28 Dillard's Later

We went to see a movie on last Friday. It was Safe House {no we did not go see Hunger Games. It was opening day and it was crazyyy}. On our scale of 1-10 {obv. 1=walk out/turn it off within 10 mins and 10=watch every single day, like the HP series} it made a 5. Prob wouldn't see it again, but it was kinda entertaining. But what made it alright was that we went to one of those awesome theaters where you can order legitimate foods and drinks during the movie from waiters. It was our first time to try one of these theaters out. We get there and walk into our theater and... we were the only ones in it! Complete relaxation with the waiter all to ourselves. They usually have this "once the previews start NO MORE TALKING! and write on the card what you want" type of deal {all caps were a must for that because we got there only 1o minutes before it started and we saw a NO TALKING preview about 100 times. They are serious. There was the funniest movie theather commercial about it too. All we remember was that there were dancing food items playing hardcore metal music singing a song that said "we'll kick your ass out if you talk..." so yah, they are serious about the no talking} The food was alright. Layne got a pizza and Kyle got a pulled pork sandwich. But the beer was great. From now on, we are only going to get drinks and a movie instead of paying a lot for food we can find in the freezer section.

So this theater was attached to a mall, so afterwards we walked around the mall to check it out {for Tulsans, we'd compare this mall to Eastland mall}. Now it was 6:15pm when we got out. And it was like a ghost land. We went into Dillards and they closed at 7, so needless to say things seemed a bit off. I mean, closing at 7 pm. On a Friday night. I mean, this place should be hopping with middle-school horn-dogs trying to get their pre-pubescent mack on. But apparently this mall is not a hot spot for normal Friday activities and Dillard's was the same way. Guess they were having some sort of apocalyptic sale because for starters, everything was at least 65% off.

Know what you're thinking. "Awesome--I could spend so much money! I need a new pastel yellow Polo hat for Easter."

We almost thought the same thing. But then we took a gander around and it was ridiculous. There are really no words to describe, but we'll do our best. Imagine a department store from I Am Legend, then fill it with a few workers and some random sketch looking customers. The ambience: dimly lit, unusually muggy for a mall, faint aroma of nursing home. We felt like we should be watching out for zombies coming around the corner. And, it was just a weird feeling. There was a lot of stuff, and it was all on the racks, but things were so...unorganized. Layne was stressin', no doubt.

For instance. On one circular rack there were clothes for a skinny teenage girl to a grandma looking for her cotton nighty. There was no hope to find good stuff for Layne. Kyle then thought, hey maybe we can find some discount men's shoes. Tough luck, homeboy. Unless, that is you are really trying to bring back the Birkenstock clogs from 1998. On sale for like $60, just waiting for you. No rush though, they had like 56 pairs in each size. Hot item, right there. Kyle did try them on to reminisce his old ones and they made his feet look even bigger {possible?}. The toe box is so wide you could make a sandwich on it. For real though, it would have been hard to find anything good. Oh sure, we were up for taking time to check it all out since we had nothing to do, but remember that we were in bizarro Dillard's and we only had 45 minutes. And the first 15 of those 45 were spent trying to get our heads wrapped around this mess of a department store.

We left. Bought nothing. Will not return.

jamba juice is the answer

The Culhane Bed and Breakfast is on a roll. Guests No. 3&4 were successfully entertained.

Morgan and Taylor came down over the weekend and stayed a few days. It was their spring break and since Taylor is moving down here later this year they thought they'd get a head start on looking at apartments. And let us tell ya, they weren't ready for the amount of apartment complexes here. I mean, there are millions of 'em and they all start looking the same -- wood floors, granite counter tops, great amenities, washer & dryer and steep rent that us Tulsan's aren't used too. We ran into the same problem when we came down to look. We had a notebook that after we went through a place we jotted down notes to remind us of the pros and cons. And since we had a dog we had even more things to think about with what the compex offered us aka do they even allow pets, do they have a dog area to let them off their leash and what was the dog weight limit {sometimes we found out that it was 35 lbs for that particular apartment complex and our dog is full grown and 40 lbs.... and they wouldn't take her. Jokes on you suckas since we have pretty much the best dog in the galaxy} So, honestly we pretty much had to choose the apartment we were going to live in by how our dog would like it. Again, usually they have a pet weight limit, but ours is by breed. Which is actually better so you don't have the aggressive ones around. I mean, come on, you can have a 100 lb golden retriever but it's the nicest dog in the world. Why not let it live there?! So once we found a nice complex that was in a decent area with an amazing dog run we threw in the towel and stopped looking at others.

Back to the main point of this post: friends.

It was wonderful having them here. Really makes us excited for when he moves down and she comes to visit him. They came on St. Patty's day and we had planned to go to dinner at a cool irish pub in Rice Village and then afterwards walk to a couple other pubs. We did not plan well. We knew it was going to crowded, but the crowd that we saw was astonishing. The place we had planned to go to dinner was so packed that Layne and Morgan got out of the car to see how long the wait would be, but before they even got in they were going to be charged a 10$ cover. No thanks. Not to just eat and get a beer {it probably woulda taken 2 hours to get our food anyway}. So we started to drive away from the green masses and happened to go by a cute, small Mexican restuarnt that Morgan had eaten at before. No line. No green people. Just good mexican food, margs and beers. Finally after that we decided to drive back into the crowd to go to one of our favorite pubs that had no cover: The Gingerman. {Kyle esp loves it since he is aginger and a man, and we bought him a beer glass with the logo. And now that we're thinking, all redheads should get at least one free beer at that pub. After all it's their pub} When we all went back home, we taught them to play Nertz and Kyle especially demolished the competition. It was a fun night, but finally the girls were tired so we went off to bed. The boys however decided to stay up, catch up and drink a couple, er... a few, old fashioneds.

Next morning came way to soon, esp for those boys. We made some waffles, took naps, ate our favorite pizza, took more naps, went out to city center, ate some Chicken Tikka Masala, went home to watch the Thunder play and then off to bed. Successful Sunday.

While Kyle was at work, Layne, Morgan and Taylor went to look at some apartment complexes for him. We did go through some cool ones and I think they found a front runner that day. For lunch we met up with Kyle and ate at a hamburger joint: Southwells. Layne doesn't usually eat meat. She's not necessarily a vegetarian, but 99% of the time while at a restaurant she'll order a meal with no meat. Randomly though, doesn't happen too often, she gets those cravings for meat. On this day a hamburger sounded good. No, not good. Amazing. And it was gone in like 2 bites. We then whisked them off to Central Market and bought some food for that nights dinner: fish tacos with mango salsa, lime-marinated cabbage, corn on the cob. We also got some white wine to drink with those tasty tacos. Afterwards Layne and Morgan proceeded to open up three more bottles of red wine. It was their fun night.

We have this huge glass vase type thing we got for our wedding {from Layne's awesome cousins Rosana and Anthony - thanks again!} and we decided to fill it up with the wine corks from all the bottles we drink. When we open up a bottle with friends or family we have them sign it and put the date on it. Whenever it's full, we'll empty it and go through it and remember all the fun memories. Morgs and Tay already have a couple corks in there and I'm sure there will be more in the future.

The next day consisted of more "apartment shopping". Before we could function we went to our favorite cafe to get some breakfast and Layne's favorite chai lattes {these are so good they could be a factor for staying in Houston longer than we thought}. That breakfast was awesome, so awesome that we forgot to get hungry for lunch. 3 pm rolled around and the Barca game was about to come on, so what do we do? We headed straight on over to our favorite english pub Richmond Arms and had a late lunch. This was a must do on our list since Taylor is a Liverpool fan and will have the pleasure of watching Liverpool lose to Arsenal at least twice next season.

It was so great to spend time with them and truly catch up. Haven't really done that with them since highschool {or that's what it felt like!}. But honestly we are super excited for another friend to move to our new stomping grounds and to hang out with them more. Oh the memories us four will make.

Once again, no pics with our house guests. We have to be diligent photo takers. No more wishy washy, fake photogs in this family.

here piggy piggy

This past weekend we had our first official visitors! Katy and Devin {Layne's sorority sister and her arm candy} came down from Irving to see us...

Dag yo, it was a blast! First of all, they got in on Friday night and after dropping of their bags at our apartment, we headed out to a little place called the Royal Oak. It's a bar/pub down in Neartown and it was our first trip to the place. It was pretty cool, good ambiance, seemingly non-douchey crowd, diverse drink selection, tasty looking food menu. Except the music was way too loud. Like, way, way too loud. Like, couldn't even talk to our friends that we haven't seen in basically 15 years. But, gotta add that this place allegedly makes a mean old fashioned. Bacon maple rye, only one dash bitters, maple syrup, orange peel. Sounds yummy, gotta go back for one. But back to business, besides the music, we had a great time beginning our catch-up weekend.

Next day we took them on our weekly Memorial Park walk with Char and then just hung out and played Nertz the rest of the day. Other than the fact that Layne kicked the butt out of everyone in Nertz {well, Devin had a small winning streak... at the end} everybody had fun. For dinner we went to Chachos, which is a pretty darn good TexMex place near our apartment open24 hours. Yes, all day, everyday. It's nice to know if we wake up at 3 am one night starving {or when Layne is pregnant and craving breakfast tacos at 11:38 pm} we know of a good place thats a half mile away. Afterwards we decided to take them to our friendly, neighborhood Arsenal pub: The Richmond Arms. Perfect relaxed atmosphere to finish the weekend. Next time, we're gonna be heading up to Irving to check out their neck of the woods. Can't wait!

Interesting aside: contrary to normal female operations, Layne and Katie only took 3 pics together and they were all within 10 seconds of each other. That's it. Two sorority sisters, 40 hours together, 3 pics. And one is blurry. Strange stuff...

In other news, we got a homemade bacon infused rye recipe from Mr. Hulse. Heard it was good, but obviously we don't just trust word of mouth, but rather taste of mouth; therefore, we decided to make it on our own.

And it's amazing.

Process of making it is pretty easy--alls you need is a bit o' bacon fat and some spirits {we chose rye, so the spice and the smoke would meld...hopefully}. We tried a sip neat and then had it with some orange peel, bitters and maple syrup in an old fashioned. Pretty tasty stuff. Also, K commissioned L to create a label for some bottles that we got for the bacon rye, seeing as how she's the resident Picasso. It turned out pretty bad-a, if we do say so ourselves.

Currently watching: Bachelor finale {we're always a day behind on shows bc we do Hulu/Netflix instead of cable}. Courtney is so blah, with her stupid mouth-pucker, side slanty smirk. But Linzi always does this head-down, eyes-up, weird look-y thing. Plus certainly there is a resident Bachelor/ABC hair stylist that travels to these locations and makes sure everything is in order, right? I mean, can we not please just cut Benjamin's hair, please??

Currently craving: donuts. Can someone tell us why donut places aren't open 24/7 like Chacho's?

Stay tuned for the next episode.

HAG*

Last week we went to Colorado for a Dullea family vacation. We had an impromptu rescheduling of a long planned Christmas vacation in the mountains because some things occurred: bad winter storms, Sonny got sick, we were moving to Houston on NYE, among others. It was the first time to see all of Layne's family since we moved here so it was great getting to see everyone, especially those two little nuggets of nephews we have. Wednesday evening we flew to OKC to meet up with Nic and Cam, and then on to Denver.

Side note: Layne hates flying. Seriously despises it. For many reasons, too. The fact that we are 30k+ miles up in the air with no stable-ness on the ground, the stale nasty recycled fartish coughish air, turbulence, other random smelly things, waiting in line to board the plane {which that process takes forever. and they do it in the wrong way. it is supposed to be the people in the back of the plane go first, so then we don't have to wait standing on the plane for people to put their junk up.} And the plane ride from OKC to Denver was absolutely, completely, terrifyingly horrible. The wind in Denver was 1,000 miles per hour and the plane just kept moving the way it shouldn't {side to side} and while landing one wheel touched, then the other, then the other again. It was like the plane was a three-legged ballerina doing pirouettes on the runway. Good thing L&K had a G&T or two to keep us grounded {ha.}

First thing we did when we got to Denver was hug. After all the hugging we tried to pack Joe's car and the rental full with 8 adults and 2 babies and all the baggage that came with it. Pun intented. Stopped at a BBQ place on the way up to the mountains and it was perfect. Spent a little too much time eating because the drive up to Keystone was a little scary. Actually, a lot of scary. A snow storm had come and the wind was crazy. Looking out the windshield, it looked like we were pushing light speed in the millennium falcon. By this point Layne had had enough of the wind and terrified-ness.

Thursday morning Layne, Kyle and Callan, woke up early to go on a run through the beautiful mountains. It was beautiful.... for what we could see. It was snowing again. And having the wind and snow in your face while running made it even harder to see, and to run for that matter. After the run Layne and Cam made breakfast for everyone. Yah we we're that nice. Pancakes, eggs and sausage {well, the sausage was pre-cooked and microwavable for little Son-Dog because he loves it}. Then we made a family outing to Breckenridge. It was pretty much 60 below in Breck that day. So cold. But that night we warmed up and played Kings Cup. Just an idea on how it went down: dance moves, chins on tables, riding the bus, stomachs hurting because of laughing, chugging PBR {thanks Cam}, accents, animal noises and some crappy conversations.

all because she said someone's first name at the table.

Finally we went skiing {boarding for Kyle} on Friday. Let Layne's legs tell you how fun it was. As sore and tired as they were is equal to as much fun as we had. Got that? It was such a perfect day for it too. Sunny, not to cold or windy, some pretty fresh snow, not crowded at all. Couldn't ask for much better.

Next day was the day we were headed home and got to see Jim, Melanie and Connor {the Colorado Dullea clan} for most of the day. But this day was probably in the top two of Layne's worst days ever. Maybe even top of the list. She was sick. Real sick. Stomach flu, food poisoning, little fever, exhaustion, dehydration, etc. So the driving out of the mountains, driving around Denver, stopping to eat at a Mexican restuarant {which L had to stay and sleep in the car the whole time}, sitting in an airport {which our flight got delayed} and then flying home didn't make her feel any better. Next day Kyle had it. Sorry boutchya.

Us and our sweet godson.

Expecto Patronum! {just missing his straw wand}

CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT HOW CUTE THESE NEXT COUPLE OF PICTURES ARE??!!

*HAG - High Altitude Gas. There were a lot of farts during this trip that we attribute to HAG. Farts from everyone {mainly Leo and Cam, though}.

beware: cat on face

Our little home is finally coming together. Actually it's pretty much finished. Just need a couple things and then it will be completely finished {for now. is it ever really finished?}

This entry will be all about our home; it's one of those necessary "talk about your home, show pictures once you move away so the family and friends can check out your new dig" posts.

The kitchen is amazing for an apartment. Or really, its just plain amazing for any home. We hope one day our house's kitchen will look similar. Layne loved the fact that it had a great big island to cook and bake on. Kyle loved the fact that Layne had a place so she would bake.

we are totally obsessed with these bar stools. saw some similar

from WestElm we wanted, but didn't have all the dough

to spend on them. so we kept searchin', and we finally got lucky with these.

bar area.

amazing painting by Haley, Layne's cousin, to remind

us Tulsa is Home, and always will be.

instead of a man room, Kyle got a man area. this is the bar

cabinet Layne's parent's made by restoring an old record cabinet.

joe put in all the shelves, wine glass and wine bottle holders.

works great! {it's truly not as purple and pink as it looks.

it's much more of a purplish-grey and pinky-red-orange. got it?}

dining area.

these are old handkerchiefs mostly from Layne's grandma,

great and great grandma. she saw a similar idea on the amazing pinterest

and thought it would be a cool wall piece. it was a biznatch to hang up. long story.

living room. mix and match furniture and styles. totally us.

that's the ottoman we DIY-ed in the previous post.

not too shabby with all our other furniture.

other side of the living room or, aka, the mirrored wall.

once we get curtains it will be finished. for now.

Our guest room/office/studio/craft room has the Travel theme {trying to fit all of our stuff in a two bedroom apartment was a true challenge. so when you come visit {and you will}, sorry that you stay in a room full of random things. hopefully when we move back, we'll get a place with more rooms so we can have a craft room and music studio and then also a guest room andoffice. dang, just realized we will obviously need a 7 bedroom house.} We decided to bring home a cool painting or map of a place we visit when we go on a vacation over seas. We started this on our honeymoon and then also got some from on a cruise we went on this past summer with Kyle's parents. Our favorite place that we've been to is London and we have an amazing map of Old London and an awesome painting of Big Ben that we need to get frames for, then we are going to put them above the bed. They are obviously not in this picture so when we do find frames in the right size and put them up we'll put a finished picture up. Sooo, soon there wont be a huge space above the bed. Also, we still need curtains, which Layne is going to make {will be a post later on, we're sure}.

guest room. hi Zoe. and hi blatantly blank wall.

painting of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and

maps from Naples and Cinque Terre.

Our master bedroom is definitely mixed and match of styles. It's still a work in progress, but we guess the whole apartment is. We also still need... whadaya know... curtains. And to hang up some pictures, but mostly its finished. Layne and her mom painted the stripes, which brings in some texture. It was going to be chevron striped, but they figured too much work for only a place to live for a little bit. The regular stripes still give us what we wanted. We may actually change it, perhaps to just grey stripes instead of navy. Not as nautical looking.

diy project Layne made last summer.

the best way to start each morning reading this.

Char loves her dog bed....

but so does Zoe.

And now for one of the best parts about our apartment: our amazing balcony. It's huge, and Charlie and Zoe love it {it's nice not having to worry about Zoe running off out in the 'hood. she can't really go anywhere seeing as we are not on the ground floor.}

our courtyard. we grill out there and just hang.

we want to get one of those seemingly comfy outdoor

couches so we can drink coffee and read.

So that's our home. Obviously there are bathrooms, a laundry room, closets, storage closet, water heater closet, miscellaneous plumbing areas, linen closets, and pantry. Sorry there are no pics of those important spaces, but we're still working on decorating them...and it's becoming a long post.

Catchya skeezers. Getcha butt down here and come stay a while at the Culhane B&B. Honestly, we will give you a bed and a breakfast. But beware, you will have a cat sleep on your face and one incredibly adoring aussie following you around.

things cost a lot of money these days...

That's why we've become homemakers, DIY-ers, builders, upholsters. Or in the most recent case, ottoman makers.

When we had started to pack up our stuff to move to Houston, we realized we had nothing to pack. Because we hadn't opened up any wedding gifts yet, they were still packed up and not used {turned out to be the smartest idea to not use our stuff until we moved... so much less stress and time} We also noticed we didn't have any furniture. None. Well..... no living room furniture at least. We had two beds and a set of bedroom furniture that we pretty much split up between both rooms. So we started looking for other pieces.

Then, Kyle had such a smart idea. He wanted to be a manly-man {his words exactly} and to build an ottoman. The thing that took the longest: figuring out the dimensions we wanted and that would fit into our apartment. Layne found fabric she wanted to make something in way before the idea to make the ottoman took place. So once Layne heard Kyle wanted to build it, she went straight over to the fabric store and bought some yardage. {In doing that she knew she sealed the deal that Kyle had to make something now or else we wasted money. Smart move by L}.

Kyle was stoked to start using all his tools he's been racking up since our wedding. He get's a new tool every christmas from Layne's parents {well, it's only been two Christmas' in a row, so maybe it's a coincidence, but we think it's a tradition. A good tradition we might add.} This year he used the awesome drill and circa saw he got last year. But he didn't have a palm sander, so he had to borrow Joe's, Layne's dad, for a while. Usually not a problem, but it was during the same time Joe was fixing up a piece of furniture for us and needed it as well. So it went back and forth between houses for a couple weeks. Finally our project was done so no more borrowing. Guess which tool he got that year for his Christmas present? Shouldn't have been a surprise. Joe was probably more excited because we don't have to borrow his sander anymore.

It was pretty chilly when we decided to start the building process. Kyle loved it, Layne on the otherhand did not {Kyle got to wear his flannel utility shirt, which is probably way he was so excited, which also in Kyle's eyes, is extremely burly shirt}.

The bones of the ottoman. Kyle did a great job building it. Definitely a solid piece of furniture. Heavy as crap. Layne can barely lift it by herself.

The finished product. We love how it turned out. This was Layne's first time covering something all by herself. So, not too bad for the first time, but there are some areas that could use a little more help. We covered it in high dense foam, so it's comfy, yet supportive {just like your favorite undies}. But for us, it's great and does the purpose of being an ottoman: let's us relax by putting our feet up and is a stable spot to hold our beers.

Layne loved the crazy colors and design of the fabric. Fits our lifestyle and design style perfectly. And it adds great color and texture to our apartment. It was so much fun building this together. We love finding old furniture and repurposing it. We've done a couple other projects and hopefully will share them with you, but we wish we had more to do! Hopefully Houston antique shops will have some great finds.