Family Fun

Here is my beautiful Kate in front of the fountain in the backyard.

We've loved every minute of having Kate and Travis visit us this weekend. We wish the visit could be longer, but they are currently both taking a break from school and working full time and they need to be back for work Monday.

...and here is a few shots of me and Kate.

 

 

...and Kevin and Kate.

 

....and Travis and Kate

Kate wanted to go down to the pier today and walk down to the end where there is this fun restaurant called Ruby's Diner.

I took a few shots as we walked along the pier. Below on the right you can see all the volley ball nets there are up.

They just so happened to be having a surf competition going on today, so we got to stop along the way and watch the competing surfers. So fun to watch them from the vantage point of the pier where they are right below you.

....another shot of the beautiful stretch of beach.

..and after a long walk, we reached our destination Ruby's. We enjoyed burgers and fish and chips at Rubys. The views of the ocean on a sunny day like today were wonderful!

Here we all are standing at the end of the pier with the beach behind us in the distance.

 

Love it when I can spend the day with BOTH of my children.

....walking back down the pier to the main street.

 

After lunch we spent some time walking through the many shops in down town and then headed back home where it was time to say good bye to Kate, Travis and Lily. (didn't get any pics of Lily this time!) We invited Kate and Travis to come back for the 4th and we are keeping our fingers crossed that they will join us.

Beach Day!

Katelyn and Travis (her boyfriend of nearly a year) came to visit us in our new home this weekend. So of course we had to take them to the beach today! What a perfect day it was too. The weather was gorgeous with just a light breeze.

Here is Kate and Travis. It has been so wonderful to see this relationship blossom and for us to get to know Travis better. He is a wonderful young man and the two of them seem very content together.

Soaking up the sun....

Kyle is in his wet suit and ready to hop in the water for some boogie boarding!
He has been enjoying the ocean a lot since we moved just 4 miles from the beach 3 weeks ago. In fact last week he took a surf lesson and enjoyed that very much. I've been amazed at how Kyle has just taken to the ocean the way he has. He just loves it!

 Kevin also loves boogie boarding and braved the cold water without a wet suit today.

 

Heading in!

 

Tired after riding the waves!

Here is Kevin and I. What I love most about the beach is the opportunity to dig my feet in the sand and read a good book!

 

Here's a shot of the pier and ocean from our spot on the beach and looking back the other way towards town. This beach is literally miles and miles of one of the best beaches in SoCal. We feel so fortunate to live so close to the beach.

Towards the end of the day the wind picked up and it got chilly. Kate and Travis took a walk on the beach with this towel wrapped around them.

We had a wonderful day at the beach and I'm sure there will be many more in the future!

A house becomes a home

We officially live here now!

 

 

 

We love this court yard in the front of the house.

 

 

 

Won't you come in?

 

 

 

 

Immediately to the left of the entry, you step down one step into the galley kitchen.

The next thing you see to the left of the entry way is the stairs leading up to the "bonus room" as we are affectionately calling it. As you can see the bottom stair carpet is really worn. When we moved in I found lots of embedded dog hair in the Berber carpet (the stairs and bonus room is the only carpet in the house) Our landlords told us that the previous tenants had a dog and that after 2 steam cleanings this was the best they could get the carpet. After some discussion they agreed to replace the carpet and even let us pick from several samples what we wanted! The new carpet had to be special ordered and will be installed in 2 weeks. I'm holding off on decorating up there until the new carpet is in. Once it is, I will post pics of the bonus room. (It is a LARGE room that we will be using as an office for Kevin AND a family room for watching TV etc.

From the entry to the right is a hall that leads to all the bedrooms.

 

Looking back out at the entry from the hall way.

First room to the right as you step into the hall is the guys bathroom. Since the master bath is so small we decided that I would use that bathroom and that Kevin and Kyle would share this one.

Across from the bathroom and first room on your left as you enter the hallway is Kyle's room.

We are ordering some posters for his walls.

At the end of the hall I placed this antique desk.

At the end of the hall on the right is the master bedroom.

We found this chair sitting on the curb in front of a neighbor's house in Chino Hills. Kevin gave it a fresh coat of white paint and I found this cushion for it at Pier One. It works great in our room!

Here is my teeny master bath. One of the downfalls of an older home...but so worth it to live in this wonderful gem of a place.

Across the hall from our room is my craft room/office.

I sit at my desk to work on the computer, pay bills etc. and sit at the drafting table to scrap book or make cards.

I have organized my ribbon and embellishments by color in these bins.

I have everything labeled for easy access.

We found this desk sitting next to the wicker chair in our room on that same curb. Once again, Kevin added a fresh coat of white and it works perfectly as my desk!

(next to my office on the left is the guest room....however we have nothing in there right now. We need to get a bed and furniture in there. Once we do I will post pics of it!)

My light and bright galley kitchen! I LOVE this kitchen. It's small but really functional and has a ton of storage.

New double ovens.

Here is the living room, looking in from the entry way.

The entertainment center houses a TV. For now we are watching TV in this room and will always have a TV here. However when the carpet is installed upstairs we will be using that room in the evenings as our family room. It will be nice to have a TV down here too however for the rare times that I turn the TV on during the day.

The dining room. Since this house does not have a kitchen nook AND a dining room like we are used to having.....we put the kitchen nook table away and decided to use our dining room furniture in here. So far we haven't had one meal here. We eat all our meals outside on the patio!

The "space age light fixture" as we like to call it, will be put away soon. We are going to buy another light fixture to hang over the table (it will be centered).

We will also be replacing the space age sconces above the dining room windows with something that goes better with our decor.

Standing in the far corner of the dining room looking into the kitchen. The door to the left of the picture is a walk in pantry.

Both french doors are wide open to the patio.

Due to the FABULOUS year round weather here we plan on eating as many meals as possible at this table and so far we have! LOVE this.

My dear friends from Chino Hills gave me this yellow bird house at my last bible study meeting before moving here. It looks perfect hanging here!

My sweet friend Joanne picked this out for me and it is TRULY appreciated.

Could you not die for this yard!?? We love it. Pictures don't even begin to capture the feeling out there.

The sound of the water from this fountain is so soothing all day. We leave the windows open in the house and can hear it from inside too.

Thank you for touring our new place. We signed a 2 year lease on this house but plan on living here for at LEAST 3 as we don't want to move Kyle again while he is still in High School. We've already discussed our interest in buying the place in 2-3 years with the owners. We don't want to buy until Kevin has been at his job for at least 2 years. They are open to the possibility which thrills us to no end. Kevin and I both hope to grow old in this house. We LOVE IT! We also love living in this beach community in Orange County. More on that in a future post!