Category Archives: Adventures

11.11.12

Three years ago I ran across a blog.
Three years ago I don’t think I knew what a blog was.

I stalked John and Sherry Petersik’s wedding and home renovations for days….and those days then turned into everyday for three years.

I have followed their ups and downs and admired their ceramic animal collection from afar for a creepily long time.

So once the creators of Young House Love announced their book release, I prayed and prayed some more that they would visit somewhere within a ten hour driving radius.  I don’t like limits but I felt like 20 hours of driving might be pushing it if I wanted someone to come with me.
Then they said the magic words….Chicago.

Game over.

Then of course the nervous list making began.

So here’s the part where most people will think we’re crazy….we left on Friday night at eleven o’clock at night.  On three hours of sleep.  And drove six hours to Chitown.

I obviously don’t have any road-trippin pictures like I did here since it was night time.
But once we got there….well picture frenzy commence.

I called West Elm to make sure that we could get in since I was unable to RSVP when they announced the tour.  The girl was so sweet and told me to make sure I got there super early because some people might camp out, hence my boytoy’s loving text from yours truly.  We got there at 5:30 am and there was not a soul around.  And nothing was open.

I decided to set up camp since it wasn’t too cold and I needed to save my pep for meeting Sherry & John.

It didn’t stay lonely for long.
We met the most AMAZING people in line and we had a blast passing the seven hours of wait time. 

It was so nice to meet all of you, and everyone else that came to meet the crazy girl who showed up at 5am.
The Petersiks really do have the best fans.

West Elm was seriously amazing.
The store was gorgeous.
The people were fantastic.
Joanie and Jeromy, holy amazing.

I also found out, St. Louis is getting a West Elm next year.
I am going to start saving now.

The whole event was surreal, and sweet.

By the time this photo was taken of me enjoying my sweets, we had been there for a little over eight hours.
The line was wrapping around the building, and it was pouring.
Dedication….we got it.

It was so worth the wait.

It was one of the coolest days I have had in a long time.  John and Sherry are exactly how you would expect them to be….amazing.

So fun and happy, and the best part was all their fans are the same way.

I also ran into Nicole Balch from Making It Lovely, who also is a co-teacher in the e-course I took with Holly Becker of decor8. After I met Sherry & John I got to leave them a little note in their blank book that they bring to all the signings.  Talk about pressure, even my girl Roo has written in this book.

If you all really want to see me geeking out, just watch this video that Tim caught.

He is such a good man…I figured I owed him a little somethin somethin for you know staying awake for 26 hours, driving me to Chicago, feeding me chocolate when I wanted to crash, capturing the magic, and wiping my tears when we got outside and I realized that I just met Sherry and John.  Seriously, that happened.
 
Soooo…as promised.
Amendment:  As I was writing this post….this happened.
 
I am not going to deny getting up and doing the cabbage patch as soon as I read this….then I may have cried.
My life is seriously complete.
 
I have to send a HUGE, wet, sloppy kiss to @westelm and @younghouselove for hosting such an amazing shindig. 
 
It really was the best.

Written by Christina and Tim
10.30.12

The other day we did something a little crazy…..

We went to our local fish store and picked up a couple things.
One of those things, was a shark egg.

I do believe our fascination with getting a shark egg began while we were on our East Coast Road Trip.
We ran across these babies while at the Shedd Aquarium.

 We have been researching ever since.
Now that I re-watch that video, I feel like we should clean our egg up.
 
Tim will be checking in to give you an “egglet update” and give you all the specs in case you decide you need a little baby shark in your life as well. 
 
It is a learning experience for us and we have been told that something like one in six don’t ever hatch.  We have been holding light up and looking for some movement, T says the little guy is growing but I have yet to see him.  If you never hear about our shark egg again, you will know things didn’t go so well! 
 
Say a little prayer that we will soon be proud shark parents….
 

Written by Christina and Tim
10.05.12

They say as soon as one vacation is over you start planning the next.

Oh wait…”they” don’t say that?
Well, I do.

We love to travel, we love to learn and see pretty places and meet the most interesting people.
Daydreaming of far off places gives us something to look forward to….more adventure I say.

We revealed in this post that we finally accepted that our priorities may not be the same as everyone else’s.  Now that we are ok with that, we have given ourselves permission to dream bigger and take more risks.  We aren’t going to eat raw bacon or anything, that is still too risky.  But traveling has pushed its way to the top of our list.

Before you call Suze Orman, know that our first priority is to get out of debt and save like crazy to be able to run away like gypsies.

But saving is hard….especially when Pier 1 has a sale.

So we put together a list of places we want to go.
Our “Dream Bigger” List

Obviously we can’t do it all unless we win the lottery or have some rich uncle we didn’t know about, but you can bet your tooshie we are buying our lotto tickets and checking family trees.

The point is to make the list so you have a reason not to buy the adorable ceramic owl that is half off.
I mean you know how I feel about lists.

Can I get an amen….and maybe a couple plane tickets.

We are now accepting donations.

Where do you want to go?  India?  Costa Rica?  Brazil or Russia?

Written by Christina and Tim
10.04.12

The most common thing we heard before we left on our almost two week road trip was, “oh this will be the ultimate test”.

Of course there were variations like, “pack a big bag of patience” and “please try not to kill each other” and even “whoa nelly you two will be enemies by day three”.

Not very encouraging.

T and I have always traveled well together, but we are talking small weekend trips here kids.  We really started psyching ourselves up for 13 days of being in a two foot radius of one another. To our surprise, it was easy breezy fun.
Disclaimer: we do not have chittlins, I believe that to be extremely important information.

We of course had our moments of frazzled map reading, and insane traffic never made us giggly….but we did a good job of remembering that we were frustrated with the situation and not with each other.

Once we hit the downward slope, aka the drive home…we both got a little grumpy.  But there were never any blowouts, which I think we both fully expected.

All my life I have looked at traveling as very hectic.  Traveling meant arguing at least 32% of the trip, usually in the very beginning.  I’ve been on some trips where people fight the whole time…not fun y’all.

Feeling like we might be onto something….we put together a list for you all. roadtrips with spouse/boyfriend
We hope all of your travels are as happy as ours!

Written by Christina and Tim
10.03.12

If you missed any stops on our East Coast road trip…you can catch up by clicking on the links below.

The Preview
Gettin Lucky in Kentucky
Virginia is for Lovers
Our Nation’s Capitol
Lawsonville, PA
Jersey Shore minus the Snookie
Vermonty, where I gained ten pounds
We are moving to Maine
Chitown
Shedd Aquarium

We hope you enjoyed hopping in our virtual car for a little tour of the East-ish.

Some of you commented on our post card montage.  You don’t even know how much fun this was for my boytoy and the doggie.
Here are some outtakes.  

You think those are funny….wait till you see our road trip videos.
We debated on sharing these, because they aren’t very flattering but every time we watch we can’t help but laugh.
Hopefully you all can just laugh at our ridiculousness too.

You wanna know how big of dorks we are, or how we entertained ourselves for 85 hours in the car, or how obsessed with tunnels we are….just watch these.

And Mom – I did not know what the “whistle song” was about, it just kept coming on the radio so we jammed.

Now you get to sneak a peek at just how goofy we are….fun in tunnels.
 

Okay, now that we have subjected ourselves to public humiliation.  Let’s talk about our treasures.
I am definitely the girl that picks up every cool seashell as a souvenir. I am also the girl that wants to buy a memento everywhere I go. It’s my mom’s fault.  Everywhere we traveled she buys coffee mugs, then every morning she gets to reflect about where she has been.
But I don’t like coffee.
So I settle for magnets & postcards. This trip we decided that when we really loooved a place (enough for three “o’s”) we would buy an ornament.  We are Christmas nuts, so it seemed fitting.

     

We snuck off with some other treasures too.  Tasty ones like chocolate covered blueberries, sweet jams, smoky bacon cheese, jalapeño chips, and some burger sauce.  Some super rad tee shirts that I am sure you will spot us wearing here and there.  Even doggie treats and toys.  No one left behind.

We got sweet art prints from Maine and we are currently working on getting an awesome piggie painting from a Vermont store.

That’s how I show my love….with Friends references.

We also almost drove off the highway to go scoop up one of these bad boys. We also collected room keys…don’t snitch. Now the question is….what kind of crafty things can I do with all of these treasures?

Oh I just got a gut-wrenching pain…our trip is over.
Time to start planning the next one!

Written by Christina and Tim
10.02.12

We knew that if we drove straight home from the East Coast we would be seriously depressed…in a car….together….for sixteen hours.
That was if there wasn’t any traffic.
We also knew that Chicago was only a six hour drive (five if your name is Tim).

So we added Chicago to our trip.  That cut the depressing drive down by ten whole hours, because we were excited for Chicago for most the way home. Since we couldn’t catch a Cards-v-Cubs game, we went to the obvious vacation destination. Boy oh boy did our cameras get a workout.  Hope you like photos! It goes without saying that we had a blast.
But I will say it anyway….we had a blast. We walked right into a show in their main tank.  Where do I apply for that job?
I of course oogled the decor.   Ummmm hi, where do you all shop?
I got caught oogling a lot that day…. What can I say, I have a real weakness for sharks.  Check it. I mean, how do you not love them.
I am totally serious about having a shark tank too.
Luckily, I know where to stock up on sharks. Yes, they had real shark eggs.  I have video of them wriggling that I will share later this week.

There was another baby.  The baby Beluga was born about a month ago.
Say “hi”

 

That is my dolphin imitation.   It seemed like the theme of the day was large and in charge.
Everything was huge. I know these aren’t the best pictures, unless you are into glare and fuzziness.
The point is look at the size of these monsters. For some reason, this reminded me of Harry Potter.  So I ran….fast.       Yes, that sea lion was the highlight of my trip.
He knew where the food was, so he would swim three laps then splash out to get some chow.
Everytime he got out I clapped like a….well, sea lion.

My second best friend was this little feller. He was convinced that the rubber duckie was his people.
More convinced that this duck was his BFF forever and ever.

Then there were the jellies.  Oh the jellies.      

It was what I want heaven to be…and has me convinced our next tank should be a jellyfish tank.   That there is the general gist of our aquarium trip…minus about 450 pictures.
Shutter happy people, that’s for sure.

We were not happy to leave Chicago, since that meant our trip was pretty much over.
But we are so glad to be home….planning the next one!

Written by Christina and Tim