The One With MISC Happenings

I like to use the word ‘MISC’ a lot. And ‘etc’. I’m sure my mom and Megan have noticed this recently.

As in, my emails to Meg are usually titled “MISC Wedding Items” and usually contain a list of ideas and suggestions that almost always end in ‘etc’.

Anyway, I’ve taken a lot of random/MISC (I do the ‘/’ a lot too) pictures lately, but haven’t had a specific story to go along with each one. So, I figured I use this MISC post to dump all those pictures and happenings.

First event was the super bowl. Our friend Nick decided to kill 3 birds with one stone and hosted a super bowl/birthday/house warming party. Not knowing if we should take one gift or three – we ended bring wine (with a manly-looking wine label) to serve as a b-day/housewarming gift and veggie pizza to contribute to the super bowl party. Notice the colors on the pizza represent a certain winning super bowl team….



The weekend before the super bowl party, Brad and his buddies were in Vegas for Vance’s bachelor party and somehow got into a discussion about who could beat who in a foot race. (Apparently there was nothing better to do in Vegas?) So, basically they decided to “duke it out” at the super bowl party which describes these photos below.

As mentioned before, I’ve been sending lots of wedding emails to Meg because she’ll be getting married this June!!! Chels and I got to go dress shopping with her, her mom and grandmother back in January.


My friend Annie had some exciting news of her own – she’ll be having her first baby this August! We got to have dinner with the mom-to-be when she visited San Diego, so we had the Island hostess take these photos.

A couple of week’s ago, Copper had minor surgery to remove a small bump from her ear. Although, she did pretty well during the procedure (and wasn’t too mad with us afterwards), we were nervous nellie’s the whole time. Here's her ear after surgery.

The beast isn't painted yet, but we're narrowing down the colors....

And I'll leave you with this quote that my grandma and grandpa included in their St. Patrick's Day card this year that we had to display on our chalkboard:

The One With Brad's Poles

That doesn't sound right.

But I'm actually referring to Brad's job and his design work on power line poles. You would think, as an engineer, that he would spend most of his time computing calculations and making drawings, but really, he gets to do a lot of fun stuff while doing field work. Such as playing around on earthquake cracks and riding in helicopters with no doors.

What's especially cool for him is actually seeing his drawings come to life with the construction of his poles and the pouring of the concrete foundations. So, I wanted to share some photos of his projects (and him on the job) just to brag and show how proud I am of his hard work. :)

Self rusting pole - yeah, that's right - they design the pole so that it rusts

Field walks in the middle of nowhere

Grouting the micropiles

Placing concrete for pier foundation

Brad's co-worker emailed him this photo with the caption, "we found this lost and disoriented man". Can you spot Brad?

And I'll leave you with one last image - Brad trying to blow something up - scary, right?

The One With The Beast

No, I'm not referring to Copper or that horror movie about a giant squid. (Anyone else see that TV movie? Its like Jaws - but with a ginormous squid. My dad thought it was an appropriate movie to show us kids and then tell us that such an animal exists. As he explained it, "you'd hope that the claws on the tentacles would kill you before you got to its mouth.")

Anyway, our current beast is not an animal, but instead, a new buffet table for our dining room. Technically its not new - just new to us - since its from the the swap meet. So, its in need of some personalization. But before I reveal the beast, I thought I'd share our shopping/thought process of deciding on a buffet.

Our current favorite design and look has been this table from Cost Plus World Market. We like the wine bottle rack and the rustic color. But we weren't ready to fork over $350 for it since its not a necessity- just something we want for looks and storage.

So, I've been scouring Craigslist for a cabinet that we could makeover for around $100 or less - preferably something $75 or lower. One came up with clean, simple lines like the Cost Plus World Market one (but without the wine rack) and for only $50! I emailed the listing and unfortunately was told that the item was no longer for sale.

Next day, same buffet, same seller is listed on Criagslist for $100! Totally annoyed, but willing to spend a little more (but not give in completely), I offer $80 and a pick-up that evening. Of course it's already sold ($100 was a good price), but I was not about to give in to that finicky seller.

So, we headed to the swap meet the next weekend and amazingly enough had our pick of TWO buffets! The first one looked kind of like the one below - a little retro and mid-century looking, but with nice clean lines. It was in decent condition and the right size. We almost bought it on the spot, but figured we should finish our lap of the swap meet.

Then we came across the beast.


Let's be honest, its got a totally over-the-top, antique, gaudy look with those handles and design, but for some reason it spoke to us. It's half a foot longer than the other one we saw at the swap meet, definitely heavy (better wood/construction) and absolutely crazier looking than the other one. But we figured we'd go for it and try to make it our own. (You know we're all about taking crazy things in and making them our own - a la Copper Kate)

Plus a $40 price tag means we could always sell it later without any major damage to our wallets. (Take that "$50 to $100 Craiglist buffet"!)

Next step is deciding what to do with it. We like the color of the buffet (kind of like the World Market buffet), but with that design, it seems too old and out of place in our dining room. So, we're thinking it needs a fun, fresh color to make it a little more modern. Here are some of the contenders with pictures to give you an image of what it could be:

{Apple Green}

via

{Mustard Yellow}

via

{Navy Blue}

via

Right now, the navy is my favorite, but the yellow could be cool too. I'm thinking of new handles and hinges, but Brad thinks we could repaint the current ones. Also, a darker color, like black or charcoal gray are always possibilities. What are some of the general thoughts/consensus? Is there a favorite color? Is it too big compared to the dining table? Or just too ugly?

This thing is seriously huge and heavy (my arms were sore for a week), so I only plan on moving it back and forth from the garage one more time - so it better be the right color.

The One With Christmas At The Carters & Bunko At The Bubels

Happy New Year!!!

Oh - did that happen 34 days ago? Too bad, I'm still gonna post some Christmas and New Years photos anyway because we had a great time with our family and really, I never take photos. So here's a few from our last days in 2010.

Christmas morning was spent at Brad's mom's house which is where these silly photos came from.

To ring in the New Year, we spent the evening at my parent's house playing bunco (or as my mom likes to spell is - bunko) and catching up with friends.

Cheers to 2011 and hopefully to more frequent blog posts!