surprise!

well, it's been 2 1/2 weeks since levi left. i think we are surviving well enough, no one is permanently scarred, mentally or physically. ;) but still, a month is a long time. nothing like realizing you take the one day a week he's home for dinner for granted until you have nothing for a looong time. 

in any case, we have been traveling to fresno {that's a separate blog post}, online window shopping way too much after bedtime, and watching trashy movies that really should not have been made. but, i did manage to squeeze time into our busy schedule to surprise my spouse, mid connection in washington dc, on his way to raleigh. 

it. was. awesome. my dad actually suggested it, which he probably regretted after i asked him to watch the beasts for the weekend, but he did so, so willingly, i might add. one of my fabulous friends is a flight attendant for united, and she got me some ridiculously cheap standby tickets to leave friday night at 10:30 and get in to dc before levi does and then ride together to raleigh. 

side note: standby is the worst. soooo nerve wracking! luckily, i made it just barely onto my flights, we're talking dead last on the plane, praying people miss their connections so i could have a seat. ugghh! i will not do that again!

i landed there at 3:00 our time, which was unfortunate, because i was just so excited/nervous/praying he got on his standby flights, that i didn't sleep at all. 

so anyways. i waited for levi at the tram in between gates, because i could stalk him with "find my friends" i knew where he was. unfortunately for him, he didn't see me standing there, so i went up behind him and grabbed his butt. it was hilarious. and took him about 10 minutes to recover. 

we made it to raleigh, sitting next to each other even, and got our rental car and immediately went to cracker barrel. only the most amazing restaurant on the planet. i have a lot of memories there from going with my family on our way down to myrtle beach every summer. it was great. i'm pretty sure all of my clean eating done while he was gone was wasted on our two days eating out at amazing places. {love me some southern cooking!}

cracker barrel breakfast spread. nom nom nom. 

i could not believe how cheap everything was there! all of our meals cost us less than $10 a person, and that included drinks. it was crazy. and delicious. but mostly crazy. 

we spent the weekend slowing falling in love with north carolina. or quickly. whatevs. but it was uh-mazing. when we applied to dental school, i kept telling levi to apply to the east coast, and he would respond with "ehhh" or "hummm... maybe". so he didn't. i'm so glad i got to show him what an amazing place it really is, because i absolutely love it. 

the hospital where the residency program is. it promptly dumped buckets on us as soon as we parked. warm rain-- it's amazing!! 

it didn't take him long to love it either. the green, the open space, the cheeaaaaap housing market, the amazing ward, the less crazy hours of the residency program, the boating lake very close, myrtle beach 3 hours away, the thunderstorms. ahhh. for the first time ever, i think we mutually agreed on a place we absolutely would love to live. i think it's become our first choice actually. it was great. i don't have enough good things to say about that place. 

as for our weekend, it was like our honeymoon, except better. i can't tell you the last time we went away alone, you appreciate it so much more when you don't get to do it often. unfortunately, levi had two weeks left, and i had to go save my dad, so it was a quick quick trip but a good break from two weeks alone talking to babies! now if only the rest of it would go quick!

don't mind our/my hideous face/hair in these pics. man, i hate my haircut! i'll blame it on getting off the airplane. but at least my spouse is hawt. 

it was an amazing weekend, hopefully it's a sign of what's to come, because i want to move there stat!! accept my husband oh mighty residency program! 

the last hurrah.

as most of you stalkers know, levi left for a month on the 14th to go be super awesome and do two externships at hospitals in Indiana and North Carolina. it was the great and terrible day we've all been dreading-- and by we, i mean me, because who wants to be alone with children voluntarily for a month? not that i don't love them. side note: single moms/army wives/ anyone who spends a lot of time away from the spouse-- i'm so amazed by you. like seriously impressed. it's hard work man!

sooo the spouse and i took advantage of some amazing babysitters and spent thursday night and friday day together alone. without children. it was glorious. 

we started out thursday celebrating being done with finals/the end of the second year of dental school {whaa?}/father's day by going to seafood. which turned out to be just lobster. i'm not a huge lobster fan, but levi was in heaven and it was his day, so whatevs. i got the lobster corn chowder and that was pretty tasty. 

he was very excited to crack open this big guy. and it was nice to sit alone. and talk to each other since finals is always such a fun time in all of our lives. boo to school. yeah to only one more year! 

after that we just went to the movies, one of our favorite past times, especially since we don't get to do it very frequently anymore. we saw now you see me, which was actually very interesting. the ending wasn't my fav, but it kept you guessing. 

friday, we decided to check off things on the bucket list we didn't care if the kids did with us. so we started at coit tower, which is basically a lighthouse on land. it was interesting. only downside is that there is glass on all the windows at the top so it's hard to take pictures with the city in the back. 

levi shaved his beard off so he didn't have to bring his clippers to his externship and it's blowing my mind. i didn't realize how much i liked the beard until it was gone. something sexy about good facial hair. raaawr. 

 it's a pretty amazing view from the top on a sunny day. i don't know if i would pay to go up to the top again, but you know. you gotta do touristy things at least once. =) 

next we went to lunch at ghirardelli square, one of my favs. we had lunch at the diner there, and then stopped by for ice cream for dessert. nothing like not having to share/wipe dirty hands when you're eating delicious things. nom nom nom. 

ever since we moved here, levi has been dying to drive down lombard street. dying i tell you. every time we go in to the city, the line to go down it is horrific so i say no. but it was perfect that day. and because i'm an amazing photographer, i got some pretty good ones while riding on the back of a bike. it's pretty cool, i would hate to live there though. how annoying to have to wait to drive down a curvy road with tons of tourists. 

 i had a fabulous time hanging out with my spouse before he left. i miss that. someday we'll be able to go on dates whenever we want. and some other he'll come home from being gone forever!! we're surviving, but miss our favorite dad/lover. 

how to antique ikea crap.

i've had a few people ask how i redid our dressers the past couple weeks, so i figured i would do a post on it, so that it can be here for all posterity to see.

i'm so glad i did it. hauling all of them downstairs to the garage was annoying, and having our clothes all over our room was also annoying, but the end result. ahhhhh. they go so much better with my vibe. 

we have the ikea malm bedroom set, because we were poor college students when we bought them, oh wait, we still are, yet we had no real taste. i tried to get new ones out of my husband.... buuuut he refused quite quickly and told me to deal with it. please, as if i deal with things. i make them better. for under $100 i was able to re-vamp our two night stands, and two dressers, which may seem like a lot to you, but our dresser at ikea is now on sale for $150, so it really did save us a lot of money. plus, they aren't hideous now, so i will be satisfied with them for longer. hehe

getting on with it. it's suuupppper easy to antique ikea stuff. because it's laminate furniture, paint doesn't stick very well to it, so when you want it to look chipped, ta-dah! easy peasy! 

** i apologize for crappy iphone pics. i couldn't find my sd card for my camera. dang children**

before: so incredibly cool looking. 

after reading several how-to's, i found that you needed a shellac based primer to paint laminate. here's the thing though: when you sand it down at the end, the primer does its job well, and you will be sanding through an additional color before you get to the laminate, which can look kind of weird. my solution:

step one: do a somewhat crappy coat of primer-- 

enough to coat the furniture, but not make the whole thing entirely white. 

**this is very very smelly. do it someplace ventilated, or where you don't have to breathe in the toxins!!**

 sidenote: if you just want to repaint and not antique them, do full coats of primer. the object of this is to be able to get the paint off, which is why you use less. 

you're supposed to let that dry for 24 hours before you paint it, so do that.

step two: paint. 

spray paint and i are bff's. don't judge. it's the same quality of paint as paint out of a can, it just leaves no brush strokes and is a lot less messy. use it. you won't be disappointed.

i typically use valspar or rustoleum. buy a higher end paint, if you don't, you'll end up needing to use more to cover. these run about $3-4 a can. and i think i used about 1 can per nightstand and about 2 per dresser.

first coat:

 second coat:

 third coat:

tips: spray the top first, let it dry, then lay it down on it's sides to prevent dripping. obviously, that's more challenging for a dresser, but it works well for a night stand.

spray about 12 inches away from the dresser. that will also help not dripping. you want a fine mist going on, not giant lines of paint.

after your paint has dried sufficiently, i would give it at least 6 hours or so, it's time to do my favorite part. sand!

step three: sand. 

i used sheets from my sander to do i. mine were medium grit, but you can use fine as well, it depends on how you want the "antiquing" to look.

when i start, i rub horizontally and vertically along the entire drawer. that scuffs it up a bit, then i do circles, so it doesn't look like i purposely put all these lines on it.

after you do that, you can gently sand specific areas down to get the distressed look. there is no right or wrong way to do it, except that you don't want to take off a whole chunk of paint, so the lighter the touch, the better.

after you are done sanding to your liking, the final step:

step four: seal. 

you must use this sealer-- the valspar one does not cover as smooth. spray two coats of this on to your dresser to seal your hard work and give it a glossy sheen. make sure you get all the dust off before you paint again!

step five: knob it. 

i wanted knobs on mine to make it look a little less like "ikea crap painted over". so if you do, you want your husband to drill holes in yours for you to put them in. for the dressers, we put two in each, for the nightstands, just one.

i bought mine from anthropologie on sale. because i am too cheap to pay $12 a piece for knobs, i go to their sale items and pick from my options. $2.95 a piece FTW!

{this was the most expensive part of the process, if you want to do it cheap, just paint it and call it good}

 and then: voila! 

the final product! i'm so happy with them! obviously, they aren't true vintage-y style nightstands due to their shape, so i did the best i could with what i had.

when i showed my spouse he said "ew. it looks like the paint is falling off of those. i don't like it". win for me, because that's exactly the look i was going for. haha! not too shabby for ikea eh?? 

after i finished those ones, i couldn't wait to do my dressers. they were supposed to be grey, i think the paint turned into being a little more blue than i would have liked, but oh well. 

now to finish organizing our room, now that i am done terrorizing it. i hope you decide to upgrade your college student furniture too!