other things to do!  Mostly, fun things that's for sure!

In June we had two birthday parties.  Avery, who turned 6, had a swim party and Riley, who turned 3, had a family day at Pixieland, a little amusement park down the street from our house.

Birthday morning opening presents

Avery's Birthday Cupcake from Kara's Cupcakes

Friends at the swim party

Happy with her new toys!

Riley wanted a "Dora Unicorn Party".  This is what we came up with.

The rides at Pixieland

Avery and Riley enjoying themselves...

Sophie feeling a bit too old for these rides!

  July was mostly all about Greece.  But we did manage to squeeze in a family day at Six flags Vallejo, courtesy of Read to Succeed! 

The first few days of August, my parents came to stay with us before they left on their mission to Johannesburg, South Africa.  We spent most of the time swimming!  It was fun to see them before they left.  A few days later, Lance's sister and her family flew in from Virginia and stayed with us a few days.  They came to California for Lance's older brother Jack's wedding, but we had a great time being tour guides for them. 

Super windy day on the Golden Gate Bridge, but it didn't stop us from having fun!

Avery and Eva at Muir Woods

Flower girls in the wedding

Cousins in Jail at Alcatraz

Enjoying the audio tour

The Cousins had a lot of fun together!

Riley loved spending time with Lily!

We still have a few more visitors coming this weekend and next and then it's school, school, school!  (With a few days of fun squeezed in I'm sure!).

It's All Greek To Me!

So lately, life has become pretty busy.  I got a new calling as Relief Society President at my church. 
That takes a lot of time, not to mention my three kids and all their activities.  So blogging has been put on the back burner a little. But recently we had a really exciting experience!  Lance and I got to go to Greece!  It came up super suddenly.  So suddenly, that we only had 1 week before we left to get our passports renewed.  But everything worked out really well. 

The reason we went was because Lance got hired by the US State Department (for a temporary assignment, he still works for BART) to go to Athens to teach an anti-terrorism class. His travel and expenses were paid for.  He also got a nice salary for teaching and the salary paid for all of my expenses!  Your tax dollars hard at work!  :) 

Lance was there for two weeks and I was there for 10 days.  I flew from SFO to Amsterdam. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to leave the airport in Amsterdam but flying over, it looked like a pretty cool city.

From Amsterdam I flew into Athens.  Lance and the driver the US Embassy hired for him picked me up at the airport and took us to our great hotel in Kifissia.  In Athens, we saw all the ancient sites.  We did a lot of shopping at the flea market and Plaka area.  We went to a traditional Turkish bathhouse that was amazing.  And we ate and ate and ate some more!  Those Greeks have good food! 

An ancient church in the middle of a modern shopping area

On top of the Acropolis

The nighttime view from Mars Hill of the Acropolis

Ocean front in Athens

The temple of Poseidon

The Acropolis

Our Hotel

The Plaka area

We also got a chance to fly to the amazing island of Santorini.  It is one of the most wonderful and beautiful places on earth (at least that I've seen).  I loved every second of it and wish we could have spent more time there.

Beach side lunch

Oia, Santorini

The famous Oia sunset

Beautiful Santorini

After sunset

Our hotel room, "The Pearl" suite

The view from our hotel room

Looking up at our hotel

More Oia

Honestly, I was ready to come home after 6 days.  I did get a lot of sleep and got to workout uninterrupted (unlike at home), but after all is said and done, my favorite place is at home with my girls!  But it was an opportunity of a lifetime and I have some great memories that will last forever! 

Kitchen Touch Up

So far in our house, I feel like most of the projects we've done have been about making the house work for us.  Very little just to pretty it up.  But our latest project was all about pretty.

I really love my kitchen, but the backsplash was NOTHING I would have ever chosen.  This is what it was:

...Some weird slate like thing.

So we decided to spend what we figured would be about $80-100 and a few days worth of work and make it our own.  $400 and 1 week later this is what we have now!

 Marble mosaics!

 It was not at all what I had in mind when I started looking for tile, but I really love it.  It's the perfect personal touch to my kitchen!

My New Blog

If you haven't already seen it, I'm blogging about my journey to a healthy life.  Check it out at doubtingmylimits.blogspot.com

It's really just a way for me to stay accountable to myself and to the universe!  I'm writing about what I'm doing that's working (or not) and the progress I'm making.  It's helping me stay focused, but I'd love for you to share this experience with me.  Check it out and let me know what you think.  I can use all the help I can get!

Fun Little Garden Project

 I got the idea for these signs on one of my new favorite HGTV shows, "Fixer Upper".  Theirs were small and I wanted to make bigger versions for my garden.  I love how they turned out. 

Each sign cost less than $4 to make.  I just used pre-painted chalkboard rectangles from Michaels and paired them with unpainted wooden frames.  I bought a little bottle of metallic craft paint and used dowels and chalk I had at home.  I glued them all together with liquid nail and stuck them in the dirt!  It took about 20 minutes to do both.  I'm not sure how they will hold up in the winter, so I'll have to take them down when the rain starts. But I'm so happy them and with the character they add to my backyard!