thankful

Thanksgiving was over 2 weeks ago already! and Christmas is less than 2 weeks away! What happened to this year? The Man and I have barely begun to shop for x-mas gifts and time is running out!

We had 3 Thanksgivings this year, 2 in Portland with various family members and our traditional Thanksgiving in southern California on the actual day.  It was beautiful and fun as always and also as always I waited until the night before we left to paint my nails...

So to cut down on stress I went with a simple "thankful" on my finger nails and spent most of my time working on the little cooked turkeys on my thumbs

I added shading and a little bit of greenery on the plate and they turned out pretty nice!

Now on to the Christmas nails......

nautical nails

A few weeks back The Man and I went to a fancy Connecticut wedding, it was at a Yacht Club and everything

So as a nod to the little boating town we were staying in I went with nautical themed nails

It was rainy and windy the whole time we were there so I only got a few pictures (you can actually see the raindrops on the nails if you look close!).

We got back home and things got busy, but I managed to take a few more pictures before they chipped.  I was actually quite surprised how long they lasted, it was about 2 weeks!!

easter ... a lot late

Ok, I know Easter was a week and a half ago, but we were visiting New York on Easter weekend, and with all the people to see and meals to eat I never got a chance to sit down and post my Easter nails. So we're all just going to have to deal with some belated bunny butts..

I toyed with making the solid colored nails matte, but just like this post I never got around to doing it. I think it would have made them look more like Easter candies (like Robbins Eggs which are my absolute favorite!)

I started painting the stacked up bunnies and after staring at them too long I was afraid they looked more like cats but then one of the girls at work thought they were those bunny peeps (the marshmallow candies) and I got really excited.  I wasn't even going for peeps but it's so Easter!!

happy belated holidays!

And we're back!

The Man and I got back home yesterday from visiting my family in Portland.  I meant to post many things over Christmas, like my nails, and our holiday decorations, but when you're having fun with family and friends it's hard to break away and stare at a computer screen for a few hours.

This Christmas I painted a pink tree (because I've always wanted one, but The Man would never approve) and some festive ornaments on my nails.

And of course, the second we got on the plane and I was no longer near my nail supplies they started to chip like crazy.  Sometimes they'll last a little over a week, but this time they were gone before we opened our stockings on Christmas morning.

We had a wonderful time in Portland, we tried to see all our friends, but as usual the days went too quickly and we missed a few.  But on our last day we did manage to take our favorite drive up the Columbia River Gorge.

I hope you all had a lovely holiday week 

turkey day mani

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

The Man and I are in California for Turkey Day, we're enjoying the sun and trying not to let our colds put a damper on our vacation.

This year I got some inspiration for my thanksgiving nails from @mllrdesign's argyle nail design.

I used single chevron NailVinyls (which are basically pre-cut tape for doing lines) for the initial diamond shapes and then went free-hand from there.  The NailVinyls make things go so much faster, I ordered a few different ones (i.e. circles, straight lines and zigzags) so I'm looking forward to incorporating them into future designs.

I wasn't sure what to do with the pinky nail, and I wish I had just covered the whole nail in pink glitter polish, but once I realized I wanted to change them we were already on the plane to LA.

Have a wonderful day with your family and friends!
Gobble Gobble!

happy 4th

Happy Independence Day!!!

We're spending this weekend in sunny beautiful San Diego.  Our friends are getting married tomorrow and the rest of our trip we'll be with family.

Here are my Fourth of July nails...

This year I did the traditional flag nails, but I also painted rocket popsicles and put some star sequins on blue and red gradient nails.

This is my favorite holiday to do nails art for.  I've had such a blast every year trying to think of something new. Like last years' American BBQ nails.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day filled with hamburgers and fireworks!!

mani monday

Happy Monday Y'all!

We've been in New York this weekend and it's been a blast!
It's such a fun place to visit.

Last year when we came out to NY I painted a skyline on my nails, so this year I wanted to do something a little less predictable…

Ghostbusters Nails!!!!

I spent way too long on these bad boys, but it was a lot of fun to do, and totally worth it.

I've got the logo, the stay puft marshmallow man, slimer, the statue of liberty (with ghostbuster's in her hat playing some lovin' tunes), and a river of pink goo running down the subway tunnels.

I'm pretty proud of these ones, I think they might be some of the best yet!

We go back home tomorrow, and I am excited to sleep in my own bed, but I'll really miss our wonderful New York friends and their busy city.

portland mani

Well, I definitely missed Monday.

We got back from our trip to Portland on Tuesday afternoon and I already miss it like crazy.  We had such a great time, it was one of the best trips home I've ever had.  Amazing food, fantastic company, and it was above 40 degrees!!

For our trip I painted my nails as a homage to the soon to be replaced Portland Airport carpet.

#pdxcarpet has over 4,000 photos on instagram, it's really funny how intense people have gotten over it.  Poor little airport just wants to do a little updating and the weird world of Portlandians goes wild.  Only a few of my friends recognized the pattern, but it was worth the response I got from strangers on instagram.

So you might be thinking, jeeze Aly, you got that background color way wrong!  But in reality the carpet is more like the photo below.  It was hard to get a good picture of the nails without the light distorting the carpet color, so I took the photo below on the way home (when I had a little more time and we weren't itching to get out of the airport).

Oh Portland… I'll love you forever and ever.

merry holidays to you

Hello from sunny Hawaii.

We're here visiting The Morning Man's family in his home town of Honolulu, and I thought I'd take a quick break from the island breeze to wish you a Merry Christmas.  I hope you are all having a wonderful day with the ones you love, far away from this distracting internet.

Before we left on Saturday I painted my nails.  I tried to go big for the holidays but half way through I got much too tired and so hand #2 is a bit of a cop-out.

 I went with Santa and his sleigh dropping presents down on Hawaii for the left hand. Then 1am hit and I tried falling presents and snow for the right.

I hope you all got everything you wanted this year, and I'll see you next week, back on the "Mainland."

Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I hope you're all having a wonderful dinner with family and friends.

We're in California with The Man's family having a blast in the sunshine.

Cheers!

portland: a city of food

It's been 2 weeks since we got back from our trip to Portland, and I already miss it.

It was a wonderful, and at times very stressful, trip.  The first few days were spent preparing for Kalie's wedding, but after Saturday it was all about relaxing and eating fantastic food!

Seriously the only photos I have of the trip are either of food or my cats, so here are the places we ate...

Sunday morning we woke up and drove out to Montavilla to eat breakfast at RedWood, a new restaurant that just opened in January. It was pretty delicious but it was nothing compared to Country Cat, which is only a half block away.

The best part of breakfast was, hands down, the Oatmeal waffles we ordered for the table.

I'm pretty sure that they were deep fried.  They had the perfect crunch and the most delicious flavor.

Monday we woke up with the intention of going to ____ for breakfast.  But after waiting outside for 20 minutes with no one to tell us how much longer it would take we decided to ditch that plan and head over to Helser's on Alberta.

My favorite part of the meal was the Scotch Egg I ordered on the side.

I Love Scotch Eggs!! It's like the perfect breakfast all wrapped up and deep fried.  Just add a dab of mustard and you're good to go!

After Helser's we headed down to Sellwood to meander around some antique stores and we stopped into Jade Bistro to grab a cup of tea.

The food looked so delicious that, even though we had just finished breakfast, The Man ordered a barbecue pork bao.

We didn't have time to go back for a real meal, but it's definitely on the list for next time we visit.

Our last full day in town we had our traditional Fat City Cafe breakfast, and it was perfect, as usual.

After pancakes, sausage, and chicken fried steak. We headed to Wieden and Kennedy to visit our awesome new friend Krystin.  I haven't been in side WK since I was 12 years old so it was great to get a little tour of the place. 

The entire building is filled with beautiful architecture, but what's really cool about Wieden & Kennedy are the unusual installations and various art pieces they choose to display within their office. 

Like the above photo. This is the Nest.  Completed in 2006, The Nest is a permanent installation by Patrick Dougherty.  It serves as creative meeting space, and from what I'm told it's also the interview space.  Inside The Nest is a large felt "sofa" and "pillows" created by Ja Felt to look like boulders.

Below is an installation created by the students of 12, an experimental school at Wieden & Kennedy.  The graphic is spelled out using over 100,000 clear pushpins, and if you look closely you can see the one red pushpin among the rest, a little metaphor if you will.

 As always our trip was too short, and I can't wait until I get to go back home again.

mani monday

Long time no post!

Well, The Man and I got back from our Portland vacation on Wednesday night, and since then we've just been cleaning up the messes that are inevitably created when we leave (both work and home).  It's amazing how much happens when you leave home for a few days!

The wedding was on Saturday and it went off, although I wouldn't say without a hitch!
I painted my nails to go with the wedding "colors," Navy, Burlap and Lace:

 My best friend got married to a wonderful English Man and I cried like a baby.

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend!

we're baaack {our mexico trip}

It's been one week since The Man and I got back from Mexico and I'm (finally) ready to tell you all about it! 
Get ready for a photo heavy post!

We went to Mexico because my life long family friend Nicole and her now hubby Mike decided to have a destination wedding in Playa Del Carmen.  It was such a wonderful trip and I am so thankful to Nicole and Mike for giving me a reason to go on a week-long vacation.

Our first day there we went straight from the check-in desk to a pontoon! The Bride and Groom were really awesome and organized a few excursions for anyone who wanted to join.  It made it so much easier to see things outside of the resort.

So, with barely any sleep and almost no food in our stomachs we went out into the Caribbean Sea to go snorkeling.  Besides the sea-sickness it was fantastic!!!  I've never been snorkeling before, and at first it was a little uncomfortable but once I got used to it I didn't want to get out.

We saw so many schools of fish and a giant stingray and a big adorable turtle!!

The next day we all went to Tulum and Coba.

Tulum was beautiful...and scorching hot.  Most of our party wore swimsuits under their clothes and jumped in the ocean as soon as we got there.  My parents and I weren't that prepared and decided to find a shady spot to sit and enjoy our surroundings.

My favorite part of that day was when we were all let off the bus to go find something for lunch. The Man, my parents, and I all decided to break away from the crowd and wander down the road a bit.  We stopped at La Bisteca where my parents ordered steak tacos and The Man and I had choripan (an Argentinian sausage sandwich). It. Was. Delicious.  So amazingly delicious!!

The resort we stayed at was "all-inclusive" so the all-you-can-eat buffets and restaurants weren't really trying that hard, if you know what I mean.  All we wanted all week long was authentic Mexican food and we got it at La Bisteca.

After lunch was Coba.  The great thing about Coba is they're not as determined to preserve the ruins so you can climb all over them! Unlike Tulum, Coba is surrounded by jungle so it was really nice and cool while we were walking around.  However, Coba is large, and very spread out, and, like most places in Mexico, there are no maps. So when The Man and I got back to the bus we soon found out what we had missed.

Apparently the reason to go to Coba is the giant ruin that towers over the trees, which you can climb all the way to the top of.  Most people in our group took bicycle taxis around the ruins so they could see all of it, but The Man and I lost the group and my parents (holding all the money) within the first 5 minutes of entering the park.  It was kind of a bummer once we saw how beautiful everyone's pictures were, but maybe now we have a reason to go back one day :)!

The fam and I aren't really resort people so we tried to get out a little bit everyday.  Friday there was nothing pre-planned so we took a taxi into town.  It was pretty and fun to see more of Mexico, but we got tired of being attacked by all the store owners trying to sell us tchotchkes and decided we'd have more fun in the pool.

For the most part we all hung out and ate together, but that night The Man and I decided to have a little date night.  We went to the Japanese restaurant at the resort and sat at the grill, like you would at a Benihana.  I’ve never been to a place like that so it was really fun.

Saturday was the wedding.  It was beautiful.

Surprise, surprise, I was a blubbering mess.  Nicole was beyond gorgeous in her wedding dress and the hotel did a beautiful job with the flowers.  The ceremony was on the beach and the reception was held in the Italian restaurant (which was the best restaurant at the resort).  The food was delicious and everyone had a blast dancing the night away.

The last day was my Mom's birthday.  She got a sneak attack saxophone serenade for breakfast, complete with a napkin hat.

And in the afternoon we decided to go to Cozumel for lunch... that's when I realized I don't like big boats! I got super sea-sick, like shaky, sweaty, up-chucky, about to pass-out sea-sick!

Apart from the dock workers recognizing me as that sick crying girl on the way back, Cozumel was beautiful and I wish we could have stayed longer.  We went to our friend's hotel restaurant for lunch and I'm glad we did!  It was the second delicious Mexican meal we had in Mexico, with juicy steak, seafood, and enchiladas!  The ferry back to Playa Del Carmen was at 5, so we headed to the resort for one last dinner together.

Mom got her birthday full moon and in the morning we said our goodbyes.

It really was a wonderful trip, I'm so happy we went!

p.s....I caught the Bouquet!!