Free is best

Since we are just starting our little lives together we are definitely starting from scratch. Craigslist can be a challenge since we live in a small town about 30 miles from all the listings. We don’t have family on the island to acquire things from, so each piece that comes into our home we see as a divine act from God :). Literally. We are so thankful for free furniture… Now our total furniture count is four: couch, bed, table, and tv. Not only are we blessed to have a functioning piece of furniture, we can also make it completely our own. This table was snatched from an abandoned work site that Ashton was working on and I saw all the potential that it had! Here’s what it took to turn our little box store ugly table into a rustic(ish) beach house table:

1. Sand that baby down (thanks to Ashton’s mad skills)
2. Throw rocks at it and scrape it with sticks. Yes we did. We had to get it roughed up somehow… All though the neighbors probably thought we were a bit crazy.
3. Spray paint the legs- Krylon, Ivory primer and paint in one.
4. Stain the top- A drift wood colored stain left over from helping our friends redo their floors

VOILA. That’s it. $5.67 later… You have yourself a little rustic table. Now, if we only had chairs….

Grey or Gray?

Grey has become my favorite decorating color. I have always thought grey was kind of a depressing color, but in a home it is so calming and goes beautifully with my inclination toward neutrals and wood tones. Almost everything I picked out for our wedding registry was some shade of grey. (No thanks to West Elm who seems to make every beautiful unnecessary thing that I want for my house in coordinating colors).

All that being said…We are getting ready to paint up our little rental’s walls. Here’s my inspiration, what do you think…dark grey or light grey?

By the way, is it grey or gray? I’ve always used grey. Is that British English?

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(found via pinterest)

(found via pinterest)

The Wedding

I can’t even begin to describe how perfect our wedding ended up being! On the morning of November 19, 2011 the snow started falling, and by 12:30pm we said “I DO”…. I had so much fun planning, and getting creative to make this wedding uniquely us and our photographer was AMAZING: Benj Haisch…Thank you, thank you, thank you. Here’s how it turned out:

(More info on the details of the wedding can be found at my favorite wedding blog; Green Wedding Shoes who did a feature on us!)

 

Attempt to run

I get on these little running kicks where I’ll run every day for like a month. I’ll finally get to a point where I’m not ending my runs gasping for air and literally crawling up the steps to my house…. And then I’ll stop. No reason really, I’ll just get distracted or feel like I’ve put my time in. But not this time folks… I’m gonna stick with it. And no excuses because this is my view on my little three mile loop, what more motivation do I need?

Becoming a wife

I am not the most domestic girl… But since I got married I’ve felt a new excitement about cooking all kinds of fancy things in the kitchen. I love seeing what I can come up with using the few ingredients we have in our barely lived in apartment (and a tight budget mind you). Today Ashton ran into a friend who just happened to be stepping off the fishing boat and he gave Ashton almost 2 lbs of fresh Mahi Mahi!!! Only in Hawaii….

So here’s what I came up with:
Macadamia Nut Crusted Mahi Mahi on top of coconut rice.

It was so good we are now sprawled out on the couch with full tummies feeling like we just ate at a fancy restaurant for next to nothing.

Let the recaps begin: Engagement

So lets start off where I dropped off the face of the earth for a few months.  On July 12, 2011 Ashton asked me to marry him!

the rings (benj haisch photography)

How it happened:

It was the night before we were going to fly out to Idaho to see our parents.  I was stressing out with all the things I needed to do before our trip so Ashton had me go home to pack and said he would pick me up in an hour.  When he came to pick me up he was so patient with me and suggested that we go get coffee and have a mellow night together before we have to travel.  Before we left he said he had to “run into the house to get something” and asked me to wait in the car.  As I sat there waiting for him, he texted me to come in really quick to help him.

When I walked through the gate, the walkway was blocked with a blanket hanging from the close line.  My heart was pounding! When I pulled back the blanket he was kneeling there in the middle of this beautiful set up.  He had built a wooden walkway lined with candles and made a sign hanging from bamboo poles that said “Babe, will you marry me?”  I froze and couldn’t even come to him! When he motioned me to come to him, he told me some really sweet  things that I will spare you all from hearing ;).  I hardly remember the rest, except for feeling so incredibly excited, in love, and honored that Ashton McNab would ask ME to be his wife.

Opened this a week after getting engaged...SO true