Our New Home!

Mark and I feel so fortunate to have been able to buy a house this past month.  It was something that we thought would not happen for a couple more years but God is so great and so faithful and He has provided this amazing new home for our little family.

Want to have a little tour?  Follow me!

Welcome to 216 Lorraine Court in Healdsburg, CA 95448

(please update our address)

Come on in!

(you'll get a closer look at that wreath in a future post... a new little something I'm working on)

On the left as you walk inside.

Formal living room is off to the right of the entry way.  (Red rug is being moved into a different room)

Our dining room table is currently being refinished .

Powder room.  Plans for this bathroom include installing bead board, a different color paint and getting rid of all the brass.

Breakfast nook

Love this little bench :)

I seriously am not knowing what to do with a kitchen this spacious!  Note the double oven... LOVE!

My cute little kitchen window.  Love my African violets!

My FAVORITE room in the house!  Our family room.

This piece of furniture ties for first place (along with my china cabinet) as my favorite piece of furniture.  My mom is coming for a visit next week and she is gonna help me "decorate" this.  Can't wait!

Stay tuned for a tour of the upstairs and backyard...

Paris Day 3

aka LAST day of our trip!  :)

Mark and I decided to do Versailles on our last day and it couldn't have been a better last day in France.  We loved it!  Our feet walked and walked and walked ALL over the (massive) grounds until they literally could not take another step.  It was the worst weather that we have had but it wasn't bad- just cold and windy and very drizzly!  We ate lunch at Angelina (right there in the palace), the cutest little tea room/restaurant and it was DIVINE!  There was another Angelina right next door to our hotel and I'm so bummed that we didn't find that place before our last day there :(

Here are just a few pictures of our day.

This was my favorite room- the hall of mirrors.  Gorgeous glass chandeliers. 

Marie Antoinette''s bed.

note that cute little thing on my shoulder :)

Our hotel in Paris- Hotel Brighton.

World's smallest elevator.  Mark couldn't stand sideways in it- he had to back into it or ride facing the mirror- ha!

We left the next morning and flew into DFW.  Had about 45 minutes in the airport with my dad (so great to see him!) and got home around midnight.  Exhausted was not even close to how we felt.  Seeing the boys and getting to hug my momma the next morning was so fun.



Some final thoughts about our trip and I'll wrap this up...

I had an AMAZING 2 weeks with Mark! We made lifetime memories!
Paris was my favorite (not surprising to Mark). 
But surprising to both of us, the champagne region was our least favorite. 
I would love to go back to Burgundy maybe for a couple more days only to be able to explore some of the little villages more.  I felt like all we did was taste wine (which isn't bad) but I wish we could have spent a little more time just wandering around.
TWO weeks is a really LONG time to be gone from our kids!  I don't think I want to be gone from them that long again (good news to both sets of parents) unless they are with us.  But then, I don't want to go on a vacation WITH them for TWO weeks... unless it's to the beach or until they are much older :)
The boys stayed with Mark's parents the first week and then my mom flew out for the last week.  All of them deserve jewels in their crowns.
Jake and Pierce did GREAT while we were gone.  Mark and I left them little notes and little surprises to open each day we were gone.  Surprises included... bubbles, chalk, coloring books, 55 cents for a trip to get kiddie cones from McDonalds, a valentines day goodie basket...

So that's about it!  Thanks for hanging in there with me :)

Back to Paris Day 1 and 2

We rode the train back to Paris and while I still felt utterly yucky I survived the trip.  We made it to our hotel, which was amazing, and took a little rest.  Afterwards, we walked across the street and spent a little time in the park.  I should mention that looking out our hotel room, we had a perfect view of the Eiffel tower and if we looked down to the left we saw the Lourve.  I had not one ounce of me that was wanting to eat but we ended up eating at the little pizza restaurant from the week before.  Sadly, it just wasn't as good to me as the first time :(  Sorry, no pictures from today!

Monday was Valentine's Day.  Celebrating with the love of my life in the "city of love" just couldn't have been more perfect.  We did the Louvre.  I couldn't get over just how unbelievably MASSIVE it was!  Confession: I found the building and architecture more fascinating than the art work inside.  I know.  I know.  It was so great to see some of the most famous pieces of art in the world but I found myself looking up most of the time at the ceilings :)  OK, I'm weird.  Oh well.

After the Louvre, we walked the Champs de Elysee some more.  We made a little stop in a certain big store and Mark said, "I want you to pick something out!"  (see picture below!)  Happy Valentines Day!  :)

That night, we ate at a restaurant in a nearby hotel and it was really good.  I was finally feeling better.

Tomorrow is our last day and we went to bed looking forward to Versailles!

do I even need to comment on this one?!  :)

Woo Hoo!  :)

Burgundy Day 4

Man, I don't know why it is taking me so long to finish our trip- geez.  Is anyone even still interested?!?  :)  I'm going to try and crank them all out tonight because I have lots of fun posts to share... like our new HOUSE!!  And I've missed blogging about Pierce turning 16 and 17 months (did I even do a 15 month post???  hmmm)  And how I'm about to venture out into being a single parent for 4 weeks as Mark is traveling.  And I just have some really cute pictures of the boys that I want to share... with my 8 followers- ha!

Anyways, day 4.  We woke up and actually moved out of our house in the morning.  We had to return our rental car and having to take a taxi back and forth between the house and the village of Beaune would have cost a fortune.  On Saturdays, Beaune has the most amazing farmers market- and this market has EVERYTHING you could even imagine... of course amazing foods, but also tons of handmade clothes, toys, pots and pans, painted dishes, baskets, little "knick knacks"... seriously, anything you can think of they had!  Afterwards, we met up with a guy that Mark knows.  His name is Ray and he is from Oakland and is a big fan of Arista.  2 years ago, Ray came out to Burgundy to work a harvest.  He fell in love with it and came home and told his wife, who was pregnant with their first child that they were moving to France.  I'm not quite sure about all these Americans who are moving to France to make wine.  I told Mark on multiple occasions to NOT get ANY ideas!  :)  Mark and I went back to Ray's house to spend the rest of the day with him and his family.  I was a little disappointed because I had really wanted to explore Beaune a little more.  But it was a fun afternoon... until I got sick...

I will spare you all the details but I think it was a combination of eating some raw cheeses, a meat pie (seriously, don't ask... kinda makes me want to dry heave just thinking about it) and then getting car sick driving around several vineyards.  It hit me in full force once we got to dinner.  I felt so bad I couldn't even look at the food on the table.  The truffles on Mark's dinner almost sent me over the edge.  I'll quit now but I have never been so violently ill in my life.

We checked into a darling little hotel in Beaune for the night and I was up all night so so sick... blah!  Not a fun evening and I was definitely wondering if I was going to be able to get on a 3.5 hour train back to Paris the next morning.

Our house for the past 4 days

 This old church was literally right across the road from our house.  The bells always woke us up at 7 am.

Just a few pictures from the market.

All olives

Mark in front of ultra ultra famous Domaine Romanee Conti

Mark and Ray.

I wish I had felt well enough to take more pictures of this little hotel we stayed in.  It was so cute and old.