weekending

We spent most of this weekend relaxing but managed to squeeze in some fun outings too. It was the last weekend of city fair downtown, so we headed there for an evening. We watched people go on all the crazy rides, ate an elephant ear and spent a great deal of time looking at the tigers and lions and other cats. There was a baby tiger playing with people (!!!) and I have about ten thousand videos to prove it.

Saturday we ate lunch at the park, where we saw a naked cyclist twice (eww) and I tried to get my legs at least a darker shade of translucent. And later in the evening I made one of our favorite dinners and we ate it outside. Felt like summer.

Nothing like a good weekend to recharge you for a busy week ahead right?


p.s. Thanks for all the sweet comments about our baby news!! I'm so excited to share a new part of life on this part of the internet.

may/june in instagrams

These are some of my favorite memories of may and june as told through instagrams.
Some of the happiest times in my life right here!

iphone apps i love

I love me a useful iphone app (i'm not into games or fart apps or whatever else there is out there) and I also love when I see blog posts about peoples favorite apps because I always discover new ones. I made a list of mine, I hope you find them useful! (These are all free, by the way.. i'm a tightwad)

sidenote: Most of these apps are probably made for droid as well, do a little search and see what you can find.

MobileRSS - A great app you can sync your google reader too. This is helpful for slow days at work.. or anywhere you feel the need to catch up on your blog reading.

Tumblr gear - If you're into tumblr, this is by far the best app for browsing through posts. It loads super quick and also makes it easy to "like" and "reblog".

Sparkpeople - This is SUCH (!!) a great one. I think i'm long overdue for a lengthy post about my love for sparkpeople in general. Many people use it to lose weight (very successfully too) but I use this to track my food intake to make sure i'm getting enough protein/fats/ect. You can ANY food and also add entire recipes to see how many calories/fat/protein/vitamins in is each serving. That's just the beginning. I love sparkpeople.. and having it wherever you go is very convenient.

Craiglist - Pretty self-explanatory. I found my couch and bed while waiting in line somewhere.. hows that for convenient.

Yard sale mapper - This app takes all the garage sale listings from craigslist and puts them on a map. Makes it so easy to map out your route and get directions to each one. (You can also view the craigslist listing to see what they were advertising..)

ThriftBuddy - A thrift store mapper that finds any/all thrift stores near your location. Perfect if you're traveling..

PuddingCamera - Another awesome free photo app. It's mostly in korean but still pretty easy to use. You can choose different films and cameras... endless fun.

Fooducate - You can use this app to help read ingredient lists and nutrition labels on food. It tells you other words used for MSG, preservatives, ect.. and if its bad, it shows you a better option for the same type of food. Confusing? Try it out, it'll make more sense.

Pinterest - So glad they made an iphone app! This is just as addicting as the website.

Firefox home - This gives you access to your desktop history, bookmarks and open
tabs on your iPhone. If you're like me and have about a million websites bookmarked on your computer but not on your phone, this one is for you. I love being able to bookmark a recipe on my computer and pull it up on my phone at someone elses house later on..

MapMyRun - By far one of my most favorites.. this makes running so easy (well.. not literally). It tracks your pace, distance, and route using GPS, which makes it easy to hit your goals. I LOVE it.



Some basic ones i use all the time are: twitter, urbanspoon, yelp, pandora, paypal, netflix, and Skype.

And since i'm always looking for new ones, What are your top 3 favorite apps?

instagram love

I need to express my instagram love for a second here. I'm totally smitten with it.
(sidenote: I'm rounding up my favorite iphone apps for a different post but i thought instagram deserved its own.)
At first, I just used it to take photos and put fun filters on them but then I realized the whole social networking part of it is the most fun. It's like twitter with photos. An exclusive little iphone community!

Not to mention, the filters are the best of any iphone camera app i've used so far. And the tilt shift feature is really fun to play with.








The best part, its free. Need I say more??

If you don't have instagram, get it! And if you do, come find me and lets be instagram friends. My username is vanillaandlace.

daily (and giveaway winner..)

Happy monday! I'm here yet again with another phone photo dump of anything/everything i've been up to. I've been super busy with work and other things, which (as i was telling josh tonight) has made me feel like i'm behind on LIFE. I haven't even been grocery shopping in a few weeks! One thing i have done is found a little house to rent.. i've been apartment/house/anything hunting the past few weeks, and it was pure torture.. (i'd rather do anything else in the world). But I finally found us a cute (tiny) little house in an area i loved and we'll be moving in wednesday (hopefully!). It'll be so nice to have all my stuff in one place and feel somewhat normal again. So if you've stuck around in these past few months of nonsense posting, i appreciate it.. and i'll be back to a regular posting schedule soon with lots of craftiness and food and REAL pictures.

a delicious combo


a new thrifted coat


a kitty yawn


kombucha drinkin'


peach tea drinkin'


i found this anna sui for anthropologie dress at a thrift store last week for $2. i hear it was originally $300-400?? crazy find!


thrifting..


i love technology!


at work..


lunch... my healthy choices amaze me lately.




today I got to "model" vintage clothes for Anja's etsy shop. It was super fun.. she's awesome.


and lastly, tonight i officially started to be a couponer. like those crazy ladies you seen on tv that get $150 worth of groceries for $8.. that's going to be me soon. I'll keep you updated on how thats going.. haha

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The winner of the Tea collection giveaway is Sarah and how fitting since she is pregnant with twins!

Sarah, i'll email you with the info to get in touch with Tea to claim your prize!

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Hope you all have a great week!

4 days with josh (image heavy!)

i had an amazing (but way too short) time with josh when he was in town for 4 days last week. we were so busy.. which probably made it fly by even faster. i haven't touched my real camera in weeks.. but i took about 50 pictures on my phone. here are a few:

friday:

i worked for a few hours in the morning, then a few of us went to lunch then headed to portland to get ready for the show that night. we ate loads of gummy bears and tried to toss them up in the air and catch them in our mouths. i laughed harder than i have in a long time.. it was hilarious. and i fell down while trying to catch one. so graceful. (i also couldn't get over the 20+ boxes of debbie cakes in the van...)

saturday: i had to work again in the morning. as soon as i got off, i hopped in the van and we took off for seattle. vanessa and i "head banged" to songs in the van.. (hello sore necks!). and after the show we all danced like crazy to andrew w. k. songs while packing everything up. (video of that to come!)

sunday:
we went to red robin for patricks birthday, went to a mall to pass time before going to church, afterwards the guys went to a movie while vanessa and i did a rush shop job at trader joes and met with chelsea for frozen yogurt. then we went to voodoo for some birthday doughnuts and hung out until almost 4am, when they had to leave to drive to montana.

i was in heaven the entire time.. which made it a bajillion times harder to say goodbye. yes.. A BAJILLION. man alive.. is it hard!