Weekend in LA {MLK}

A few weekends ago, we drove down to LA to meet up with some friends flying in from Houston, Austin and SF. We have a few college friends that live in LA, so stayed with one of them and enjoyed a weekend of eating and drinking! There is no better way to spend time with friends than to do the above. For me, it was more eating than drinking because I really can't hang anymore, but I do enjoy a good bottle of wine, some cheese and good conversations. We are so blessed to have friends who we don't see very often, but when we do, it's like nothing ever changed. I'm looking forward to building new relationships with some of our CA friends that we never really got to hang out with often, but now that we're here, there is no excuse. We're heading to LA for a night before flying out for ATX in Feb for a wedding and I'll be spending a weekend there in March after I drop Gerald off at the airport for a bachelor's party in Breckenridge. Flights are just so much cheaper out of LAX and with the drive being about 1.5-2 hrs and friends we can stay with the night before, it's so worth it. Plus, I'm looking forward to trying out more restaurants there. There are so many!

For the weekend, we tried out two new places, Baco Mercat and Horse Thief BBQ {co-owned by fellow college friend that my friends knew}.

Went to Korean BBQ. Lots of yummy all-you-can-eat goodness for cheap! Love this stuff!

Had a wine and cheese night at Kevin and Deanne's.

Went to Quality Seafood in Redondo Beach for some live seafood.

Gerald and I split from the group late Sunday afternoon to stroll around Venice Beach area and then headed home. We walked about Abbot Kinney street, went out to the beach to watch the sunset {they're amazing out here!} and then stopped off at Toms cafe for a coffee {Toms shoe + coffee = perfect} and Abbot's Pizza Company for a slice before hitting the road! 

See you soon, LA!

Bullhead House Remodel {The Kitchen Cabinets}

As I mentioned in my previous post, the kitchen just looked a bit too dark so what better way to lighten it up than to paint it white! I thought this was going to be an easy thing for the guys to do, but it turned out being a bit more time consuming for them because of the oil based stain, particle wood backing and and wood trim. First they came to remove all the doors and gave the cabinets a good spray. No, they didn't use eco friendly paint, because the house smelled bad! I laid out baking soda and vinegar all over to soak up the fumes and odor.  They used an industrial semi gloss paint, which I was fine with since it was cheaper and also, suppose to not scratch and stuff. If it was a house we would be living in forever, I would definitely go the eco-friendly route. We are using eco-friendly paint in other parts of the house though. They took the doors and drawers off to the shop to get them sprayed and then came back to do some hand painting at the house. They probably did 4-5 coats to finally get it looking good. Lots of sanding and painting, I must say. After all of that was done and to our liking, they installed the new satin nickel hardwares. We chose knobs for the doors and handles for the drawers. It's amazing what new hardware can do to a kitchen. We also chose to add no slam pins to the doors and no slam rails to the drawers. Overall, I am super happy with the outcome. We still need to decide on a backsplash and get the floors in, but until then, here goes!  I spend a lot of time in the kitchen so I have to LOVE this space and so far so good! We are getting floors installed this week and picking out a backsplash on Friday. Woohoo!

Before

During

After

Bullhead House Remodel {The Laundry Room}

As many of you know, we are doing some updates around the house. The house itself really didn't need updating as everything was in great condition, but the style was a bit outdated for our taste. It had brown tiles, brown cabinets, brown/black countertops, and just looked and felt a bit dark for us. So we wanted to lighten up the atmosphere a bit. We found a contractor that was recommended through a friend of a friend here in Bakersfield and have been happy with his work and team so far. I'm learning a lot about what it takes to do these updates so that's been fun!

We started with the laundry room...

1. Changed tile to a white/gray 16x24 piece. I was trying to get away from the typical square tiles and loved how it makes the room look longer and bigger.

2. Painted cabinets white and added satin nickel hardware. We did this along with the kitchen cabinets which I will share with you later. It was more work than we thought because of the oil based stain that the previous cabinets had but it turned out really good in the end.

3. Painted walls a Valspar Gray Plank 335A-3 {from Lowe's}. It was suppose to look more of a lighter gray, but ended up looking more blue gray. The walls before were a light tan/brown so maybe that is why the color didn't turn out as it should, since we didn't prime, but I ended up liking it anyways so it's fine.

4. Got a new washer and dryer. We just went for the cheapest mid-range washer dryer and so far so good. Shoot, anything beats the one we had in Aberdeen so this is luxury for us!

Anyhow, here are some before and after pictures!

Before

previous owner's laundry room, you can see the tiles a litte here {i forgot to take a picture of it before}

you can see the light tan/brown color here and how it turned out more of a bluish gray

tiles are put in, love how this instantly brightens up the walls and room

what a difference the white makes on the cabinets

all done! now to decorate with cute laundry stuff!

Christmas Holiday in Houston {2013}

I know, I am way behind with my blog posts! I can't believe we are halfway through January already. Seriously, where does the time go? For me, updating our home...haha. There are so many things to consider, I never knew! Just a few more things to get through and then we can start living. I will share some posts about our projects later, so in the meantime, here is a recap of our Holiday festivities in Houston!

We stayed in Houston for the full two weeks and it was such an enjoyable time. Both Gerald and I stayed at his mom's house in Sugar Land so we could hang out with Miss Kylie everyday {Gi and RMC are in between homes so are staying at the mom's too}. Anyhow, here goes...

Started the two weeks off celebrating Sheryl's 3-3 at Hughes Hangar! Someone got really excited and was not feeling the greatest in the morning! I really do miss a good night out and this definitely made up for it!

We had our annual Girlie Xmas Potluck at Carla's house the following day. Lots of babies, everywhere. I love it!

love these girls!

newest additions

 next generation of girls!

Thanks Sarah for putting this collage together, just shows how blessed we are to have each other, no matter where we are or what we're doing!

That evening, we attended Liam's Baptism dinner. I couldn't make it to the baptism because I was at the girlie potluck, and Mr. Pena was too hungover! Shame...

The following day, we celebrated Irene's 3-4 birthday with Bows and Bowtie's at Nancy's house. 

Christmas Eve flew right past us since Gerald and I were busy cooking all day for the festivities. His family doesn't cook very much so we had to step in;  everyone enjoyed some home cooking!

my dad was not feeling well that night so stayed home 

i got all the girls Harris Tweed cosmetic bags for Xmas! i bought them way back in May when we went on our road trip! they loved it!

Gerald and I are so practical in our gift giving these days that we both ended up with luggage! I got him a travel wardrobe carrier, which will come in handy for the two weddings we have coming up in ATX. He got me a nice travel size carryon, so I don't have to tote around a backpack anymore =) And we got Kylie this fun chair from Pottery Barn and a tea set, she loves it!

Christmas Day at my parents was full of games and surprises! My aunt {yes, I have an aunt that is a year older than me, my mom is the oldest and she is the youngest; there are 5 of them, grandparents were busy...haha} got engaged and we played family bingo {with awesome prizes, I won $40 on a lottery ticket}!

The days after Christmas was filled shopping, eating and relaxing!



babysitting...

indian food! i miss this so much!

love these girls too! 

#selfies

godchild #1 - she just woke up from her sleep, guess we were being too loud.

godchild #2 - he loves kisses.

sibling date night

New Year's Eve came and again, we were busy cooking. We decided to have a family pajama BBQ. Since we loved bingo so much from Christmas, we played it again on NYE and drank some bubbly. I love how nice and chill it was and we didn't wake up with a hangover. Times are changing, that's for sure. 

we were so bored...haha!

introduced Kylie to bubbly and she loved it! see that drool...

After New Years, I got super sick and pretty much laid low until we left that following Sunday. Gerald did some work at home and I only left the house to eat. Around this time, everyone seemed to be getting sick so that was no fun!  I got to celebrate my Grandma's 74th birthday so that was nice!

We ended the two weeks with a night out with friends and then meals with the families.It was time to head back to the Bako Life and I was excited to get things moving on the house and finally try to settle down in our new home. I know it's been ages ago, but hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful time with their friends and family over the Holidays. We are so blessed to have each other in our lives and this time of the year just reminds us of that! Happy 2014!!!

some aberdeen friends that are now living in Houston.