preston and emily

Monday, August 5, 2013

Spain: Where We Stayed! Pictures!

Alright, so I decided that one blog entry that discussed everything about our trip would get way too long. So I'm going to split it up into two shorter, more manageable posts.

1. First post... Where We Stayed!
2. Second will be What We Did! Random pictures/everything I didn't already talk about that's worth sharing. :)

I decided to post this first, because we enjoyed our hotel (service, pools, the terrace overlooking Palma, landscaping, etc.) so, so much.

We stayed at Castillo Hotel Son Vida in Mallorca.

I honestly didn't take a ton of pictures of the hotel grounds while we were there, because I knew there were so many better ones on the hotel website than I could ever take. So here they are...

All of the following are from the hotel website:

Exclusive location on the Son Vida Hills

In a healthy body lives a healthy spirit

And here are a few I took while we were at the hotel:

So, that's where we stayed. Next I'll post some pictures of places we went while we were in Mallorca.

xo,

Emily

Friday, August 2, 2013

new house pics!

Well hello strangers!

Where do I begin?

First of all, we sold our house and bought a house, so now we're in the midst of all the "in-between stuff." Home inspections, appraisals, lots of paperwork, cleaning, packing, and WAITING. Waiting for our closing date so we can actually start moving and making the house "our own."

Curious what our new house looks like? I have a couple pictures. We have lots of plans for painting and renovating that we will slowly get done through the years. The light fixtures/hardware/etc. is pretty outdated. The furniture in the pictures is obviously not ours, since we haven't moved in yet.

I'm just so excited to finally have a YARD! And our backyard neighbor is a field, which I really love. I think we'll appreciate it more after so many years of being within such close proximity to our neighbors in an apartment and townhome.

I'm gearing up for living in a smaller town and getting excited! We were already invited by one of our neighbors to a neighborhood block party, and we'll be there with bells on.

Once we get a little settled I'd like to have a BBQ or pizza night and invite everyone we know in Canton over to see our new place and most importantly catch up. Preston grew up and currently works in Canton -- and he assures me lots of extremely friendly people live there, several of whom I've already had the pleasure of meeting.

I will post more pictures as we get moved in and settled. :)

We got most of the "house stuff" figured out before we left for Spain, which was a relief. We had a great, practically-stress-free trip. The long flights and time change took a bit of a toll on us, but we are so glad we went despite that.

We saw and experienced so much, I can't even begin to write it all here. So, instead I'll give you a photo diary with short captions. I will do that soon -- for sure by early next week. If you're FB friends with me, I have a few pictures on there also.

I hope life has been treating you well... I've been seeing Christmas decorations at a few stores (Hobby Lobby) over the past month, so that must be a sign that our summer is coming to an end sooner than later. We better enjoy each day!

Emily

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

4 days!

Hi guys! Has summer been flying by as quickly for you as it has for me?! Whoa. We had a great 4th of July in Okoboji with Preston's family. We ate a lot of great food, watched fireworks out on the water, spent some time in the COLD lake water, and laughed a lot.

After the 4th, Preston headed to St. Louis for work and I headed to Rapid City to be a counselor for my church's kids' camp. My little sis came along, which made it even more fun. It was a great week and so fun to get bonding time with the kids from our church. I feel like I got a preview into what it will be like to have kids --- I was LUCKY to get a shower everyday and forget having any time to put on makeup or actually do anything with my hair. Yet so rewarding and what a privilege to get to know these great kiddos and help give them a foundation of knowledge and excitement about the Bible and our amazing Savior. It is beyond amazing to see kids getting so engaged in worship songs and so excited to memorize Bible verses.

The day after we both got home, we put an offer in on a house in Canton and met with a realtor to put our house on the market. This week we've been getting our house cleaned and organized for open houses/showings.

In four days we leave for Spain! I talked about where we're going and what we'll be doing in this post. :)

We're excited!!! I can't wait to show you all pictures from our trip and tell you about our adventures.

Love and prayers that you all are enjoying summer and have a great week!

Monday, July 1, 2013

Hello July! My first "video" and the Start of House-Hunting...

Well hello July, and so long June. I can easily say it was the busiest month of 2013 so far. I was substitute teaching nearly every day January through the beginning of May, but summer has been flying by with our to-do list getting longer and longer. We can't keep up!

Throughout June, we were out of town every weekend, tending to our ill cats (including multiple emergency room visits, a surgery, lots of waiting on test results, several diet changes, and lots of worry), Preston worked a ton, when I actually was home I stayed busy in my garden and with projects around the house (we've started the house-hunting process once again --- so between getting our townhome ready to sell and trying to find the perfect new house in a new town, we have been overwhelmed.)

Brainerd, MN weekend!

What a weekend! We spent a few days in Brainerd, MN at Maddens Resort on Gull Lake, and we had a great time. On our way home, we got to make a quick stop in Minneapolis to have lunch and do a little shopping in Uptown -- and most importantly see my sister, brother-in-law, and our amazing little MN nephews. They are getting so grown up, and Owen is just HILARIOUS! And Preston's totally his favorite ever, which is cute to see. Jameson's almost 2 years old and still loves to snuggle, which is so precious. We left Thursday morning around 7am and got home last night around 10pm, and we were absolutely EXHAUSTED! The one BIG bummer of this weekend, was that we didn't get to spend time with either of our amazing dads for Father's Day. :( But we are definitely planning some belated Father's Day get-togethers -- our dads mean the world to us.

Preston headed back to work right away this morning, but I'm spending the day catching up on laundry, spoiling our kitties (who are a little resentful that we left them for so long -- I took them out on their leashes for OVER an hour, so I think they may have forgiven me now. And with the sun shining so beautifully, it was a great time for me to be out in the sun and water my garden too.)

Anyway, we had tons of fun but were SO, incredibly busy with meetings and activities and driving and eating I didn't take as many pictures as I normally do (so disappointed in myself.) But not completely failing at living up to my reputation, I did snap a couple when I remembered my camera and we looked halfway decent. So, here's my photo diary from the weekend. :) Enjoy!

when life gives you rain... make muffins

I truly am grateful we've been getting all this amazing rain. It was so miserable last summer when all the lawns were dead and flowers shriveled up the day after you planted them. And even more importantly, I know the lack of rain put an enormous amount of stress on our nation's farmers, who we are obviously incredibly indebted to.

But although I know we need rain and it's a blessing, it has been dampening my spirit a little lately.

I mean, enough is enough already.

So you know the old saying... When life gives you lemons, make lemonade? Well I don't know what it is about baking that brightens my spirit on a dreary day -- but it does.

So when life gives me rainy day after rainy day after rainy day, I make muffins. (And brownies. And cookies.)

Ocho Rios, Jamaica Photo Diary!!!

Well, another rainy day. I don't really want to even talk about that. So moving on...

Preston and I have two digital picture frames that we've had for... months or maybe years... that we never get around to loading pictures on. So, since I'm finished with laundry, dishes, and cleaning our bathrooms -- and I'm a little bored now being stuck inside -- I'm taking a little time today to finally get that project done.

While I was deciding what pictures to load on them, I ran across the pictures from our honeymoon we took almost 4 years ago to Jamaica. I don't have them posted on Facebook and hadn't looked at them in years, so it was fun (and at times funny) going through them. I thought I'd share some of them with you, since I love writing about travel in general. :)

nothing says summer like.......

... a good old-fashioned picnic.

So yesterday, after church, we filled our picnic basket to the point of overflowing and headed outside. Unfortunately it's not quite nice enough yet to hit the pool or beach....... So we're patiently waiting and trying to make the most of the weather we have been having -- which has been very unremarkable so far this summer.

saturday night fever... and e-cards

Am I the only one who had no idea what that phrase (the title of this post) meant (other than being a movie title), until I google-ed it (and found the answer linked to a yahoo page)?

photo diary of the last few days

Hey there!

The last few days were filled with making s'mores over the firepit,

mid-weekend greeting!

With this stormy, rainy kick-off to summer we've been having that quote just seemed appropriate. ;)

....... be kind anyway

Happy Friday everyone!

Recent events, such as the not-completely-amazing (can you tell I'm trying really hard to keep a positive attitude about all this dreariness?) forecasted weather and Lucy having surgery & needing us home while she recuperates, have changed our Memorial Day weekend plans a bit -

How's your mental health?

I'm sure some, or all, of you are puzzled by the title of my blog post.

You may have even read it a second time and thought,

"Oh my dear heavens -- What's she writing about this time?"

unglued

This was a winter that had Preston and I discussing why on earth we live in the Midwest - on several different occasions.

A laid-back beach shack in Hawaii...

or a house with an outdoor pool in Arizona...

both sounded very tempting while we endured the ice storms, blizzards, and frigid temperatures that are part of the package-deal that come with Winter In South Dakota.

our poor Lucy :(

Our poor Lucy (one, of our two, orange cats) has a penny-sized bladder stone that she's going to have surgery to remove tomorrow morning.

Please pray that the surgery goes smoothly, and also that the vet is able to figure out what caused the stone to form so that we can prevent this from happening again in the future.

Lucy's brother, Gibson, would be lost without her!

Minneapolis May 2013

We got back late last night from a fun weekend in Minneapolis celebrating my big sister's graduation from law school. She graduated summa cum laude! We are so proud of you, Elizabeth! I know these past few years couldn't have been easy -- and not only did you survive them -- you truly knocked 'em out of the park. Congratulations on a job well done!!!!! We know you have a bright future ahead of you!

Cruise Photo Album #2 -- Definitely some favorites in this one!

If you haven't already seen one of my (multiple) posts about the cruise I went on last week -- let me fill you in.

If you want to read my trip journal, click here.

If you missed the first photo album I posted, click here to see it.

And if you want to see more pictures or just really don't care to click on either of the links I posted above..... just keep scrolling down. :)

I would recommend just clicking on the first picture -- it'll take you to a different screen where you can see all the pictures bigger. :)

Cruise Photo Album #1

Good evening and Happy Wednesday! If you missed my last post, you can read all the details about the cruise I went on by clicking here!

Like I said before, I FORGOT my camera... but the good news is that my friends are really talented photographers and really good at sharing. So, as I get pictures from them I will post them on here for you all to see. The following are pics my amazing friend Jess took :) There will be at least 2 more photo albums to come, haha.

Enjoy!

Bon voyage!

At dinner -- Love this girl!

With two of my favorite ladies :)

our humble abode for the week

Abby's such a caring friend ;) They ordered dark & white chocolate pudding and were (not-so-pleasantly) surprised with bread pudding that had liquid oozing out of the center

gorgeous girls :)

our dining room

action shot:

in a glass elevator, like Charlie & the Chocolate factory

karaoke -- terrifying.

celebrating karaoke being OVER with a pina colada - delish

Cheers!

as crazy as it got... I promise! I did this against my will. You can tell by the petrified look on my face that I'm not used to this. But they let us keep the glass :)