Costa Rica May 2014

Hello everyone!!  Dave and I got back from Costa Rica find and had a FANTASTIC time!! So I'm going to talk all about my vacation so if you're not interested then poo on you. :)

Dave's sister Wendy and Paul watched the kiddos the first couple of days we were gone and then his Mom and Dad came out to stay with them until we got back. The kids had so much fun and loved spending time with Grandpa and Grandma. I can't imagine ever saying enough Thank Yous to them!!

We went with some good friends of ours, Cortis and Selene Clark. We were planning our vacations separately and then it all came together for us to go at the same time. It was fantastic having them to mess around with during all of our adventures. And for those of you who want to know...we are STILL friends with them even after the vacation. It's amazing I know!! :)

Costa Rica Day 1:  Saturday  Flying the Friendly Skies

We flew out Saturday morning. With a stop over in Houston and one in Panama, the total travel time was 15 hours. We were pretty wasted when we landed in CR. Luckily our driver was standing right there with our names on a sheet and we headed right to our hotel. The hotel was on the other side of San Jose which gave us a chance to see the city. We noticed that our driver kept going around the same area a couple of times. We started getting a little worried because the area we were in looked pretty sketchy. The driver called dispatch and got directions right to the hotel. As we drove down a super small side street we got even more nervous. There were a ton of kids around and there was an abandoned house that had a rockin party going pretty loud. Sure enough two doors down from there the driver stopped in front of a long blank wall with a neon blue sign and the numbers "69". Turns out that the name of our hotel is "Hotel 69". The driver threw our luggage at us and took off. We were left in the middle of the road with everyone at the party house staring at us. We laughed a littler nervously and knocked nice and loud on the door. They opened the door (yeah!) and in we went. Inside was an Oasis!! It was so beautiful and cute!! There was a cute courtyard with tons of trees and plants and a water fountain. We went into a quaint reception area and talked to the nicest front desk clerk I've ever met. To get to our rooms, we went through another courtyard with a water fountain and more manicured plants and trees and then into a third mini couryard that had our rooms spaced around it. Our room was small but so cute and clean, and the water fountain trickled right outside our window. It was perfect!  I slept like a baby! It was awesome.

Costa Rica Day 2-3:  Sunday/Monday 

Rafting the Pacuara River

The next morning our guide picked us up at 6:00 am to start our first adventure in CR. we went on a two day river rafting tour of the Pacuare River. This river is featured in National Geographic as one of the top three rivers in the world to float. We drove out to a fun lodge where they fed us a Costa Rican Typicalle breakfast. This typical CR breakfast consisted of some super yummy mango juice, fresh fruit, black beans and rice, with a home made corn tortilla, and scrambled eggs. It was delicious! After we were fed and in our suits, we hoped back in the van and drove to the river. Our guide was super cool and pointed out interesting things along the way. 

The Pacuare runs right the the heart of the CR jungle. A native tribe owns the land on one side of the river and has kept it pristine. We hit quite a few Class 3 rapids and really enjoyed the river. The water was so warm that it felt good to get splashed and jump in the water. Because it was early in the season it was our party of 4 and one other couple. So we got to do a lot of fun things like stop to jump off rocks and we evened were able to "surf" the raft on a couple of rapids. When I was a guide we tried it a couple of times and I can tell you it is HARD to do!! We floated for about 2.5 hours and stopped on a sand bar for lunch. The guides made us a yummy fresh salad, fresh fruit, cookies and water. Then we floated a bit further and got out at our lodge. The lodge is awesome!  It has one main area for eating and hanging out. Then there are separate bungalos for the guests. I think our was the best view right out over the river. It was so relaxing to listen to the water. There were some water falls that we hiked around to and a super long hanging bridge that was fun to cross. The only way to get to this lodge is via the river or helicopter. It was so remote and relaxing. We finished on the river around 3:00 and after hiking around for a bit crashed for a couple of hours in the hammock. The guides made us a yummy dinner of more beans and rice with a super yummy chicken and vegetable topping with watermelon juice. It was delicious!!  It started raining super hard about 8:00 so we played cards for a bit and then went to bed around 9:00. It rained all night. Around 5:00 am I woke up a little worried that it would rain on us the next day at the river. Then I turned over and went back to sleep.

When we woke up at 8:00 am the rain had stopped and the river was nice and high so I knew we were going to get some awesome rapids. We had a breakfast of banana pancakes and more watermelon juice. YUMMM!! Then we went on a little hike into the jungle and went on a small but super fun zip line course. After we finished up with that we hit the river. The rapids were awesome!! We hit a bunch of Class 3s and four or five Class 4 rapids. It was so great!!  Around 3:00 we finished with the river and went to the Main Lodge and showered and had lunch which was again, beans and rice with chicken and veggies with yummy papaya juice.

We then had a driver take us on a 3 hour ride to Arenal. The driver was super chatty so we put Dave in the front. We all took naps, but Dave was stuck chitt chatting the entire drive. For some reason that made me laugh inside. :)

At Arenal we got to the Volcano Inn. This place was definitely 5 star. The grounds were beautiful, the pool was perfect. We had our own little bungalo with an unobstructed view of the volcano. Unfortunately, the volcano is covered by clouds 98 percent of the year and our luck was not strong enough to move those clouds. :) We crashed around 9:00 again that night and slept like the dead.

Costa Rica Day 4: Tuesday  

Off to Arenal

 The next morning we left nice and late...7:00 am.  Dave was not super excited about all these morning excursions. :) Tuesday morning we went Canyoning. It was great. We went on a 30 minute 4x4 trek through the rain forest and then got geared up to go repelling. We repelled down 5 different waterfalls and hike through the canyons. The most frustrating thing was that the guides let us think we would get to control the repel, but they kept us on a really tight belay. But it was fun and beautiful!  That afternoon we went to Baldi Hot Springs. Because of the volcano, there are a bunch of hot springs in the area. They put together 25 different pools and slides that we played in. One of the slides had a big warning on it that the slide went up to 45 kph. Always doubtful of big red warning signs, I bravely jumped down the tube and pushed myself off extra hard to be sure I went nice and fast.  Boy did I go FAST!  It was definitely 45 kph. I was thrown back so hard that I hit my head and shot out the end. Instead of skipping across the water or making a big splash and sinking, I hit the water so hard that I did a huge forward summersault but my body was totally straight. I stood up in the water pretty shaky and looked around dazed for a second. Then I heard the lifeguard yelling at me. I assumed he was saying, move out of the way b/c here comes your husband! I moved out of the way and turned around in time to see Dave shoot out the bottom of the slide, spin twice on his back, catch his head in the water and be forced into a backward summersault with his body totally straight. He came up looking pretty green. He staggered over to me and we found a place to sit and get our legs under us. It was pretty funny to watch the bottom of the slide. The little kids that went loved it! They just skipped right across the top of the water until they lost their momentum. But every adult totally ate it and came up looking like they just endured the worst experience of the life. I was glad it wasn't just us!!

That night we were pretty sick of beans and rice and decided to try a new place. It is a fusion of Puerto Rican and Chinese. Weird combo, but it was the best meal I've had in my life. They have a yummy drink that is made our of soaked blue corn, cinnamon, honey, and magic. It was amazing! The chef came out to greet us and turns out he is a master chef who has studied all over the world and wanted to open a restaurant to introduce the CR people to food other than beans and rice. We had no idea what to order so we just told him to bring us the four best things. So he did and it was AMAZING!!  We had wontons with sweet/sour sauce, fried rice, Mahi Mahi with mango salsa, and some other weird delicious thing. Definitely the best meal ever!!

Costa Rica Day 5:  Wednesday  

Ziplines and Twilight Tour

Today's activity was one of my favorites. We went ziplining over 8 different cables for a total of over 2 miles. We zipped back and forth from one side of a beautiful canyon to the other. The longest cables was half a mile long. Over 700 feet in the air the view was amazing and exhilerating!! I think my Dad should think about putting one behind the house...(hint hint).

That night we went on a Twilight Tour at one of the local rivers. It is a really calm river. It reminds me of the river behind my house where I grew up. We had a big yellow inflatable raft and right off saw a tree of howler monkeys. Unfortunately they only looked like dark blobs in the pictures. The entire float took about 2 hours. We saw a bunch of toucans, a tiger herring, turkey vultures, iguanna, bats, and big ole frog. At the end of the tour they took us up to someone's house. I guess it was to give us a taste of a "real" CR family. We just felt weird and uncomfortable. It was a nice and relaxing tour, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone going. Definitely not worth the money.

Day 6:  Thursday  

Traveling

This was by far the only bad day of the trip. Mostly it was because we had a 5 hour ride in a bumpy van to get to Manuel Antonio. The only cool thing about the day was that we stopped at a bridge that had a TON of crocodiles in it. If you look closely at the picture you can see over 25 just in this section on this side of the bridge. Creepy Huh?!?  The mostly just pretended to be logs. Our friend tried throwing almonds at them to get them to move, but they were not interested. I wish we had a chicken that we could have thrown down there...that would have been super awesome to see!!  

So, I was pretty underwhelmed by Manuel Antonio. I was expecting a fantastic hotel on the beach. But apparently the beaches are a National Park, so there weren't any hotels on the beach. Luckily the hotel we ended up staying at La Mariposa. This hotel was gorgeous. Our balcony rooms had tons of space and the best view of the ocean in the whole area. It was so relaxing to lay in bed and listen to the ocean and watch the tide come in and out. I guess if I can't be right on the beach, this is a great "second" choice.

Costa Rica Day 7:  Friday  

Hitting the Beach

 We took our time getting out the door. I think it was the first day we didn't have to leave before 7:00 am. It was nice to sleep in. Around 10:00 am took the shuttle to the national park to wander around the rain forest. Everyone told us how full of animals the forest was, but we really didn't see much. Mostly lizards and geckos. It was a nice little walk though that led us right to the beach. We tucked our backpacks under some shade and jumped in the water. The water was so warm!! In California I rarely go in the water and then it's only for as long as it takes me to run out. In CR I played in it for hours. It was fantastic!! After an hour or so, someone looked at us and started yelling "Backpack" I looked up on the beach and under the tree in the shade I saw a dark furry thing rifling through my backpack. I still think it was a monkey. So I ran up to it and scared it off. I was really glad that it dropped the backpack instead of taking to the trees with it. Then about 20 minutes later I saw a raccoon heading to someone else's bags. A raccoon digging through my stuff isn't nearly as cool a monkey. I'm sticking with the monkey story!

When we were ready to head back, I wanted to take a "short cut" across the end of the island instead of going all the way back around. We had heard earlier in the day that the short cut couldn't be used anymore because there were salt water crocks in the shallow water we'd have to cross. I was tired and told everyone that in my professional opinion it's just a way make tourists go past all the people trying to sell stuff. I was confident that we would be fine crossing and that there weren't really crocodiles. Our friends looked at us like they were preparing the phone call to tell our families we had been eaten by the crocks and they went the other way.  Dave and I watched them walk away and I thought how sad that they are governed so strongly by rules. We followed an old unkempt trail and worked our way closer and closer to the shallow spot. At the end of the trail was a park ranger who told us we couldn't go through the water because of the crocodiles. He was very nice and helpful and we had him take our picture in front of the sign that said there were crocks in the water. We thanked him and then took a ricketty old trail up the side of the mountain. After fighting with the foliage and almost slipping and sliding down into the imaginary crock infested shallows we made it across. We didn't even see one crock....I still think they were making it up, but it wasn't the easiest hike in the world...and maybe the guide made me a little nervous about the supposed crocks. Needless to say when we met up with our friends they were relived that they didn't have to take our remains back to the states and we celebrated with a yummy juice drink.

Day 8:  Saturday  

Sailing the Ocean Blue

We woke up early to head out to a sailing tour we booked at the last minute. We got on the ship and the captain told us that the catamaran was reserved just for us.  I was a little panicked that we were secretly being charged for more than our simple tour, but he just laughed and told us that we got a private tour because no one else signed up for the cruise.  SUH-WEET! We had the whole boat to ourselves along with the captain, tour guide, cook, and some other random guy. We headed out for the ocean. It was so beautiful and amazing. I was surprised how much the boat tossed around. The water looked so smooth. My poor sick friend, Selene was miserable. I felt so bad for her, but was so glad that I wasn't puking over the edge as well. We sailed for about 30 minutes and then saw a humpback whale and her baby in the ocean. The captain and crew were as excited as we were and grabbed their cameras and laughed and clapped with us. It was really neat. We followed her around for 20 minutes or so and then went in search of some dolphins. We found them pretty quick and got some great shots of them swimming by the boat. After that we went to a cove and went snorkeling. There were a ton of fish swimming all around us. They came right up to us and bumped into our goggles. It was awesome. While we played in the water and jumped off the ship, the cook made us an amazing meal of Mahi Mahi. By far the best Mahi Mahi I've ever had. Loved it.

It was a great note to end out trip on. Came home with a just a little sun burn to prove we were on vacation and a lot of amazing memories.

Once we got back to the hotel we had time to shower and check out then we hung out around the pool until our driver came to take us back to San Jose to stay the night. We stayed in a house that was a Red Cross house during World War II. It was really cool.

Day 9:  Sunday  Up, Up, and Awaaaaay

Crack of dawn we loaded up on the plane and headed home. The return trip took up 16 hours. By the time I got home I was so sick of the airplane, but my new tan and fun memories made up for it!!

Boy Crazy

I was sitting by Ivy this morning in church while she quietly watched the young men get the sacrament table set up before church. After a bit she turns to me with a very serious look on her face and says,

"Mom...I just love boys so much." She pauses and looks back at the young men and then back to me, "I love how tall they are. I love their nice clothes. I want to touch their hair and talk to them while I look into their blue eyes...or brown...or green...really any kind of eyes are nice. And then (sigh) I just want to kiss them."

Oh no...please don't tell me this is karma coming back to me! So I put my arm around her and say,

"Honey, I'm glad you like boys, but you can't kiss them until you are 18 years old. Otherwise you will scare them away and they won't want to be your friend."

I realize that this probably wasn't the most fantastic response, but I was NOT ready for this!

She looks back over at the boys and sighs again and says, "But Mom, then I won't have enough time to kiss them all."....So true...so true...

Christmas Letter 2012

WOW! What a year! I feel like we are just starting to get our feet under us after an entire year of growth and change.

August 2012

Still living in Chandler, AZ and not knowing where we were going to be working this next year, the kids started school again at Dobson Academy. Porter started 4th grade, Eva started 3rd grade, and Ivy started Preschool.

Shortly after school started, Dave received a job offer with Stryker, in the San Francisco bay area. So, we hurried and fixed up our house in AZ, got Porter's tonsils out, found a house to rent in San Jose, CA, and headed West.


September 2012
While the adjustment to living in California hasn't been as smooth a ride as I wanted, there are a lot of things we are enjoying.

We love the beach and go at least once a week. Luckily we have family members close by to come with us and help bury the kids. By AZ standards the beach is very chilly. The kids play in the water without flinching, but I usually sit with a sweater on and wade my feet.

 Porter and Eva are going to a great elementary school just down the street. It's so nice to be super close to the school. Ivy is going to a fun preschool that she loves. She is learning how to read and write very well. She can't wait to start kindergarten.

Our house is much bigger than our home in Chandler. It is 2600sf rather than 1700sf, so if anyone wants to come play, we have plenty of room!

Our ward is amazing! They have been so welcoming and fun to hang out with. There are quite a few kids the same age as ours. It makes it super fun to have people over for games and dinner.







October 2012

As most of you know, we love Halloween! While the costumes weren't as awesome as other years, we still had a lot of fun. Porter went as a Phantom Ninja. Eva was the Evil Spider Queen.

Ivy had 3 different costumes because they were all "itchy!" For her preschool Halloween party, she went as a super cute pink and silver super girl. After getting to class and throwing a huge fit about her costume, they let her take it off and wear a sweater the rest of class. The second costume was a Rockstar at the ward Trunk or Treat. The gloves and tights were too "itchy!" as well. So for Halloween she was a black cat. While the tail was too "itchy", my patience was pretty "itchy" as well and she wore the cat costume until we were done trick or treating. I think next year I will roll her around in the woods and she can go as an Itchy Poison Ivy.

Unfortunately my camera freaked out half way through the week long holiday and I only have pics from the trunk or treat.

November 2012

We partied super hard this Thanksgiving. To start things off, the weekend before Thanksgiving my cousin Eric stopped over with his little family. I hadn't seen Eric for YEARS and it was so cool to see him acting like such a grown up dad...when did that happen?!

For actual Thanksgiving we had my cousin Diantha and her family (4 kids, 1 crazy hubby), Dave's sister Wendy (2 kids, 1 argumentative lawyer spouse), and Dave's brother Ryan (2 kids, 1 long suffering wife). I loved having everyone here! We played tons of games, went hiking, hit the beach, and even had a showing of the Crazy Powell Laughter (if you've seen it, you totally know what I'm talking about).

During the next week, we had neighbors showing up with strange things that had been thrown over fences, on top of houses, into pools, etc. The problem with having so many fun kids to play with, it's hard to know who needs to get in trouble.  So, they all got off pretty light.

December 2012

Ivy turned 5 yrs old on the 18th and feels like she's super grown up. She had a super fun bday party. There were about 30 kids that came and about 15 adults. We were surprised at the awesome turnout. She loved all the presents. We did a pretty low key party. The only activity was that each kid got to decorate their own cup cake and blow out their own candle. Then as party favors, they each got a balloon. It was so super fun and helped her not miss her Az friends quite as much.

The week before Christmas, Porter and Eva tested for their Yellow Stripe in Tae Kwon Do. They did such an amazing job. We are so proud of them and their focus.

This year, we did the 12 days a Christmas for some friends of ours. We dropped of a Christmas story and some candy that went along with the story. It's the first time the kids have done anything sneaky like this and they were super pumped.

House 1 was back in a little nook, but super easy to get to. This was mine and Ivy's house. We would sneak up and she would put the present on the door step and then I would ring the bell and run and hide with her. She loved being sneaky and hiding with me. House 2 was brightly lit with Christmas lights and a big front window that people walked in front of all night. This was Porter and Eva's house because it was the toughest one. Each night we would talk about what they should do if they were caught. They thought for sure there was going to be torture involved if they were ever caught. They decided that they would give fake names if they were every caught...right...because our friends would not know them...:)  it was pretty funny. On a Saturday we had to do it during the afternoon. So the kids dragged out their Halloween costumes to cover up their fluffy blonde hair. So in the middle of December if anyone was a Black Phantom or Spider Queen running barefoot in the rain across the lawn, their code names are "Logan", "Constance" and the Black Panther Princess and they absolutely do not know the Carr kids at all!




Christmas was delightfully simple this year. We had Wendy and Paul (Dave's sister and family) stay the night and play with us all Christmas day. It was so nice to have other kids around and other adults to help make the day super special.

We are having a bunch of Dave's family for the New Year though. We will have Wendy and Paul (of course), Grandma Teri and Grandpa Mel, Hayley and Jess, and hopefully Hobo Kyle...cause what kind of year is it without Hobo Kyle?!?

We moved

We moved to San Jose California.  Teresa really needs to update this.

4th of July

Being in the heat of Phoenix was looking really hot this year. We were not excited about it at all. Luckily, one of our really good friends from Ohio moved to Prescott, AZ which is a TON cooler (about 85 degrees) and right in the middle of Phoenix and Las Vegas. So I worked my charm and Shaun and I met up at my friend's house in Prescott.
They have an amazing house right on the side of the mountain with an amazing view.  It rained all day on the 4th but rather than ruining the day, it made it so nice and cool that it was wonderful. That night it cleared up for the fireworks and we were able to sit on the side of a mountain and watch the city fireworks without the crowds.

The day after the 4th we went to Sedona to play in the mountains. Slide rock is one of our favorite places to hang out and it was a hit with all the kids and grown ups. It has natural slides in the rocks and cliff jumping and rock throwing and all the fun stuff.

We played all day and then decided we didn't want to head home so late. So we stopped at a hotel and were able to get a great deal on a family hotel/lodge/motel room place. They had such amazing grounds. They had a coi fish pond that the kids loved to look at. They spent a good amount of time naming the fish and claiming them as their own.

At the bottom of the property was a fantastic little river. There were rocks to climb on and they even had crawdads that the boys spent about a hour trying to catch. There was a nice shallow place out of the way that Summer crawled around in. The hotel even had some chairs sitting in the river so that you could sit and relax and soak your feet.

To top off the trip, when we were packing up to go Kelly found a tarantula in the parking lot. I didn't know that tarantula's were in Arizona, but come to find out Sedona is one of their major breeding grounds. I know Troy picks them up in the parking lot and adopts them, but I couldn't bring myself to pick it up. In fact while we were taking pictures and looking at it, I swear Shaun screamed like a little girl once.  It was awesome...both the scream and the tarantula. :)

Visiting Vegas

Dave has been interviewing around and we weren't sure if we'd be moving this summer or not. So we decided that we wouldn't be able to go to Idaho and Utah this summer. It's the first summer in 4 years that we haven't gone. I think I was more bummed than the kids. Going north for the summer has kept me sane during the summer months.

So the kids and I have been taking a lot of little road trips. We leave on Monday or Tuesday play for 4 or 5 days then come home for 3 or 4 then head out again. It's been fun, hot but fun.

Our first trip was to visit Shaun and Kelly in Las Vegas. Two weeks from the day that they moved in, we showed up on their doorstep. While the temperature was pretty much the same as it was in Phoenix, it was so fun to hang out with them. It made it feel more like summertime. 

The first day there, Porter was already bored out of his mind with all these girls. Shaun saved the day by pulling out a super awesome Lego. It has 3 different building plans (t-rex, tarantula, or a crocodile) and it has a motor that powers it. Porter was super pumped. He spent pretty much the whole visit building it. It took him all four days of working on it. He was super proud of himself and really pushed to get it finished by our last day there.

 I totally dropped the ball and forgot to bring the stuff for "kitty faces" we were able to do "princess faces" with fancy makeup. The girls felt really fancy and pretty. So we did a modeling show. Addie and Rachel were a little confused about how to sauce up their model moves, so Eva showed them how to be more self-absorbed and shallow. :)

We got to go to Shaun's work and see his cool helicopters. Unfortunately, no tours of the Grand Canyon, but he says he's an amazing tour guide. He does make up his own facts for people though when they ask questions he doesn't know the answer to. It was pretty hilarious.







The girls had tons of fun with each other. They love that they get to throw down blankets and have a big sleep over every night. I think it always takes an extra hour and a lot of threats to get them to go to sleep, but I'm sure they love it.

Glad Bags

At the beginning of this summer the kids were driving me crazy with arguing and tattle-taleing. I remembered that when we were kids, one summer Grandma Berry put together "Mad Bags". In the bag she had put $5 in dimes. If we fought then we had to give up one dime. I think Troy broke the system the first time he got in trouble. He gave his whole bag to mom and said, "Just keep them all." So I decided to try to implement the idea, but called them "Glad Bags" and hope that the kids wouldn't outsmart me like Troy.

So Porter and Eva get a bag of $5 in quarters and Ivy gets $2 in dimes. If they fight, argue, throw fits, tattle tale, etc. they have to give me a quarter/dime that then goes in MY "Mad Bag". On Sunday before church we go through our bags and talk about why they had to pay me that week and how we can be better this next week. I then buy back whatever quarters they have left with dollar bills. Then they do tithing. And they get more quarters for the next week.

It's worked really well for us and has been a good way to encourage good behavior, practice counting, understand tithing, start new each week, do an allowance. Their favorite part is when I buy back quarters and dollar bills with larger bills. At first they were a little upset that they didn't have as many coins or dollars, but once they figured out that the higher bills were the same and didn't take up as much room, they fell in love with the idea.

Well, Porter decided that he really wanted this Wii game called Skylander. So we told him he would have to save his money to get it. So he has worked all summer to save his money to get the $70 together to buy his game. This last week he finally got it all together and went to Target to get it. Luckily it was on sale for $60 and we had a long conversation about taxes. He loves his game and is so super proud of himself for buying it.

Eva decided that she wanted to buy something too. But she didn't want to spend all her money

and wanted something small. So I took her to Claire's. Claire's is a teeny-bopper type store with tons of costume jewelry and stuff like that. As soon as we walked in the door she squealed and clapped her hands and yelled, "This is AMAZING! This is my favorite store in the WORLD!" We then took the next hour to look at every little thing they had. She finally settled on a makeup compact. While she can't wear makeup anywhere, she has had fun learning about it and putting it on her and Ivy. It's been super cute.

Master Bath Remodel

After updating the kids' bathroom, my thrown together bathroom has been driving me crazy. It's one of those things that is hard to be motivated to update because it still functions...just isn't pretty. I kept waiting for the $2K to be able to do a real remodel (move the tub and shower etc.) but come on...never gonna happen. So step one was painting the bathroom. I went with a light gray. It's about 25% lighter than what I put in the kids bathroom. Dave hates the color b/c in his colorblind world it look too much like green and red. He'll just have to believe me that it's gray and not red...bwahaha, I do enjoy messing with his mind though!!

So after the walls were painted we spray painted the vanity and light fixtures black and added new nobs. We got rid of the big mirror that the contractors put in 15 years ago and put two black mirrors. We left it at that for about a week and I HATED it. It was WAY to harsh with the big black mirrors. I was ready to take a sledge hammer to the whole bathroom.

I called in the troops (my artist friend, Jeri) and told her my plans for going berserk in the bathroom with heavy tools. She talked me out of it and promised that with a few accents and new towels I would love the bathroom. I was doubtful. Plus spending day after day walking around stores to choose the perfect accents and towels did not sound fun. If I go shopping, I want to get the perfect thing, all at one store, all of it. I don't want to take it home and try it out and return it. (I hate doing returns!) Luckily for me, she loves it and she stayed happy and positive as I got progressively grumpy and more irritated with each stop. We all need friends like that.

In between store hopping I was also running into troubles on what to do with the window in the bathroom. I have always HATED the window right by the bathtub. Who wants a big ole window in the middle of their bathroom?!?

We had slatted blinds up, but those were so dirty and flopped around so much that they were a bigger pain than it was worth. Plus, they never closed all the way so you had to be pretty quick toweling off and hope nobody went in the backyard.

I wanted to put window film over them, but that was going to end up being about $100. No way was I spending $100 bucks on that ugly window. Next I went to Home Depot and got a $5 can of spray frost. It worked...but wasn't pretty. It just looked like the window was fogged up or super dirty.

So I headed to IKEA and got their flat hanging room dividers/window curtains. Those hung weird and looked terrible. So I was now down $25 and thinking I should have just got the window clings.

Then I remembered my time in Russia and how they would put paper on the edges of their windows in the winter to prevent drafts. I did some research and came up with an awesome idea all on my own!!!

I took the dividers from IKEA and cut them down to size. Then I made a cornstarch mixture that I painted on the back of the dividers to use as a type of glue. Then I stuck it on the window. PERFECTION!!!

They have stuck up there and aren't peeling at all. The best part is that if I ever need to take them down, I just pull it off and wipe with a washcloth. WAHOOO!!! I think it looks amazing! I have the privacy I want without the big dusty blinds and it only cost me $20 for the dividers and $5 for the wasted frost...I'm not counting the man hours that went into the project or the running around. Next time it'll be super easy though!!

After the shopping (6 different stores, 4 different returns required, 3 days), I wanted to go home and build a bonfire with everything we just purchased. Instead, Jeri put me down for a nap with Ivy and began her magic. You'd think throwing a couple of branches in a vase would only take a couple hours...at most. WRONG! Two days later my bathroom was finished. Jeri was right...a few nice accents and I really doLOVE my bathroom!!