Taiwan!! (wait, nope, not Taiwan)

I have been too intimidated by this post to begin it much earlier. If I were smart, I would have posted every night while I was there, just so I could remember what we did each day. I'm not that smart of a blogger, I guess. Because when I think back to it, I find myself just overwhelmed at the amazing, once-in-a-lifetime trip that I was so lucky/blessed/spoiled to be able to take. To see my parents so out of their comfort zone, yet so comfortable, was amazing. They are simple people, I've kind of always thought I had them figured out, but seeing them there & all the growth they've experienced individually and as a couple was nothing short of inspiring.
But before I get into that, I'd like to brag for a minute about another REEdiculously amazing person- my husband. I don't talk about Matt nearly enough on this blog. I'm not really a mushy person, but he is a pure God-send in my life on a daily basis. While I was in Taiwan, Matt was working his brains out. With the drop in mortgage rates, he gets crazy busy toward each month's end, and this month was no exception. I guess there were a couple of days where he went to work at like 3am, and 6 am on most other days, and came home at 11 pm on others. It was crazy. Well, I had a sneaking suspicion that he would get the carpet installed while I was away, but after hearing about his week, I thought there was no way it'd would happen & I was just setting myself up to be disappointed. When I finally got home though, I could smell the freshly laid carpet as soon as I walked in the door. Yummy! Sawyer and I went down to take the grand tour & were completely floored. I cried. I don't think I could have gotten as much done in a week if I had a flock of midgets to help me. He had the carpet installed, the tile laid, moved all the furniture in storage (half of the garage) into the appropriate rooms, assembled both my cute Ikea desks/shelves, assembled Sawyer's play table, organized all our holiday decorations into the closets in our guest rooms, moved the bed from the guest room upstairs into the guest room downstairs, moved the crib & baby furniture from the basement to the room that will one day be a nursery again, made a beautiful framed chalkboard on the wall in my office, drew a beautiful "welcome home" mural on that chalkboard, (that's the part that made me bawl my eyes out) cleaned out & organized the garage, had my car's brakes changed, left the house very nice & tidy, scraped out all the dead spots in our yard & arranged for our neighbor to give us some sod to replace it. That's a whole paragraph worth of stuff. He is amazing. All this while working like 70 hours. How's that for making me feel incredibly loved and spoiled while at the same time completely inefficient? Oh, and he peeled all the yucky gunk off the counter in the bathroom. (that alone would have been a week's worth of work for me.) Oh and he also got up at 1:30 am for me so he could go online & reserve me a better seat on the plane; on a day he had to get up at 3 am.
Wow, I think that's all I have juice for tonight. I'll post about Taiwan tomorrow. I love my husband. Here are some pictures of the beautiful, finally finished basement.This is the main room at the bottom of the stairs. I adore this couch. I love that I have a separate cake kitchen! Still need to get appliances & the flat screen, and some blackout curtains.
This is Sawyer's playroom under the stairs, which she is completely in love with. She's actually sleeping down there tonight, it's so cute. And don't ask me why, but I get an office. I am super excited to have a room of my own. I am experiencing zero buyer's remorse for these desks either. One will have my computer on it, and the other will host my sewing machine. I feel super cool and spoiled to have this area all to myself.In my office, I have a little desk for Sawyer to play at while I work, it's pretty much the greatest thing ever, with it's big roll of butcher paper and all. The craft organizer on the wall ain't too bad either. Thank you Pottery Barn clearance!This is the gorgeous chalkboard I wasn't expecting at all. I was just going to paint the entire wall with chalkboard paint, but Matt had this great idea to frame it, and I freaking LOVELOVELOVE it! What a babe.
This is the furnished guest room. I had a nap down there & didn't make the bed yet. Don't judge. This is the as yet unfurnished guest room. We are debating buying ourselves a king size bed & putting ours down there, but I really, really love our mattress & am scared of buying a new one. And this is the only thing I'm not in love with, the bathroom. I had a picture I'd torn out of magazine & was totally going to re-create it, but I forgot that we changed the cabinet color at the last minute. So when they called to schedule the installation, I hurried real fast & painted this green color so that I wouldn't have to do it with the cabinets installed, but I forgot that we switched up the color & the green isn't working for me with these cabinets. Boo. I'm dumb. So what color should I paint?
Anyway, there's the basement. Brought to you buy Matt. I'll do Taiwan tomorrow. 'night.