Spring has Sprung with a visit from the Bells!

Devin's parents Rich and Giselle came to visit us from northern California. We had so much fun with them! Unfortunately Carter was a little under the weather with RSV, bronchitis, bronchiolitis, and a double ear infection while they were here :( We didn't get to do as much as we wanted to because we had to share them with our sister in law Amy's parents who they have been good friends with for many years. Amy's parents are going to Brazil for 3 years to work in the mission so we weren't too upset about having to share Rich and Giselle's company :) On Monday Giselle, my mom, Carter and I went to Joe's Farm Grill in Gilbert. I had never been before so i was excited to try it!I had a Cheddar bacon cheeseburger and onion rings, it was absolutely delicious! My mom and Giselle both wanted to try the fontina burger but were nervous that it might not taste very good so they ordered one of those and one regular cheeseburger and split them both! I'm pretty sure they both wished they would have each ordered a fontina burger to themselves because they said it was the best burger they had ever had! The Garlic fries that my mom ordered were yummy too, they remind me of California! This is such a great place to take carter because he loves to be outside! Here are some more pics of our enjoyable lunch, i can't wait to take Devin there!

Bell domestic bliss

We have recently been redecorating our home, it has been a lengthy process especially because most of the stuff we have made or redone ourselves! I am inspired by the french countryside with a little pop of quirkyness! here is a peek insideHere is the entry way:Great Room:The dining room:
the fabric on the china cabinet is what i am using for curatins over the arcadia door!

Our bedroom:
although i do love the french country, devin and i both find tranquility at the beach so i wanted to bring in a coastal cottage feel. i tied this theme in with the rest of the house by having pops of blue throughout so that it would still flow.

hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

one mans trash is another womans treasure

I love the look of shabby chic however since i am married, i don't feel like the uber fem decor would be appropriate for our humble abode. Instead i have incorporated shabby chic furniture design with electic french country flair! I have been wanting a beautiful distressed china cabinet for quite sometime now. Devin didn't quite understand the obsession because well, we don't have any china! But being the loving, decorating challenged husband he is, he decided to let me have my way! woo hoo! After shopping around some stores i found most distressed china cabinets were hundreds if not thousands of dollars out of my price range. My girlfriend lyndsey had some furniture redone by a lady in mesa, after checking out her blog furniture facelift i was sold! So i started by seraching goodwill after goodwill, after no luck i resorted to craigslist. And just around the corner from our home a couple sold us this cabinet for $80
Next step: contact cherica at furniture facelift! After days of agony waiting for her reply back as to how much she would charge to shabby my cabinet up i had a reply! however much to my dismay cherica is no longer restoring furniture because she had to return to work because of the economy. Now what?! sure i could redo the cabinet myself.... but i live in an apartment. where would i do such a task? well we picked up a pair of sawhorses and transformed out patio into a workshop! My inspiration for the piece and actually my whole dining room was this plate from anthropologie
i love red green and yellow and strawberries will always remind devin and i of northern california late spring into summer, when you would go straight to the strawberry stands to buy fresh strawberries. So after some sanding, Jungle trail paint from home depot, and a crackle medium and english tea room paint from lowes, and lots of elbow grease and love this is what we have:

Newlyweds for the weekend

This past weekend my mom was nice enough to take carter down in Tucson with her. We were originally going to get scuba certified but Devin just doesn't feel like his arms can take it so he wants to wait until after surgery #5. So i jumped on hotwire and found a 4.5* hotel in the north scottsdale area for $83 a night, i figured with 4.5*'s you can't go wrong so i booked it and it ended up being the princess! This is exciting because usually the princess is around $400 a night!






We checked in Friday night around 5 and because we are part of the Fairmont presidents club they gave us a room upgrade to one of their newly renovated rooms!





We decided to go off the resort for dinner because all of their entrees at the four restaurants started at about $23.. so Devin found a little Mexican cantina that was DELICIOUS! It was so strange to sit in a restaurant and not have to worry about Carter freaking out, it took some adjusting to!

When we returned to the resort there was a thunderstorm going on, just a little rain but a lightening bolt hit so close that the thunder was such a loud crack i screamed and ran under a building! it was BEAUTIFUL! We decided to go for a swim and the pool was empty except for us, we had a lot of fun playing the bridge game! ( AnnElise and Chris will appreciate this!)

On saturday we decided to check out the spa. We both got hot stone massages, which were amazing. We also got full use of the spa which was cool because the spa is so freaking pretty! they have a waterfall grotto and a rooftop negative edge pool they also have a hot mineral plunge, a cold plunge sauna, steam room, swiss showers and my favorite, the eucalyptus inhalation room. They also serve this yummy prickly pear lemonade! so good i am dying to find their recipe!



We ended up just hanging out at the spa for a while and then we had lunch at a little deli that we love, i spent some time reading my newest gossip girl book in one of the hammocks at the resort while devin did a lab for his biology classSunday morning we had a false alarm that i was getting called into work, but since we were already all packed up we decided to just head home :) It was such a nice time to jsut enjoy our marriage and love for one another but in the end.... the thing that we couldnt get off our minds :

Our lil C
:)