Christine's Home and Travel Adventures: May 2009

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Wet Bar Minor Transformation and Tagged

I can't believe another week passed us by again. Time sure flies when we're having fun, isn't it? Well today is another fun day, Susan at http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/ is hosting Met Monday and it's always fun to see everyone's makeovers. So don't forget to visit her and her many participants to check them out.

We have a mini wet bar between our kitchen and family room. It's so small that 2 people cannot fit in it. It's so small that I cannot store a lot of my bar items either. It has a small cabinet under the right countertop and another one under the sink but that's all. Naturaly I am always on the lookout for ideas on how I can store more of my stemware collection. This is how it used to look.

Then, I found an iron rack on Southern Living at Home catalog and ordered it. I hang it up yesterday and wahlah! Here's how it looks now. It holds 22 pieces of wine glasses now, 2 little Mexican rums, 2 little Russian wooden cups and my Venetian wine decanter set (decanter and 4 cups).

Doesn't it look like it is meant for that cubby hole?

It has a Fleur de lis medalion crown in the center but the decanter is covering it.

Here is the opposite side of the bar, used to be.

Here is how it is now.

This is the view from the family room.

and this is the view from the kitchen. There used to be a door there but I had it taken out because I thought it was just in the way.

I hope you enjoyed my MM contribution. Thanks for coming and thanks Susan, for your time in hosting this event.

Ok now, I owe Kathy of http://mimisgarden.blogspot.com/ for being so late in posting this. She tagged me on April 25th but I was out of town. I was in Chicago so I missed her post. I was cleaning up my mailbox yesterday and found her comment when she said she will tag me on 4/25. I really did not know what that meant so I went to her blog post on that day and found out I had to answer to this photo challenge.

The challenge is this:

Go to your photo files...
Select the 6th photo folder...
Select the 6th photo in that folder...
Post that photo along with the story behind it.
Then challenge 6 blog friends to do the same!

So, that's exactly what I did, went to the 6th folder of my photo folder and then took the 6th photo from that folder and came up with this. Before I go on, I would like to apologize to Kathy. Sorry, Kathy, I hope you believe in "Better late than never"! I did not mean to ignore your tag, I'll pay more attention next time, I promise!

This photo was taken in one of our San Francisco, CA trips, in their China town. It was an art work in one of the buildings and it looks mostly of Chinese children. That's really all I can tell you about it.

Now, I have to challenge 6 other bloggers and I would like to challenge

1. Keetha of http://keethastuff.blogspot.com/

2. Chandy of http://whatnowtablescapes.blogspot.com/

3. Kammy of http://smallhomeinthecountry.blogspot.com/

4. Cindy of http://applestonecottage.blogspot.com/

5. Chari of http://happytodesign.blogspot.com/

6. Kathy of http://mbkatc230-emptynester.blogspot.com/

Thanks, Kathy for thinking of me when you tagged 6 people.

And thank you all for coming by. I always enjoy having you!

Plates Reposted

Today is Sunday and it's time to show off an oldie but goodie post. One of my favorites of course, is my "Plates" post which was originally posted for Wordless Wed. but now I can add words since it's not's Wed. anymore. But before we get into that, I would like to remind you to please do not forget to visit Chari at http://happytodesign.blogspot.com/, who is hosting this fun meme, visit her blog and check out what she's showing us again and all the others who are participating. I've also bought more plates so I am contributing those pics for Sunday Shopping Secrets hosted by Anita at http://bridalblooms4u.blogspot.com/. Don't forget to visit these phenomenal ladies and have fun reading their blogs.

These are Spode Shima plates and I bought a set of 8 servings from Horchow. They were on sale plus an additional $30% off that day so I got them very reasonably.

All these I got from Ebay.

I even have dishes stored in drawers. DH said we have to add a room solely dedicated to all our dishes.

And as I said this post was originally posted for Wordless Wed. on my special day, my birthday, April 29th.

What a coincidence. Today is my birthday and Dixie picked my favorite theme for Wordless Wednesday....PLATES! That's a real treat for me since plates are my favorite items. Yes, I am a dishaholic! I am glad this is wordless cause I don't have much time to talk but I'll just say one more thing. What I am showing you are my plates as they are stored at home.

Please visit Dixie at http://frenchlique.blogspot.com/ and see what everybody else is posting today. It should be a lot of fun. Thanks Dixie for this special treat!

These are our everyday dishes

Friday, May 29, 2009

Honolulu & Pink Lladros

Time for a Saturday double post: Sightseeing and Pink Saturday. Pink Saturday is hosted by Beverly of http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/. Please visit Chandy at http://whatnowtablescapes.blogspot.com/. She has some sights that she wants to share with us too. She is usually ready with her post at midnight, central time.

Now, let's go to Hawaii for a little sightseeing, let's go to Honolulu in the island of Oahu. This was the first time we ever took my granddaughter AJ, on a vacation so a lot of the photos are focused on her. She was 5. I had to really convince her parents to let her go because the trip was almost 2 weeks long and they knew they would miss her a lot. But I was pretty persuasive and I finally succeeded, insisted it was educational for her.

We went to theRoyal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki Beach to attend a reception party. We passed by it everyday because we stayed at Sheraton which was right next to it. Hey this pic qualifies for Pink Sat.! Do you think we could pass for Hawaiians? Click and enlarge the pic and tell me what you think.

There's AJ right outside our hotel. She swam every single day and never got tired of it.

The hotel had a program for kids and we registered her and everyday they would have different fun activities, like hula dancing lessons, building a volcano on the beach and she even learned to speak some Japanese words after playing with lots of Japanese kids. I was so amazed when one day we were walking to the pool and when a Japanese woman walked towards us, AJ said "Kunichua!" to her and the Japanese said "Kunichua" back. I asked her "What was that?" and she said she was saying "Hello" to her. I thought that was so cute coming from a little 5 year old.

Site along Waikiki Beach

the beautiful beach

The flea market was a walking distance from the hotel and it was AJ's and my favorite hangout while John was in meetings. They had daily hula shows there which we enjoyed a lot.

and best of all, the shows were free.

We rented a convertible and drove to the Dole Pineapple Plant.

Our little Pineapple Princess!

We passed by this on our way to Hanauma Bay to go snorkeling. It was one of the most beautiful sites that I have ever seen and we just had to stop. I am not really sure what it is called but you know I have seen it on one of the TV show "Lost" locations. Please click to enlarge the picture and you'll know what I mean.

And here's Hanauma Bay. It has the most beautiful fish and reefs.

There is a funny story to this photo. One evening, about midnight, AJ suddenly came up with an idea of making money, to buy stuff and sell them for a profit. She asked John to take her to the store, so late at night, they both went (I refused to go because I was already in my pj's). They came back with a bunch of Hawaiian souvenir key chains. The next day, while waiting for the tour bus to take us for a whale watching cruise, the 2 of them were peddling these keychains. LOL! And she sold quite a few and I could not believe it. After all, these tourists could just go to nearby stores and buy them at 1/2 the price cause they were everywhere. Then I found out why she was selling them. John was secretly giving the money to the tourists to buy a keychain from her. LOL! But you know, some of them would not accept the money and just bought anyway, just to please the little girl. Aren't they nice?

Have you ever seen a shirt big enough to fit 3 people?

That's the boat that took us whale watching and it was truly amazing to see the whales in action.

During a catamaran sailing, AJ insisted on staying at the end of a netted floor. I was getting nervous so I asked John to stay there to hold her leg.

Here's one of the views we saw during our sail. It was so breathtaking.

AJ enjoyed her little surf board.

I hope you enjoyed the sights of Honolulu as we did. Thank you for joining me today for another Saturday sightseeing.

And now for Pink Saturday! First I would like to wish Beverly a Happy Anniversary and a big congratulations for having a very successful year! And don't forget to visit her blog and all the other participants. It will be a treat. Thank you so much, Beverly, for hosting this wonderful meme.

For today, I would like to show you 2 of my pink Lladro figurines. The first one is the one on the right below. She is "The Dreamer" and she was originally issued in 1978.