Home sweet home for the holidays

We've been busy making our house into a home.  So many projects, where to start?!  Of course the most drastic difference in the house is the paint colors.  Check out the link above for the initial shots of the living room.  Here are a few updated living room shots some of which are complete with holiday decor.

Our larger-than-life Christmas tree (more on that later):

We couldn't part with our small tree from the condo so that went in the dining room.

 

Speaking of the dining room, we have had many opportunities to entertain.  Since I am behind on blogging you haven't seen this photo yet.  This was pretty much the weekend after moving in.  We hosted the Brewers for a lovely pizza dinner. 

 

 

Here we are the day before Thanksgiving with 2 of Tyler's brothers and their ladies.  Notice the mirror...I love where we chose to hang it.

And a home just isn't a home without scentsy.  Thanks to Fisch for supplying me with so many good scents.  Check them out here!

 

And the living room has pictures!  Here is Isaac, happily meeting Miss Pogo for the first time.
  Meow!

And then we have the office.  Before pictures, courtesy of Windermere:

Somehow the bright orange just wasn't doing it for us.  It is now a soothing blue-grey and white color.  These aren't the best photos but here is the left side of the room (left of the window):

 

 

And the right:

The last update of the evening will be the front entry light fixture.  We went from this funky thing:

To a more classic look:

Next, I'll definitely need to show you our progress on the master bedroom and family room.  Good night for now :)

Laura's kitchen

 

 

It has been awhile since I have posted food photos.  In case you are wondering, I still follow my modified gluten free dairy free anti-inflammatory diet (it has been over 2 years now) and am feeling great!  I'm not as good about avoiding sugar, corn or alcohol, especially during the holidays, but for the most part I do quite well.  Today, I had the fam over and cooked up two new recipes which we enjoyed very much: "ranch" dip and a "creamy" pesto-like spinach dip.  Both gluten and dairy free.

Another magical trip to Leavenworth

We ventured over to Leavenworth for Veterans Day weekend.  I was so excited to see the snow, relax, enjoy the outdoors, eat, and sleep!

Our first stop after checking in was Pavz of course, our fav. Leavenworth restaurant. Here is my salmon, roasted potatoes and veggies.  Despite the freezing cold weather and walk to the condo, I managed to convince Tyler to stop for gelato on the way home.

The tree was aglow:

The next day, we ventured out in the cold to Icicle Creek Road.  The hike we were going to take was closed due to wildfires.  (Hard to imagine that there were wildfires in weather like this).  So, we wandered around a trail by the campsite we stayed at in July.  

Sunbreaks: 

Our campsite in the snow:

After warming up, we headed to Wenatchee for some wine tasting and amazing Mexican food.  YUMMMM.  We even found time to watch a movie that day.

The last day in town, we did some Christmas shopping at some of our fav. stores, including Kris Kringl.





What a lovely Veterans day weekend!

Country Music Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry

The Country Music Hall of Fame was an impressive collection of all things country music of course.  Highlights included Elvis' gold piano

 Seeing Dolly and George:

And the many other talented musicians represented and honored

The exhibits were really cool as well.

The next night, we were fortunate to visit the Grand Old Opry on it's 87th birthday: October 5, 2012.  What an experience!  The history and awe of being in the same place as some of the best musicians ever was pretty amazing.

We were in the first row of the balcony. Amazing seats!

Rodney Atkins!

Happy birthday, opry.  Hope to see you again soon!

Nashville!

My coworker Tonja and I were blessed to be supported in presenting at the NACADA (National Academic Advising) Conference in Nashville Tennessee in October.  It was a great professional opportunity since public speaking is not my strong suit. 
Here we are working hard on the plane to finalize our talking points.

 

Our presentation discussed ways that academic advisors can support and encourage students to be their own self-advocates and build relationships with faculty.  We discussed networking, strategies to encourage and empower students, and the benefits of utilizing office hours.  Fun times.

 

The hotel that we stayed at and where the conference was held was insane.  That's the only way to describe it.  The Gaylord Opryland hotel.  It was like a jungle, city, hotel and resort all in one.  In many ways it felt like being in the white house.  We definitely got our exercise!  Here are two shots of it.

Though it wasn't in downtown Nashville, we ventured out a few times.  This AT&T "Batman" building was pretty cool. 
Nashville is a great city.  I highly encourage you to visit it, especially if you like music!

We walked around the capitol building.

And then to a farmers market.

 

Remember how I said especially if you like music?  The bars were hoppin' with live music at 2pm on a Thurs!  Free, live music.  This band was great and could be professional any day now!  It was a great atmosphere for sure.  Of course, the people in Nashville were very friendly as well.

 

We were walking back to the Gaylord and just so happened upon Sun Records.  Yes, "the" Sun Records, where Johnny Cash, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, etc recorded.  Very cool.  My next post will be about the even cooler aspects of Nashville's music scene.