Kitchen Renovation Part 2

My sister Kari has been patiently awaiting pictures of our updated ktichen - and I am finally posting them!!!  We are thrilled with the progress that has been made and are excited for October when we hope to have it all complete!

You can see that we didn't paint the inside of the cabinets.  I'm not regretting it so far but it would look super clean and fresh if even the insides were painted.  We got kind of used to operating in the kitchen without any doors:

We found this rug at TJ Maxx and it couldn't be better colors for our kitchen!  As we finish the kitchen, I'm planning on incorporating more of the mustard yellow color!  Right now I pretty much only have kitchen towels with the yellow color so I was so happy to find a rug that had turquoise and yellow:

We get a little bummed out that our appliances don't coordinate with our new kitchen, but we probably won't be replacing them right away.  Also, I think I found a ceiling fan at Lowe's that will work well in here; it's flush mounted and a little smaller than this one:

We're still very pleased with our countertops!  You can see that somehow one cabinet door got a little off schedule compared to the other ones:

And finally, what we refer to as our new cabinets!  Crazy to think about the closet that used to be here..  Clay was able to find the same hardware for these doors as the others.  Also, we are planning on putting beadboard over the side of the cabinets and two open shelves on this wall:

That's our updated kitchen!  Feel free to say nice things..I don't think we're ready to hear critcism yet :)!!

Birthday Wrap Up

Clay turned 26 at the end of July!  I warned him that 26 wasn't the greatest feeling for me - you officially enter into your late 20's!  :)  We celebrated by having a few friends over one night, and then Clay and I headed to a state park on his actual birthday.

What's a birthday party without birthday cake?!  Clay chose chocolate cake with an ice-cream center.  I made this for him two years ago and I have to say  - this year's turned out a whole lot better! 

Singing Happy Birthday to the birthday boy out on the deck (so very thankful to have deck furniture!):

 Look at the cute birthday boy!

Clay and Lolo - she still gives me the stink eye on a regular basis:

Us :)

I tried to be creative and made chocolate dipped fruit.  The apples actually turned out well and they surprisingly didn't brown!  However, I learned for next time to make sure the sprinkles only get on the chocolate:

The chocolate and peanut butter covered banana bites, however, did not turn out as well.  They were still eaten and tasted pretty good but were not very pretty :(.  We also had chips and salsa and crackers with cheese and beef:

In case you haven't seen the inside of our house in a while..  I'm taking suggestions for what kind of curtains to do in here.  It's tough because the couch goes in front of the window.  We have yet to put up wall decorations..I guess it's about time to get on that.  This is also most of the people that came over:

I wanted to include this one for Mom - the O'Briens were pretty intense on finding everything in the Find It game.  I don't remember what the game is actually called:



We had a really nice evening and enjoyed getting to host a small group of people.  Clay's actual birthday fell on a Saturday which worked out well to head to the park.  We drove a couple hours west to Letchworth State Park.  Letchworth is known as the Grand Canyon of the East.  I'm not sure if there is anywhere else that boasts that slogan as well, but it was pretty neat and we enjoyed our time walking along the gorges:

 I wish I wasn't in this to block your view, but it's a neat picture from the top of the waterfall:

 My studly husband:

 If you look closely, you can see a train crossing the bridge:

Clay got creative in his picture taking:

Letchworth was beautful and we really could have spent much longer there as there are miles of trails.  However, we had a really nice trip over and it was fun going somewhere new for Clay's birthday!