Nursery Sneak Peek

While Corey and I were in Portland this past weekend, we were very successful in shopping for nursery furniture. While we don't actually have any of it yet, I thought I'd share our final picks, since I'm really excited about all of it.

First, here's the glider. It was more than we originally thought we'd spend, but it looks more like our living room furniture than a nursery essential, and thus will work in our living area one day. Plus it's SUPER comfy, which is a must when we'll be spending many hours in it in the near future.

And here's the crib and changing table we went with. (Disregard the pink!)

And though we didn't pick these up in Portland, I wanted you to see the full picture of the look we're going for, so here's the bedding (minus the quilt) and rug we went with.

We're going for a fun, colorful look with a beachy feel, since we love Hawaii and the beach so much. We'll incorporate other beachy items with artwork on the walls (which will be painted a very light blue). Overall we think it'll be something we like for several years, vs. a super themey-look, which we might get sick of sooner.

The glider should arrive in mid-March, the crib and changing table in the next 2-3 weeks, and we are hoping to get the painting done in the next couple weeks so we can start setting up the furniture as it arrives.

I'll share some photos of the finished product as soon as the nursery is all ready to go!

Babymoon

We returned this afternoon from a fabulous babymoon.

We hit the road, headed for Portland, on Thursday and surprisingly didn't hit any traffic along the way. We checked into our hotel (The Nines), which we loved --- it's right downtown across from Pioneer Square and it's super swanky and fun --- and got some relaxing in (meaning I napped and Corey watched TV) before hitting the streets for some shopping. That evening, the Huskies were playing the Huskers and lucky for Corey, Buffalo Wild Wings, the ultimate sports bar featuring TVs everywhere you turned, and all kinds of wings, was just a block from our hotel. We settled in there for the first half of the game, which surprisingly, the Huskies, who were the underdogs, pulled out a win in the end, which was very exciting.

On Friday, we slept in, bundled up (though it was clear all weekend, it was very cold), then headed to the Daily Grill for a big breakfast to get our day started. We then walked to the Pearl District to check out Posh Baby. We'd done some research ahead of time and found that they carried Monte gliders, which we wanted to scope out for the nursery. They had a few different styles and we found one we loved, so we placed our order and are looking forward to the chair being delivered in mid-March.

As we walked back towards downtown, we hit up other stores like West Elm and North Face before making our way through all the downtown shops right near our hotel. We enjoyed delicious coffee at Public Domain and lunch at Kenny and Zuke's.

Once back in our room, we both crashed for a bit and then got ready for our dinner reservations at Departure, which was an Asian fusion restaurant on the rooftop of our hotel. With it being New Year's Eve, the place was packed and we're so glad we made reservations. Because of the holiday, we got to take advantage of a special prix fixe menu they were offering, which included all sorts of yummy dishes from around Asia. Favorites included the boneless beef short ribs (they literally melted in our mouths) and my dessert (malted chocolate kulfi with caramelized bananas, coconut cream and spiced toffee popcorn). After dinner, we headed back to our room to relax while watching the countdown to midnight. The whole evening was the perfect way to wrap up 2010 and kick-off 2011.

On Saturday, we slept in again before grabbing bagels at Kenny and Zuke's for breakfast. We then jumped in the car and headed to the Pottery Barn Kids at Washington Square, where we ordered our crib and changing table --- we're excited to have the majority of our big baby purchases out of the way now!

We enjoyed more relaxing and napping (can you detect a theme here?) at the hotel before heading to dinner at Typhoon, which we'd been to here in Seattle before it closed a few years ago. We were so excited to go back because the food is delicious ad they have an amazing espresso creme brulee that we still talk about since we tried it in Seattle awhile back. We then headed to True Grit and while I didn't know much about it ahead of time, it turned out to be a great movie, which we both loved.

We slept in again today and then hit the road to avoid the inevitable traffic for tonight's Seahawks game, arriving home to our cute little pup, who we missed dearly.

We had a wonderful time together shopping, eating, relaxing and enjoying each other's company, and wished we could have stayed a bit longer. We're so glad we planned this trip before Piglet's arrival!

Here are a few photos from our weekend. (Apparently we had a bit too much fun and forgot about taking photos - we only snagged a few this trip. Oops!)

A Look Back at 2010

As 2010 comes to a close, here's a look back of some of the fun times we experienced this year.

In January, we got a great head start on working towards our New Year's resolution of cooking two new recipes per month by cooking four new recipes, we had brunch with the Ashers and got to cuddle with Hannah and Charlotte, Corey taught Roxy a new trick, and had dinner with Corey's mom as part of one of her resolutions for us to all get together more often.

February brought Roxy and Moorea together for the first time for an eventful (and tiring) play date, we hosted brunch with the Shawvers and Allens, we had a Superbowl party complete with lots of laughs as our friends tried to fit in Roxy's crate, had a date-filled Valentine's Day weekend, complete with a walk around Discovery Park with Rox, and took Roxy to a Frenchie Frolich play date.

In March, we enjoyed lazy Sundays, a birthday celebration for my dad, celebrated Mark's birthday with the Kels and the Gorden's, and headed off to Maui for my T-Mobile Peak Award trip, complete with a trip to Hana.

When April rolled around, we headed from Maui to the Big Island to spend time with my family, after returning to Seattle, we had Easter brunch with Spence and Renata at The Georgian at the Fairmont, enjoyed more time with Kels, Mark and the Gordens, I went to the ReStore Trash Fashion Show with the girls, and I went to Orlando for work to help with the T-Mobile events for WES 2010.

In May, we celebrated my mom's birthday and Mother's Day in Yakima, my mom and I enjoyed a girls' only weekend in Palm Springs, we visited Spence and Renata in D.C., and celebrated our four-year anniversary since we met.

In June tackled our first big DIY home improvement project, I ran in the Issaquah Tri 5K with the Reeders, celebrated Roxy's 2nd birthday, enjoyed a visit from my family in honor of my grandma's birthday and Father's Day, Roxy wrote her first blog post in honor of "Doggie Daddy Day", spent time with the Reeders and Gossetts eating our way through Fall City Days, I ran the Seattle Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon, and one of Corey's photos was selected as the Olympus User Photo for June.

In July, we spent the 4th in Spokane visiting Corey's dad and saw Grandma Rita for the last time before she passed away later that month, we enjoyed record high temperatures in Seattle by spending time outdoors, spent time in Yakima with the family and cheered my dad on in the Grey Rock Trail Run, wandered around the Olympic Sculpture Park, spent our anniversary weekend in Vegas with the Reeders, and concluded the month with a return to Spokane to celebrate Grandma Rita's life.

In August, I headed to Chelan to help Sara celebrate her 27th birthday, we attended my work team's annual summer BBQ, celebrated Kevin and Jen's birthday with a sailing trip and trip to the Snoqualmie Casino (and found out they are expecting their first child in April).

In September, we celebrated Corey's birthday (here and here), bought a new car and found out that our friends Sandy and Adam are expecting a second child in April.

In October, we entered Roxy's fetch photo into Kiss 106.1's Doggie Duel, where she made it into the top 50 of 1,400 dogs, met Liam, my co-worker Stephanie and her hubby Billy's son, celebrated my birthday several times, announced that we were expecting a baby in April 2011, celebrated Corey's mom's birthday, had another brunch with the Ashers, and celebrated Halloween with our little pumpkin.

November brought the first snowfall of the year to Seattle, we hosted Thanksgiving at our condo with my family and Joan, and we found out that Piglet was going to be a boy, and that our friends Matt and Christy were engaged.

This month, we celebrated Gina's graduation from nursing school, booked our babymoon, partied with my work team at our annual holiday bash, celebrated Christmas with Corey's family, and headed to Portland on our babymoon (more to come on this trip soon!).

2010 has been such a fun and exciting year but we're really looking forward to 2011, with the arrival of our little one in April! (In the meantime, you can check out our year in review posts from 2009 (here and here).)