The best medicine.... :)

I love to laugh.

Especially at myself.

And most especially with Rio:)

Nothing has made me laugh harder than some of our ebay purchases gone bad.

You know, the ones with the really fine print that we 

apparently can't see??

Like this one time, we thought it would be really cool to mount

mannequin arms to old silver trays and hang them on a wall for holding

necklaces and such.

Sooo, Rio called all excited one day and said that we won

a lot of 25 mannequin arms!! We couldn't WAIT to open the box when

they came and get our craft on...

Well, we won the arms alright!

But NO HANDS!!!

Yeah, that was a whole other auction.

Who in the world sells  

just mannequin arms???!!!??

And who in the world bus them??

We do.

AAAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!

Fast forward to this last Sunday.

We got home from Cali on Friday, and we decided to 

do some things around the house.

I asked the hubby to hang my curtains that I got

on ebay. I left to get my nails done and he

sent me a text saying we have a problem...

What in the world??!!??!!

AAAAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!

I couldn't stop laughing. Like when you get the

giggles in church laughing. 

WHO sells a "pair" of curtains like that??!!

Most importantly..

who BUYS them??!!?!

Me. I do. 

Oh how I wish I had a pic of the one time I "won" a landscape picture

with a cow in it, and when it arrived....

it was dollhouse size.

Awesome Dorie. Just awesome.

Please tell me I'm not alone with these ridiculous  purchases,

it would make me feel a whole lot better about myself!!!

(insert crying laughing face)

**do you love how I STILL have the ruined rug?? hahaha!!

I finally tossed it yesterday, much to Little Bully's dismay:(

Extra week.... :)

So we decided to stay an extra week.

Why return to the heat right?

We're staying here in Rincon, 

aka...the "Queen of the coast".

I guess it's the holy grail of surf spots here in Cali. 

My boys are digging it: )

Well just to the north of Rincon, is this adorable little town.

Carpenteria. 

Or Carp like they call it:)

When we were doing our normal drive around and check out the

town, we came across this tiny old church on the corner.

I HAD to go on Sunday.

Whyyy aren't there adorable little tinys like 

this back at home!!!

And just as I expected, the congregation was about 30 people

and the music was just a piano and hymns.

My heart was overflowing with happiness:)

How I wish I could have taken a pic of the adorable old

couple that was celebrating !!65 years!! of marriage that day

with a small table of refreshments at the back of the church.

She was wearing a pink skirt suit and a blue lace scarf on her head the entire service:)

Her hubby was wearing suspenders and bright blue sweater

like Mr. Rogers.

I know you can picture the cuteness:)

I must admit I found myself more than once drifting away from the sermon

to admire the ceiling and stained glass windows...

and stare at the sweet old couple:)

 After the service, we walked outside to see these adorable bungalows lining the streets.

That's when I turned to hubby and said "I can't take it". 

Cuteness overload I tell ya.

This one was finishing up getting painted only the best

color in all the land.... :)

I wanted to walk up and knock on the door and just say...

give it to me. now. 

Is that weird??

We turned the corner and happened upon this little antique store.

The hubby just up and decided he's going to start collecting beach art.

Ya know, to hang in our beach house that we don't have.

....yet:)

So this extra week of relaxing has finally forced me to face my fears.

The fear of pages and tabs.

But as you can see at the top of the blog....

I conquered it!!

It only took me 5 years.
Geeesh.....

AdVentura.... :)

Ventura. I'm totally digging you.

After we sold our house in Dana Point  I knew 

it wouldn't be long before the hubby would be wanting

another place by the sea:)

We had a place for over 15 years in Orange County,

and this time we wanted to try something new and venture further north:)

We rented a place in Faria Beach for a week to check out the

area:)

There's nothing I don't absolutely love about this picture.

This is the back wall of the house we rented, and the hubby and babies 

have been fishing here all day:)

They kept asking me to try it. So fiiiiine! I did.

And guess who caught 2 fish in her first two tries?!?! 

That would be me.

I say because I'm a Pisces, and these are my people:)

Little Bully has just been enjoying being outside without dying of heat.

It's 66 degrees here people.

Unbeknownst to me, the hubby took LB down to the water.

He's never been in the ocean before.

He loved it.

But kept drinking the water....

and you know what that means....

 Barfy Bully. 

And now we can't keep him out of water!

Seriously. Little Bully has absolutely no fear.

And has forgotten that he can't swim.

Don't know if you can hear the panic 

in my voice in this video... but trust me,

it's there!!!

Wallace needs a life vest.

And I need a Xanax.

It continues.... :)

Aaaand the avalanche continues.

I got a new coffee table...

then that meant I needed a new lamp...

and, well that meant new curtains of course...

to, ya know, go with my new couch and chairs.... :)

I thought I'd have some pretties to show you this week,

but it's just still not quite finished.

I'm still waiting on some things to get here, so hopefully in a few weeks

I'll have something to show you:)

And lucky me! On Friday I get to head to the beautiful

beaches of Ventura, CA for 10 days

to escape this heat for a bit,

and do a little house huntin'..... :)

And so on and so on ..... :)

So you know when you go to do just one thing in your

house, it suddenly turns into an avalanche of projects?

Or is that just me....??

Well, we're finally getting to redoing the downstairs bathroom.

Or the last of the ugly as I call it.

You gotta love my sign I hung on the door at Easter...

Ya hear that? All that hammering??

Music to my ears:)

While we were doing the demo, we discovered we needed

to redo the roof over the bathroom.

Well that turned into.......

Adding a covered porch off the side of the house....

We didn't have enough of the used brick that we found on the

property to do the entire porch, so we just made a "rug" 

out of what we had:)

This is the view out the kitchen door.

Well, then the covered porch meant we needed new trees....

then the new trees needed a new fountain...

and so on.

and so on.

and so on.....

Hoping for prettier pics next week:)

Proud mama.... :)

Have you ever had that moment when your heart just wants to burst with

mama pride?? You know, when your child does something so completely amazing

that you're left just standing there in awe...and saying to yourself- 

wow. just wow.

Well I had that moment on Saturday night.

Let me introduce you to the one and only beeeautiful Susan.

This is Rio's bf Chase's adorable mom.

And she just had a birthday.

You aren't going to believe it..

her 60th!!

Well Rio and Chase decided months ago that they were going to 

throw this amazing woman a surprise birthday party:)

And surprise her....they did!!
She had no idea. She thought Chase was bringing her into the
back yard to show her something he made for her:)

And I guess that wasn't entirely a lie? Because Rio and Chase
put together quite the party:)
And they did it all by themselves. With no help from anyone!!

There were beautiful flowers that Rio arranged herself in 

big Ball jars that are sooo Susan.

Chase hung a chandelier that they found at a thrift store over

the birthday girls table. He even painted the extension cord brown to

match the tree!! It's all in the details right?

And in between all that he made ALL the food for the 

yummy taco bar:)

Rio went to Denovo and cut out a huge 60 on the 

cnc router and then put lights in it.

It looked sooo pretty at night!

Seriously I wanted to steal this wheelbarrow...

That adorable gold desk was actually Susan's from her childhood:)

There were sharpie pens and rocks so everyone could

write Susan a birthday note:)

Perfect for the gal who has long been a member of the

Arizona Nursery Association.

Rio made all the banners and Chase hung these mismatched
Edison bulbs from the pergola over the dessert table.

Oh! and speaking of dessert...
How cute is her birthday cake??!!

Rio MADE all those succulents.
Uh huh.
She painstakingly shaped them out of fondant,
then hand painted every single one...
only to come home and find her dog had
gotten up on the table and EATEN ALL OF THEM!!!!
She had to make them all. again.

These ball jar sugar cookies are actually the one thing they

didn't make. How stinkin cute are they??

Terri at Fresh Cut Flours (cute name!) made them.

Every detail was perfect.

Right down to the 60 birthday candles:)

Happy Birthday to the beautiful woman who's been on an African safari 3 times,

still drives her VW bug (Abner) that she purchased brand new in 1972, still rocks

some gorgeous long blond hair AND...

if you've ever been to the Phoenix Zoo in December? 

Susan started the Zoo lights:)

Yeah. She's all that.

And a bag of chips:)

But I gotta say- I love you Susan most for giving birth to the one and

only Chase. Who loves my one and only Rio:)

Dear Rio and Chase,

Since now we KNOW you both can plan the bejeezus out of a party...

We think it's high time you plan a wedding.

Just sayin..

Love, 

Dorie and Susan

Guilt free.... :)

I buy bananas every week. Sometimes they get eaten,

and sometimes they don't:(

I finally realized that (duh) I could peel them, cut them up and 

freeze them because they make for the BEST smoothies!

Well did you know that if you take those frozen  bananas...

and throw them in a food processor with their favorite 

friend the strawberry..

and give it a spin..

(be patient, it takes longer than you think)

you end up with this delicious guilt free ice cream??!!!

then you can take that bowl of guilt free deliciousness and

head over to your favorite chair

and watch this movie...

you're welcome:)