Double Rainbow All the Way

color makes me happy

One positive thing I have learned over the summer is there is nothing wrong with incorporating brilliant color into your lives, wardrobe, and home.  Just have bold courage to do it!  Maybe if everyone in the world believed in fabulous color, we'd all be happier.  Like this guy... 

{ok, maybe he's a little extreme, but he does share my love for color while sending a pretty potent message: don't do drugs}

Wouldn't the World be a little happier if you found any of these while walking down the street?

After living in this white sanitarium of an apartment and not wanting to be part of the Utah home decorators' status quo {neutral colors and wooden decorative objects}, I refuse to not have {tasteful} bright color in my life... Such as yellow, blue, or dare I mention under-appreciated colors like purple and orange!  

Wouldn't a room like this look fantastic anywhere?

{http://www.bdgstyle.blogspot.com}

How about a little more crisp, bold, and beautiful?

{most interiors found at:  Angeleno Interiors or Hiya Papaya}

If you don't dig the white crisp look, how about these with warmer colors?

 

You definitely DON'T want to go making your house {or wardrobe} look like a psychedelic playground, but adding touches of bold and vibrant color in any room will brighten up your life! {especially in a room decorated with dark wood and furniture}


I want to express my appreciation for my mother, grandparents, and some of the mothers I grew up around in St. Louis who are bold color lovers like myself.  One day, I came home and my mom painted our living room bright red...  I loved visiting my Grandpa's house as a child because I used to love peaking into the peach formal living room and the dark rich furniture/decor in the home that was always accented with color somehow...  Another dear family friend painted her garage and front door a deep vibrant plum...  While another family had a salmon pink and hunter green colored dining room....  FANTASTIC!  Though they sound crazy and over the top, these projects were done tastefully and looked marvelous.  {Note: red, and other bold color are over-bearing if it's not done properly so beware and experiment first before you do anything too drastic!}

2 Months Down and Eternity to Go

Today marks our 2 month anniversary! I don't think we're going to do anything special tonight to celebrate, I'll probably make a healthy non-fattening dinner because I'm deathly afraid of getting fat now that we're married {I've already put on a few pounds unfortunately}.

Time flies by SO fast I can't even believe it. So far our marriage is a success and we've grown in ways I didn't see coming. I'm so lucky to have married Ryan. He truly helps me be a better woman everyday and I am so grateful for him. He's also pretty good at cheering me up and helping me see things in a positive light--which I've been needing a lot of lately {I've kind of become the Summer Sales Grinch}.

Speaking of which, we're also halfway through the summer which makes me as happy as a clam {seriously}.

Next week I'm going to Girl's Camp to help chaperone. Let's hope I don't get eaten by a bear....

Summer Fun Thus Far

Saturday nights, Ryan and I sometimes manage to squeeze in dinner and a movie as a date night-sometimes just the two of us and sometimes with the gang of sales reps.

So far these are the restaurants we've tried:

Cheesecake Factory: always good, too many options, over priced, great dessert

Bahama Breeze: awesome beach-like atmosphere, excellent food {you gotta try their wing appetizer...mmm} long service-we had a bad waiter

Kabuki: sushi was alright, long wait for sushi, nice waitresses

Maggiano's Little Italy: too die for. favorite. good prices, good food, good atmosphere, good service. Go there if you are ever near a Maggiano's

The Melting Pot: only go here for the dessert otherwise you're spending WAY too much. Buy your own fondue pot and boil the meats in broth at home. It's a fun 1 time only experience, and then if you're the adventurous type, do it at home and don't go back.

These are the movies we've seen:

Thor: it was cool, but I'd probably wait to see it in Redbox or Netflix. Seemed like it was too rushed and that they produced it only so that people knew who Thor was for next year's film the Avengers.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: Um, there really are no words. The very first Pirates was good, after that one, they've all gone down hill. This was better than the last one-slightly. Redbox or Netflix.

X-Men: First Class: I personally liked the other X-men movies and Wolverine more. There was a lot of plot in the movie and the fighting was a little over the top to make up for lost action scenes. But, overall it was a good flick and I like knowing why Professor Xavier and Magneto don't get along. I'd watch it again, it was good, but not an epic and no where near the magnitude of some critics' comparison to The Dark Knight.

Super 8: ok, the only reason I thought it was lame is because I don't like scary movies with monsters, ghosts, and aliens. However, this is a good movie and definitely worth watching. The characters are well developed and the child actors are superb. The movie keeps you on your toes and has some unexpected thrills. After it's over, you really can ingest the movie and analyze the different story lines and how they wove together in the end. You can also see how the underlying themes relate to real life. It was good. See it if you're not a 'fraidy cat!

Green Lantern: My favorite super hero movie of the year so far. Good acting and interesting interpretation of the comic series. I think the directors could have been a little more imaginative because of all the endless possibilities of the Green Lantern's super power, but over all this was a fun light flick that I quite enjoyed and definitely will watch this again! Also, the love story in this was also believable and not gushy or just thrown into it for the sake of putting mushy crap in--like most other movies in similar genres {Thor and Transformers for example}.

I want to see Harry Potter, Captain America, and Mr. Popper's Penguins. Ryan wants to see Cowboys and Aliens which I'm nervous about...

A Very Special Birthday Indeed!

Not only did I get to celebrate my birthday with Ryan in New York City, but I also gained a beautiful niece! What a memorable birthday indeed!

Congratulations Lee and Katie!!!

Ryan's brother Lee and his cute wife Katie had the first Carnell grandchild- Kinley Jane, and we just so happen to share a birthday! It's funny because my sister shares her birthday with the first grandchild on her husband's side too. What a coincidence! {I guess I really was meant to be a Carnell!}

Lee, Katie and Kinley live in South Africa because of work for the next few years so I'm not sure when I'll get to see Kinley in person, but she is absolutely adorable! When we saw pictures I immediately fell in love! She's a tiny little baby only weighing in a little over 5 lbs but she is very healthy and has a beautiful head of hair. She is PERFECT! Lee and Katie are going to be wonderful parents! Babies are truly blessings from Heavenly Father, I'm so happy for them all! And Ryan and I lucked out...we have a niece and a nephew...now we don't need kids! {Just kidding!}

As for my birthday celebration, Ryan and I drove to NYC! I've never been so it was an adventure!

When we got to Staten Island, we parked in overnight parking and rode the ferry across to Manhatten. It was the best entrance into a city I could think of! We got there at dusk so the Statue of Liberty was lit up but you could still see her very easily. She was A LOT smaller than I imagined, but I guess during the turn of the century she would have been quite the sight! Oh Lady Liberty. I can't wait to go back and see her and Ellis Island because some of my ancestors crossed here coming to America.

After the ferry, we tried to figure out the subway systems so we could get to our hotel which was on 51st Street and Park Avenue. The subways are FULL of very interesting people. We heard an old black man singing Elton John medleys at the top of his lungs on our train and saw Spiderman playing the saxophone {definitely sights to see only in New York}. We couldn't find a sub that stopped exactly there, so we got off at 42nd Street and to our utter surprise, arose inside of Grand Central Station!

Grand Central Station

We walked past the Chrysler Builiding and it reminded us of Spiderman!

Crazies

Ryan's uncle gave us our wedding present by getting us a room at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. It was awesome with typical New York Art Deco charm. LOVED it!

The Waldorf Astoria

View from our Window

Inside the Waldorf--Everything's Art Deco and I LOVED it!

After we dropped our stuff off, we walked down to Times Square. Our best way to describe Times Square {and NYC in general} is Disney Land for adults. Honestly, magical is a pretty accurate adjective. We ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and wandered the streets. I loved all the bright lights, crazy people, and fashion!

The next day the Puerto Ricans decided to celebrate my birthday by throwing a large parade that Ryan and I watched while we wandered through Rockefeller Square and other side streets sight seeing. Shake Shack is a must, so we stopped there for lunch and then headed to Central Park.

Central Park is HUGE and you'd never believe that a park that big would be in the middle of the Big Apple. Here, I learned that I married a squirrel whisperer seeing as Ryan made a 'squirrel' sound and out of nowhere 2 came charging at our park bench and stopped about 10 inches away.

Bridge Tunnel and Cleopatra's Needle

One of the squirrels Ryan called over and us kissing on a park bench

After our stroll in the park, we stopped at the Met! {I'm an art history major so I probably looked like a kid in a candy shop} We didn't have a lot of time to see everything I wanted to see, but I did get to see a few priceless gems that I've learned to love dearly:

Facade and Steps of the Met

Jackson Pollock- Autumn Rhythm {No. 30} and 2 of Mark Rothko's 'multiforms' or 'color fields'

Right Image: Morris Louis- Untitled 1960

Brancusi- Bird in Space and Umberto Boccioni- Unique Forms of Coninuity in Space

Rosa Bonheur- The Horse Fair and Seurat- A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

Chuck Close- Lucas with detail

Piet Mondrian- Composition

To wrap up our NY adventure, Ryan and I again, traipsed through the city and eventually ended up in Chinatown. We wandered into a random joint and ate dinner. Holy cow, it was phenomenal! I got this delicious fried sea food platter, and I ate the BEST shrimp I've ever had! So good. mmm. Little Italy was across the street so we stopped there for a bit and got Italian pastries. Those were also heavenly and when we go back to NYC I fully intend on eating at one of the cute cafes.

It was a long day packed full of amazing memories that I will never forget. Thank you Ryan for the best birthday I've ever had! I can't wait to spend every birthday with you for the rest of my life! xoxo