wallpaper download

well, i am back. it was a very lovely trip full of sun and laughter and great memories. it was nice to relax and (almost) completely unplug from life. we stayed at a resort just south of cancun, in a little area called puerto morelos. it was really beautiful and uncrowded and serene, and perfect for a girls getaway.


i left sunny mexico sunday morning, and arrived in salt lake city later that evening to a LOT of snow...more snow than we have seen in a couple of years. (the framers measured 21 inches)
because a lot of leaves were still on the trees, there are broken tree limbs everywhere!
 the snow has slowed down the framers a bit. they spent nearly all day yesterday shoveling snow out of the house so they could continue to work. by the end of the week, we SHOULD have some walls on the second floor up, and maybe even a few of the roof rafters in place. i am not getting my hopes up though...i know the cold weather and the snow will make things tough.
still, things are moving along faster than i expected, and i am pretty darn thrilled!

guess where i will be the rest of the week?
yep. thats right.
south of the border....
i am getting away for a girls weekend in sunny mexico. yeee-haw!
(a HUGE thank you to my sweet husband, who just may be the worlds greatest dad. 
not only does he coach almost all of my kids sports teams, he is the family safety "enthusiast" and is that dad that makes everyone laugh and feel at ease. he is taking off some time from work this week to be mr. mom so i can get away. oh, and on top of that, he has spent 40+ hours over the  last two weekends at our new house/lot doing manual labor. love that man!)

in addition to beautiful beaches, and tons of culture, mexico is also home to some pretty amazing design. take a peek inside the celeste teahouse, located in mexico city, mexico:


aren't you in love with the striped tiles?



another source of fantastic design is the mexico based husband/wife design team behind casamidy.
i have been in LOVE (deeply and madly) with everything that casamidy produces for YEARS now.
i wrote an extensive post on them a while ago, which you can read here, but here are a few of

adios amigos.
be back soon!

it is hard to believe that we just finished our second week of construction on our new house!
a lot happened last week:
 at the end of last week, the foundation walls were in place, and the framers were scheduled to start on monday.

 seeing the framing start was so exciting!



 they started in the basement, with the bearing walls and the stair well.

 and then the joists were laid and the decking went on.

 the foundation walls were waterproofed...

 and the areas around the foundation, as well as the garage were backfilled and compacted.
 the window wells went up over the weekend...

 and a few walls that were laid out on friday...

were put up yesterday! it was SO thrilling to pull up to the lot and see the walls up.
we have been officially under construction for 16 days, and i am pretty amazed at the progress.
of all of the phases of construction, my favorite is the framing and the drywalling, because such HUGE visual changes take place.
i am actually going to be out of town at the end of the week, so i am going to miss some of the progress....but since i will be sitting on a beach with a book, i suppose i will manage!
more on my trip in a bit...