Post-Vacation Blues

Pardon the extra long pause in posting but two weeks ago, we were getting ready for vacation, last week we were on it and this week, well...please see the title of this post.

As you may know, getting back into the daily grind after a glorious vacation ain't exactly a picnic. Every article of clothes you've ever owned needs to be washed and there's a mountain of things waiting for you to get started on after that's all folded and put away. Excuses, excuses, I know. Long and short, sorry for the delay, now we're back in bizness y'all.

So, where were we? The week before vacation was a hectic one. Tying up loose ends, cleaning like crazy, etc. Oh, and This Old House magazine sent a photographer and stylist to little ol' Wichita, Kansas just to take pictures of our bathroom and kitchen!

A little bit about that process...

First of all, the plan is for our house to be in the magazine in the fall sometime so the stylist had a whole color palette all picked out for both the bathroom and the kitchen. As you can see here, my big, new dining room table came in handy that day as it was covered with lots of stuff for the kitchen. What was the palette? Mustard.

Everybody pitched in. Our good friend Alec, who just happens to be a photo assitant here in town was able to pitch in last minute and help out as well. Here's Conan doing his number one favorite thing ever: ironing. I didn't get any great pictures of the bathroom colors because it was crowd-to-the-ed but you can see the cranberry colored towel there and it was bascially just more of the same.

They started in the bathroom because, as I pointed out to them, we kind of don't really have any air conditioning at all up there and as the day went on, it was only going to get hotter. They totally agreed with my suggestion.

Here, the stylist and photographer have a little, post-photo conference over the toilet. You know, like you do.

Also a neat little tidbit, notice that the sketch of Conan's that was above the tub has mysteriously changed? We were told a couple of days before that our nude sketch wasn't very "This Old House" friendly and so it had to go. NBD, I really like this one a lot.

Anywhoodle, we moved down to the kitchen and they styled and snapped and snapped and styled. I somehow managed to not take a single picture of how the kitchen looked (wanted to stay out of the way I guess) but just imagine our kitchen with a lot of yellow-ish, orange-ish stuff in it. Bam! Imagination!

Afterwards, they packed everything back up and hopped a plane out of here.

It was a pretty busy day. Maggie was pooped.

Now then, for those of you still scrolling, a little look at where we were last week!

First, we went to the Great Sand Dunes National Park near Alamosa, CO. It was really unbelievable. We camped overnight and had a blast. We both agree that we wish we had spent more time there.

Then we drove up to Colorado Springs and stayed in this teeny-tiny cabin at the Timber Lodge. We stayed at this same place on our honeymoon. These things are old as dirt and as the lady at the front desk put it, they're "You really better like the person you're staying with." small.

We stopped at Garden of the Gods and had a little stroll. We snapped these pics which I think pretty much perfectly sum up the differences in our personalities. Conan is too cool for school and I am exactly not cool enough for anything, including school. But seriously, that one of Conan is going to make a BA pic when it's accompanying some smarty-pants Geologist thing he's written someday.

On our way out of town, we stopped at the United States Air Force Academy and checked out their chapel and visitor center. It's beautiful (and Free!) if you're ever in the neighborhood.

Then we went up to Estes Park, CO and visited Rocky Mountain National Park for the fourth year in a row. Surprisingly, we only repeated one hike, Long's Peak. This picture is from Twin Sisters. It was super fun and beautiful and all of those things that mountains typically are but I'll spare you any more pictures just in case you're just getting back from a vacation of your own and can't bear to look at another breathtaking vista unobscured by a pile of post-vacation laundry.

Welp, that's all for now! Thanks for catching up with us!