C A L I F O R N I A

Last week Justin and I snuck away for our Babymoon (a last hurrah vacation before baby comes!).  We flew down to Palm Springs and enjoyed the Sun, good food, family and of course a little Disney!

I documented our trip in iphone photos, so I apologize for the quality of the pictures. :)

Our flight took a quick pit stop in San Francisco so I snapped some photos of the sites we were flying over.

Alcatraz Island
 

 

Golden Gate Bridge

 

 

We landed in Palm Springs on Saturday afternoon.  It was hot and beautiful!

 

This is the golf course in my in-laws and grandparents neighborhood.  I love the hills that surround it, so beautiful!

 

My cute man!

 

 

Saturday night and Sunday we spent time with my aunt and uncle and cousins on my moms side.  I forgot to take a photo but we had a Mexican dinner and spent much needed time catching up!

 

Sunday evening we went to Kobe to celebrate my birthday.  The food was delish and the company was great! My dad and step-mom and aunt and uncle on her side spent the week in Palm Desert, just 15 minutes away so it was fun visiting with them as well!

 

 

My ma-in-law was there too! 

 

 

 

Monday and Tuesday we spent the days at my parents villa getting our tan on!  It was wonderful!

 

 

 

 

Tuesday night we went to Ruth's Chris Steak House for dinner.  Best meal. Ever.

 

 

 

 Wednesday we headed out to Anaheim to get our Disney on but had to make a lunch stop before we hit the road.  When in Rome California!

 

 

 

Wednesday night we met my aunt, uncle and cousin on my dads side at the Lazy Dog Cafe.  Another yum meal!  Can you tell that this pregnant chick loves to eat?

 

 

 Thursday morning we hit the Disney gates at opening and spent the whole day in both Disneyland and California Adventure.

 

 

 

It's Halloween Time in Disneyland so everything was decked out in pumpkins, leaves and full of Autumn festiveness.

 

 

We had lunch at the Blue Bayou, the restaurant located inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

 

 

 

The food was again fantastic and they even had desserts to celebrate Justin and my October birthdays!!

*note: If you go here, definitely share a meal.  Even if you think your going to die of starvation.  They give you so much food and you want to leave room for the other yum snacks you can munch on at the parks.

 

 

 

 

The Haunted Mansion was decked out as Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas. I personally wish they would leave the Haunted Mansion original but understand the cult following this movie has.  It was still fun but I missed the original.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're followers on instagram or facebook, we made our baby gender announcement via a picture.  Not this picture, but it was another one we took.  IT'S A BOY!!!

 

 

California Adventure is a whole new park!  They have totally revamped it and there are lots of new rides to try!  They got rid of the C A L I F O R N I A that stood in front of the park and now have an art deco style entrance that pays homage to the 1930s when Walt first came to California.

 

 

 They've also added a new street car that takes you to the "Old Hollywood Back Lot" and back. 

 

 

Cathay Circle now stands tall and serves and the main architectural focus and has a restaurant that I heard was delicious!

 

 

A 1930s style car drives around with a lead singer and band that plays swinging tunes of the era Walt loved so much.

 

 

One of the many wonderful rides I was unable to go on. :(  Luckily people watching was at an all time high. :)

 

 

Justin and my dad on the California Screaming.  And some other lady.

 

 

 

We also got to check out the new "Cars Land".  They matched Radiator Springs to perfection and there are two or three new rides in there.  We didn't go on any but it was fun to see all the detail that went into it.

 

 

 

 

They also added a "Little Mermaid" ride.  Those of you who know me know that Ariel is my home-girl.  I took a ton of photos from the ride but decided to just share one.  :)

 

 

We jetted back over to Disneyland and took in the lit up castle (with snow already on it) and a super cute parade.

 

 

King Arthur's Carousel was all lit and beautiful looking so I took a picture as we were waiting to board a pirate ship to Neverland.

 

 

It was a fun trip! Lots of time with family and sunshine.  I can't wait to go back with our little man.

 

Speaking of little man...

 

We had two little men who were super duper excited to have mommy and daddy home :) 

 

We will get back to our regular home reno programming this week.  Thanks for stopping by!

Project Insulation

In effort to make our home warmer in the winter months and cooler in the summer months and to keep our PSE bill in check, we have been filling in our attic space and upstairs crawlspaces with wonderful, new, thick insulation.  We have a total of 5 attic access holes that we need to fill with insulation and create access doors to. 

 

This one at the top of the stairs...

 

This one in the ceiling of the master bedroom...

 

This one in the hall closet...

 

and two more in the blue room which will be part two of this wonderful fiberglass filled adventure.

 

Last week we purchased 5 rolls of unfaced insulation and some closet stuff (more on that later) and started to fill in the empty spaces of our attic and crawl spaces. 

 

 

Here is what it looks like now, a wonderfully soft looking insulated area that will keep us warmer this winter!

 

 

So now that we have all the insulation in place, we have started creating doors to cover the access areas.  We have to leave them accessible but need to close them off.

 

We have leftover drywall that we are going to use to tackle this project.  We also have leftover spray texture and paint so this portion of the project is Free.99, the best price ever!

 

 

What we did have to purchase was some moulding to trim out the spaces and hide the ugly that happens between the hole and the Sheetrock. 

 

So far, Justin has laid all the insulation, cut and nailed on two sides of the frame for the attic access in our room and has cut the Sheetrock to fit in the center. 

 

 

We need to purchase another strip of trim for this door to finish off the ends, spray texture and paint all of the sheet rock doors we created, and install all the doors so they look nice and pretty.

 

 

This project isn't nearly over but I thought I would update you guys on the process.  Stay tuned for part 2 and more of our insulation project!

#DD Progress

The title of this post is the hash tag I have been and will add to our Domestically Dobson related instagrams!  Just a fun little FYI for ya.  :)

 

I have a detailed post coming at ya later today but until then here are a couple of our evening/weekend plans.

 

Our house is getting really cold and our clothes are everywhere!  To save us from freezing and to save my sanity we will be finishing our attic insulation install and adding closet storage to the master closet!  So excited to finally get back in the home reno mode!

 

Happy almost Friday!

Nesting Mode.

We have SO much to do before Baby D comes that my head is starting to spin just thinking about it!

 

From organizing to complete room overhauls, we have definitely got our work cut out for us for the next 5 months!

 

Here it is broken down for ya.

 

Justin is going to finish up outside before we lose our weather and I am going to start on the inside getting everything organized!

 

We just have a couple of things left outside we would like to accomplish.

We need to dig out the area where we want to put our patio

Add gravel and level

Start laying pavers

We wont finish this step this year but we would like to get it going so it ill be an easy finish next Spring.

We also want to add more gravel to the dog run

and we have posts set to extend our fence along the side of our house but just need to finish

 

While he is doing that, I am going to tackle every closet, every drawer, every nook and cranny and they will be cleaned, sorted and put back together in way that wont stress us out. =]

Main level closets

Kitchen junk drawer

bathroom cabinet

Main level hallway closet

Garage

 

After that is out of the way our goal is to focus on the upstairs.  We had carpet installed (more on that later) and are moved up there but it's pretty raw and boring!  We need to:

Add moulding

Create doors for attic access and to cover my clothes storage area

DIY some closet storage for our Master closet

Finish insulating attic space

Purchase and install bathroom fixtures

Purchase and install light fixtures for the two bedrooms

Repaint stairwell

 

Little projects I would like to tackle in addition to all this is to:

Add photo wall to stairway

Finish dressing the den

Adding curtain rods and curtains to the upstairs rooms

Decorate and finish the entire upper level

Decorate the nursery! =]

 

So there you have it! Lots to accomplish but luckily we've given ourselves enough time and I hope we can finish everything in the midst of basketball season and the holidays. 

 

Happy Wednesday! Does anyone else have the fall cleaning bug or is it just me?!

 



Baby Dobson!

Everyone knows now that we are expecting a little human in early March of next year!  We are so excited and I can't wait to share nursery decor and other home related baby things on the blog.  I really am going to try and be better about posting! I have a lot to catch you guys up on and now that the busy summer months are coming to a close, I can prepare for hibernation and more blogging!

 

My pregnancy has been so wonderful thus far.  I haven't had any morning sickness and am embracing and loving my growing mid-section!  Telling our family was so much fun and I love how excited everyone is for our little bean and how much he or she is already loved!

 

Here is our little one at 12 weeks and 6 days!

 

 

I've been taking a photo every week.  I should be doing some cutesy weekly thing but I don't have the time nor the energy for that.  It takes everything I have to peel myself off of my sheet in the morning and do something decent looking with my hair. 

 

We just take the photos wherever we're at.  I want to try and take a photo at a fun event each week like a family dinner, sporting event with friends etc. you get my drift. 

 

Week 13 was taken at work.  So not cool or interesting but that's where it happened.

 

 

Week 14 was a definite improvement taking place at our cousins party lounge to watch the UW Huskies game...

 

 

Week 15 was back in the office. My co-worker took the picture and I felt I looked semi-put together so I went with it :)

 

 

And week 16 was taken at my Aunts house during a family dinner!

 

 

I haven't felt the baby move yet but I am anticipating it happening any time! 

 

So that is what's happening around here along with a bunch of home related posts coming your way soon!  Stay tuned and thanks for being patient with me and my lack productivity!