Exploring around Lompoc, CA

At the beginning of the month we went on our first vacation in over a year. Of course we traveled back home and to Spain for my brother's wedding in May, but traveling 5,000 miles while 8 months pregnant is not exactly my idea of a relaxing vacation. So, instead, we thought we would take three kids 3 and under on a long weekend to explore California. #weareprobablycrazy It was totally relaxing.

In all seriousness, we had a really good time. My brother Dan moved to California a little over a year ago, and we've been trying to go visit him and scope out his new stomping grounds since then. But you know, we've been busy with moving cross country and buying a house and having a baby and finding time to sleep. :)



So - we purchased four tickets through Spirit Airlines for the first weekend in October. Lover worked a half day on Friday and then we caught a direct flight from Denver to LAX. The kids all did great on the flight - it really helped that everyone (minus Declan) had their own seat, plus we brought Peanut's carseat on the plane. That really helped to cut down on her squirminess. She wasn't thrilled about being contained, but the flight was only about two hours so it was fine. By far the most challenging part of the trip was the time between deplaning and picking up our rental. It involved finding all our luggage (which of course included our two bags, backpacks, three carseats and our stroller), tracking down the shuttle and loading everyone into our rental car. I would have taken a picture, but we had no hands free. :)

We drove up the Pacific Coast Highway from LAX to Lompoc. (Just south of Santa Maria) The drive was really pretty, but we got stuck in some traffic and Declan was HUNGRY, so that made the first 45 min of our trip a little sticky. At one point Declan was screaming his head off, we were stuck in traffic so we couldn't pull over, and the other two kids started crying because Declan was so loud. We looked at each other and said "wow, I am SO glad that we went on vacation!" :) But, all was not lost, we found a place to pull over, fed the baby, handed out snacks to the big kids and were back on the road in no time. Or half an hour later. Same thing.





The drive was really pretty, and we had fun speculating just how much the homes in Malibu Beach cost. A quick Google search determined that a few were available for a mere 12 million dollars, so we're thinking that will be our next real estate purchase. :)

We met up with my brother in Santa Barbara for a walk on the pier and some dinner. I wish we had more time to explore Santa Barbara, but we'll have to save that for the next trip. :)

Saturday morning we puttered around the little town of Lompoc. This was actually one of my favorite parts of the trip, walking around the town, exploring the art murals and checking out the enormous stone pines. The kids had a blast finding the enormous pine cones and I walked and took pictures while Lover and Dan talked about topics way above my pay grade. Unfortunately, I seem to have deleted those pictures off my cards - which will teach me to never delete pictures EVER AGAIN. Here's a google image so you can see what the trees look like. Super cool.



Saturday afternoon we took an awesome drive through the mountains to Jalama Beach. It's fairly secluded and although there were quite a bit of campers, it was a windy day so the beach was pretty empty.



We walked for a long time down the beach, just enjoying the sun and playing chicken with the waves. Declan slept in the carrier, Peanut hung out on Lover's shoulders and Javi discovered his new love - the ocean! He had a blast and ended up soaked by the end of our time there. And he slept like a rock that night!





Sunday morning we headed into a little town called Solvang. It's a little Dutch town that looks like it came straight out of a Hans Christian Anderson story. It was jam packed with tourists, but it was fun to snap pictures and duck into the little shops. There are lots of little courtyards and hidden alleys. Dan said there are great wine tastings in the little shops there, so someday we will have to go back without the kids and have more fun exploring.

 We really packed a lot into three days! Sunday afternoon we drive up north a bit to check out the Guadalupe Sand Dunes. This is where they filmed Cecil D. Mills' The Ten Commandments, so that was really cool. What wasn't cool was the fact that some dumb bird is in danger of extinction, so the majority of the dunes (where we entered) were fenced off and you couldn't climb on them. Still, it was a pretty walk through the dunes down to the ocean, and we saw pelicans and tons of pretty flowers and then of course checked out the ocean. Although once we got to the actual beach Declan decided he had seen enough of the ocean so I didn't stay too long. All in all it was very pretty, but I would suggest driving a little further north (we entered at Oso Flaco) to see if you can walk around more on the actual dunes up there.



Monday morning we just bummed around the hotel, did some laundry (because of all the ocean!) and basically rested up for our big tour that afternoon. Dan pulled some strings and arranged for a VIP tour for us of SpaceX, the awesome place where he works. That's right, my brother is a rocket scientist. :) The launch pad is on Vandenburg Air Force base, and there's no photography allowed, which is a shame because the base is actually really beautiful. Gorgeous views of the ocean from the hills, and there are all sorts of interesting vegetation. It killed me a little bit to follow the no photos rule. But - it was awesome to tour the facility and see where Dan works and understand more of what he does. :)



Tuesday morning we got up at oh-dark-thirty, loaded up the kids and drove back down the coast to catch our flight back to Denver. It was a fast and furious trip, but it was so much fun to see Dan, meet his coworkers, eat lots of awesome Thai food, and explore around Lompoc. We'll definitely be back - there's lots more of California to explore!

Mountains in the Bedroom

That title makes me laugh, because currently I feel like everything is a mountain. We've been dealing with water issues in our house for a couple of days, and I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that WE WILL NEVER HAVE HOT WATER AGAIN. It's astonishing how many things need water to be able to do them! Baths! Showers! Dishes! Cleaning! Filling water bottles. But wait, let me back up. Two Saturdays ago my sunshine boy came down with a nasty stomach bug. We tag teamed the bouts of vomiting, scrubbed the carpet, and survived the horribleness that is watching your 3 year old dry heave every twenty minutes for an entire night. Then, the next night, right after we put little peanut to bed, we started the whole cycle all over again. A two year old vomiting is a bit more difficult than an almost four year old, so I finally decided it was easier to just do the laundry than fight with her to aim at the bucket. Cue non stop laundry, fit in between non stop vomiting. I'm pretty sure the constant washing was what put our decrepit water heater out of commission.

Mercifully, the next night, we got to sleep. The fourth night we were only woken occasionally. Which brings us to Wednesday morning. We had already canceled Life group when the second one came down with the bug, so at least that was taken care of. We had also purchased a carpet steamer so I was maniacally steaming carpets trying to get that nasty virus out of the house. Both kids were about 90% better though, so there was lots of 2 year old drama which is basically the straw that broke the camel's back when you are operating on 10 hours of sleep spread over four days and obsessively trying to clean your house. A friend made a benign comment and I nearly lost my irrational mind.

Thursday both kids were feeling better, so I did some laundry and started packing because, oh yeah, we were leaving for vacation on Friday morning! We were long overdue to visit my brother in California, and this was the first chance we had gotten to finally get on a plane and see him. When I went down to switch over the last load of laundry, I realized that the water heater was leaking all over the place. Leaking isn't really the right word. Flowing was more accurate. Then I realized that I smelled gas too! I stood there for at least an entire minute trying to figure out what to do because we have only lived here for six months so I didn't know where the water main was, didn't know how to turn off the gas and basically was pretty sure we were all going to blow up. Thankfully, after a quick call to Lover, my brain functions returned and I located the valve to turn off the gas. He came home and shut off the water, and then we looked at each other and thought - now what?

We got a quote that night to replace the heater, while I finished up packing and wrangled the now healthy kids, and scheduled a few more quotes for Tuesday when we returned. Basically we just sucked it up and took a freezing cold shower in the morning and then got on the place. Seriously, I couldn't feel my toes for a looong time. We shut off the water and asked the neighbor to keep an eye out for any issues and flew to the coast.

We had spent the weekend hemming and hawing, trying to decide between tankless and conventional tanked heaters. Ultimately we decided on tanked simply because tankless are like three times the price and we weren't prepared to drop that kind of cash at this particular time. Someone recommended a plumber who was licensed, insured, about $600 cheaper than everyone else, and could be here first thing Wednesday morning. We toughed out a chilly house last night and he was here bright and early this morning.

Of course, to replace said heater, the water had to be shut off for most of the morning. But our plumber finished up around 11, said to give the heater an hour or so to fill, and we were good to go. We waited about an hour, and then turned everything on and... Niagara Falls people. Gushing, flooding...frustration.

Anyways. The plumber came back as soon as possible, and an hour or so later we finally have both water AND hot water. All that to say, today I am showing you a quick and fun project that the kids and I did in our room. With mountains. To remind us that the things that seem insurmountable are not really that bad!

SO. Mountains. In the kids' shared room there is one wall that the closet is on that seemed like the prime candidate for a simple mural. See? Blank slate. It's been freshly painted but that's all.



I was inspired by a few different simple mountain murals I had seen on Pinterest, and I thought that the mountains, in fun bright colors, would be perfect in the kids' room. We started by taping off the basic outlines to get an idea of where everything would go and how many mountains we wanted. The kids thought this part was hilarious because the tape kept unsticking and sliding off the wall when I stood back to deliberate. We settled on a design with four mountains, all slightly different heights.



I bought some sample color pots for this project to keep costs down and so that we didn't have a lot of left over random paint. First we painted the two outside mountains a nice bright green. The paint didn't have great coverage, so it took 2 coats plus touchups to get a really good color on the walls.





 





 

 

 

 

I used my trusty foam roller for most of the painting. The kids got to help one at a time, with a roller with very little paint on it and my eagle eyes watching the carpet below us. We did the painting spread out over a couple of days - I would paint a coat in the morning, shut the door and threaten them within an inch of their life if they went in there without me, we'd do another coat in an hour or two and it would be dry by naptime. 

We used some of the dark blue from our bedroom for the other large mountain, and it also needed several coats. The design changed a bit from day to day since the tape kept falling down and little hands kept peeling the tape off too. :) When the green was dry I just taped over the green so that the blue would be nice and crisp. Honestly I think the taping took longer than the painting did for this project.



The last mountain was a raspberry pink. For that one I had to tape off all four sides of the mountain to protect the green and blue, and form the peak up top. 

And here is the finished product! I went in one day with a paper plate with a little bit of acrylic white paint and added the clouds. Javi supervised and told me where to put them. It's super fun and happy, and I love how simple and graphic it looks. It went a long way towards making their room a fun and happy place to hang out. I'm toying with the idea of hanging a toy airplane from the ceiling, or maybe a hot air balloon too. But my kids are... let's say rambunctious, and I could see that going poorly. I'll have to think about that one. :) I could also add a bright yellow sun in there somewhere. I bought the yellow paint but for some reason I just couldn't decide where it should go. Looking at the pictures though, I think it would make it even happier to have a yellow sun. I'll let you know what I decide. So - there you go. Simple, fun, easy to do with the kids and it really packs a punch in the color department. Hurray!

The Living Room Befores

These days, when I am not nursing or wiping bums or doing endless laundry, I am trying to focus on the living room and the entryway. I was going to just work on the entryway, since it is a relatively small space and basically just needs paint and art. HOWEVER, it's the only area in the house that has quite a bit of trim, which all needs some fresh white paint, and of course it requires three coats of paint and lots of taping off, and painting during nap times and basically it is just kicking my butt. So! I am working on another space as well for the sake of my sanity.

Which brings us to the living room. Now, I didn't purposely take these pictures in a way that made them look really awful, it was just a dark, rainy day and this room doesn't get the most light anyways, so things look a little more... dire than they really are. Here goes.



Our decision to paint the whole house with one shade of paint has really been pushing me to think of the house as one whole space. I find myself making decisions that work for each space, so that all of the pieces are mostly interchangeable. I'm trying to make design decisions that carry themes throughout the rooms, which for now is looking like soft neutrals, warm wood tones, dark wrought iron, and splashes of saturated color. So I am keeping all of that in mind as we work on this room.

We bought quite a bit of the furniture in here right away, so the foundation has been here for a couple of months which has allowed me to just think about all the nitty gritty little details. Let's talk about the fireplace wall first. When you come in the front door, the left wall is the back of the living room fireplace. It's a wall of brick.



And as you enter the  living room, the fireplace and hearth are basically one entire wall of the living room. I think the mantel was made by the previous owner. It's sturdy and substantial. The plan is to strip off the existing finish and darken it up quite a bit. I'd like to try out a few different techniques to try and make the finish look more like weathered barn wood.



As far as what to put on the mantel, I'd love to hang a canvas of a family picture of the five of us up here. You know, once we actually get a picture of the five of us. Hehe. Maybe sometime this fall.

I love the color of the brick, don't you? Such a nice soft tan, with the dark gray grout. It's interesting and slightly different. The brick will be staying as is. It's one of the few things that Lover is adamant about - no painted brick. :)

The fireplace is functional, as far as we know. That brass insert is so fancy, don't you think? I think I am going to try and paint the insert with a high heat paint in flat black to make it fade away a little bit. Right now it's a bit in your face.



The window wall is next. This wall looks out on the street, or rather, on the two big trees in the front yard. It lets in quite a bit of light and fresh air, and is really quite enormous. It's taking me a while to find an affordable curtain rod that can span the 120 inches, and curtains that won't break the bank. The curtains there currently are very nice quality and we've been living with them for several months now. They're fine, I'm just looking for something that is more my style.  Oh, and I almost forgot, because we removed them in the first few days of living here, but this corner also held a corner shelf and shallow bookcase. It made this whole corner feel heavy and off balance.





Oh and how much do you like that little loveseat?We found it for $20 at our local thrift store. It's super cute and comfy with great lines. Just needs a little reupholstering, and it will really shine. I can't decide if I want to go bright and happy with it, like a sunny yellow, or muted and soft neutrals, or kind of a burnt orange/brown combo. I need to go spend some quality time in a fabric store. Darn. :)



The back wall is where we decided the couch should hang out. It's kind of a cousin of the couch we had in the apartment - rolled arms, warm brown leather. We got it for ninety dollars from some family way up north in Arvada. It's super comfy and I am loving how durable leather is with the kids. We are considering adding another big window centered on this wall over the couch. It will depend on cost and feasibility since we'll be messing with exterior brick and such. I'll keep you posted on that decision. :)

We are tossing around a few ideas for end tables, but we are pretty sure that we are also doing some really substantial shelves on either side of the couch. I drew up a very rudimentary sketch to show what direction we are thinking. Initially I was thinking a sofa table would work behind the couch, but Lover convinced me (rightly so) that this room is shallow enough without sticking that couch out even further into the room. So end tables and shelves it is.



The shelves will hold pretty things, like plants and pictures, and useful things like ... all those little things that need to be kept out of the reach of sticky fingers. :) I'm planning to finish them the same way as the mantel - we will see how that works out.



A few more things of note - we found that super chunky coffee table at a yard sale. It has three deep drawers for storage and is the perfect height for building legos and making train tracks. But it's a little oversized for this relatively small room, so that's going in the bonus room. It will be replaced with an upholstered ottoman. We are also updating that ceiling fan to something a little less...ancient. And lastly, we settled on mounting the TV on that little wall between the bonus room doorway and the closet. It's on a swing arm so that we can pull it out and see it from the couch comfortably. We're in the process of switching that ridiculous useless light fixture behind the TV to an outlet, so the TV will plug in hidden behind the screen. The other cord is for the whole house antenna, which we only use when we are watching live TV. The rest of the time it's unplugged and coiled up behind the screen as well for a seamless look.

So - new curtains, furniture tweaking, fresh paint and some refinished wood should help this room along quite a bit. We're in the process of paint and curtains right now, so I should have an update on those soon. :) Or you know, in six months. You never know these days!