"My Room" (aka the guestroom)

One of the nice perks about having a 3-bedroom house and not having any kids is that in addition to the master bedroom we each get our own individual room in the house. Jake gets to have his "man cave" and I get a room to work and relax in and do my scrapbooking and other projects, and since mine is the larger of the rooms, it also doubles as our guestroom.

Since "my room" is where I spend a lot of my day at the desk working, I knew I wanted the decor to be light and bright and clean. After searching the web for some inspiration images, I found myself leaning towards a really fun, contemporary look but had no clue how to make those inspiration images come to life. I may be able to pull blog designs out of thin air, but whenever I try to decorate my home I always feel that I fall short of what I was originally trying to achieve.

I started shopping around but didn't have much luck... and then fate stepped in :) I was wandering through HomeGoods (a dangerously amazing place to shop) and bam! there it was! the perfect desk chair! I know most people probably don't get this excited over a chair but you have to understand that I've been looking for the right one for months and this one had both the look and comfort that I wanted. No more working from the kitchen table, yesss!!

Now because the chair is a bright yellow and white print, I wasn't left with too many options for the rest of the room, and actually I was really confused about what to do because I didn't want an all-yellow room or anything too crazy and colorful. But after consulting some friends on facebook (thanks Kristin!!) the answer was clear - make it a gray room with mustard yellow accents!

So right away I went to Home Depot and picked up some light gray paint, went to Ikea and picked up a dark gray duvet color and a simple white and silver desk lamp. Then I found two amazing (and super soft!) euro shams at Crate & Barrel and the perfect accent pillow at Target to tie everything together. It's amazing how everything fell into place; within 24 hours of finding the chair, I had the whole room practically done! And more than anything, changing the wall color from beige to gray made a HUGE difference. Ah, the wonders of paint!

Now the only thing left to do is find some fun art to put in the frames that are hanging on the wall. Any ideas? I'd also love to get some gray and white striped sheets or pillows to throw on the bed just to mix it up a little more. Anyways, here are a few pictures I took of the room but my camera isn't great for indoor photos so it really doesn't do it justice. I guess you'll just have to come see it in person :)

Bye Bye Bye!

That's what Jake and I said to our student loans today!!!!! YESSS!! With the money we made off this last move we were able to pay off the rest of our debt - almost $10,000! It's such a blessing and a huge relief. No more $600/month loan payments for us! Wooo hooo!

Quick Trip Recap

Jake made it home safe from his first trip last night! Even though it was a VERY quick trip he really enjoyed it and loved flying into Alaska and Japan. He didn't get a chance to go off base in Japan because they were there for such a short time but he said it was really pretty there, the people were so nice, and the weather felt like Hawaii! He didn't end up taking lots of pictures (boo...) but he did get a couple that are definitely blog-worthy.

Are you ready for a good laugh? Check out the awesome translation on this juice pack that he bought at the commissary on base in Japan. The last line made us laugh so hard!!

Because this was Jake's first trip in the C-17, it was also his "Dollar Ride". During these first flights, its typical for the other pilots to play pranks on the new pilot. What they planned to do to Jake was take a picture in front of the plane when they landed and then right before the photo clicked, push everyone else out of the way and dump water over his head. Unfortunately for them, Jake saw this coming and  simply stepped back and away and smiled for the picture...

Too bad because that definitely would've been a photo-worthy moment! Oh Jake...

Anyways, that's about all I have to share with you from his trip. In my next post (which I plan to write tomorrow - hopefully!) I want to tell you all about the project I worked on while he was away. I did lots of fun shopping and completely finished our guest bedroom! Paint and all! And I have pictures to prove it :)

Japan? Alaska? Jake take me with you!

Yep, that's right, Jake left this morning for his first trip in the C-17! He'll be gone for a few days to Japan and Alaska and I'm so excited for him. I tried my best to convince him that I should get to come in his suitcase but he didn't go for it. Really though, it's awesome for me to see 4 years of college ROTC  and 2 years of pilot training finally pay off for him. I must say that I'm a bit jealous he gets to travel the world without me... that's okay, I'll let Jake scope out the really good places and we can go back there for vacation together :) Anyways, please pray for a safe and enjoyable trip for him. Hopefully when he gets back I'll have lots of pictures to show you!

On another note, last night Jake and I got to do something really cool - we went out to the flightline to welcome home one of our good friends from deployment! It's not often they let civilians out on the flightline so it was an awesome experience for me to be up close with the jets. Here's a picture I took on the flightline of the massive C-5...

Something you can't tell from this picture is that it was FREEZING out on the flightline! The wind was out of control! I have proof of how freezing I was...

Horrible picture of me but you get the point :) My hair was all over the place, my nose was bright red, and my toes were numb while we waited for the guys to finish dealing with customs and get off the jet (And no I don't have 2 coach purses - I wish! The black one is mine, the purple one belongs to Sarah). But being cold was totally worth it to witness the awesome event of guys getting back from deployment, running to their wives and children, tears and kisses... Amazing! I got to video the whole thing for Sarah and was so happy to be there. Afterward we got to climb up into the plane and check it out! I had never been inside a KC-10 before so it was really cool to see. I had no idea how much cargo they hold! I thought they were just for refueling, but they had 2 jet engines they brought back as cargo just sitting in the back half of the plane.

After we got back home and warmed up a little, we took John and Sarah out to dinner to celebrate his return. Where at? In-N-Out of course! If you know John, you know there's nowhere else he'd rather go. I've never seen someone look at a burger that way before... I think he'd been eating desert food for a little too long :)

Anyways, the weekend is off to a wonderful start and I've even had two different people invite me to their Easter celebrations knowing that Jake is gone. I'm so blessed to have such good friends here. Hope you all are enjoying your Saturday morning! Happy Easter!!

This is awesome...

Everything is new and exciting.

As you can see I've cleaned up quite a bit around here.. how do you like the new look? I'm loving it! I got the title from a photo I saw the other day. I thought it was a great quote and kind of reflects my optimistic outlook on life :)

I've been really itching to sit down and blog lately. All these exciting things are going on and in the midst of them I find myself writing blogs in my head about everything I want to say but then I never actually make it to the computer to write them down.

Last time I wrote, I mentioned that we were moving into our new house. Well, we've been in our house for about 3 weeks now and are LOVING it! This house is gorgeous inside and out and we feel quite spoiled getting to call it ours. I've been busy busy busy getting everything unpacked and settled. I can't wait to show you pictures! We are getting the rest of our new furniture and area rug delivered next week so maybe once those get here I'll start posting some photos.

It's kind of funny because every other time we've moved I've had the house unpacked and decorated within 2 or 3 days but with this house (knowing that we will be here for a few years) I am really taking my time and getting everything just the way I want it. I just can't say it enough - I love it here! It's new and exciting and somehow already feels like home. I already find myself thinking that 4 years isn't going to be enough time here.

Annnnyways...

Last weekend my lovely bride-to-be sister came down from Seattle for her first bridal shower! I had such a fun time throwing it for her and it all went so well. I haven't loaded all of the photos yet but here are a few to start...

Bianca and I with the Bride-to-Be!

Me, Mama, & Jaclyn

The girls

Well I'm sorry to cut this post short but that's all the time I have for updates today! 5 o'clock on a Friday night means it's officially the weekend and I'm looking forward to spending every minute of it with that handsome guy I get to call hubby. Happy weekend everyone!

This is just ridiculous.

I have so much to write, so much to say!!! I'm in a horrible blogging rut and I need to get out of it because there are so many exciting and fabulous things going on in my life right now and I want to (NEED to!) document them all. Every time I get in a rut with blogging I give my blog a nice makeover and that usually does the trick. My goal for the next few days is to redo my blog, get myself motivated to write, and get you all caught up on our wonderful new life here at Travis AFB! Stay tuned...