Spiffin' Up The Place

This weekend, my good friend Liz came in to visit me (okay, and her mom) all the way from Honolulu. Liz is married to Avery, and Avery's in the Navy. They're stationed at Pearl Harbor. Tough gig, eh?

Liz & I at her wedding in December.

A few months ago, I was on the phone with Liz and she was telling me that she misses the mainland more often than she thought, and that particular week being so far from home was really getting to her. (What? You mean being stuck on an island in the middle of the Pacific doesn't scream 'heavenly'?) Liz said that she missed Illinois and really wished she could make it home for a week, but she and Avery just couldn't afford the trip. Then, about 2 hours later, Liz wrote on my facebook page, "I just booked my flight home for June!" It turns out that she called her mom right after our conversation ended and she found a really cheap flight to Chicago! I was beyond excited to see her again. College made visiting one another quite easy--just a quick trip downstairs to say hello. I saw Liz briefly last spring, and then it was another 8 months before we flew to Honolulu for her wedding. Once we left, we didn't know when we were going to see one another again. It was a great surprise and a wonderful visit to look forward to!

Liz came to visit us at home yesterday. I was fine with meeting her in the middle, but she said, "No, you came to Honolulu. I owe you a visit to YOUR home." So she drove the hour down from O'Hare to visit. We had a great time! We ordered pizza and played Trivial Pursuit (Graham won) and just caught up on life. She looks good, and it was wonderful to see her.

Another great thing about her visit is that we got to deep clean our apartment. It's normally pretty clean but we needed to spiff it up anyway, and this was a good reason to scrub behind the toilet and straighten up. :-) In addition to cleaning up, we also got some special photos framed and hung up. For my birthday gift, Graham let me pick my favorite photos from our trip to Hawaii and got them framed. It was such a difficult decision! I had a really hard time narrowing it down! I chose 5 photos and I kept changing my mind once I "made my decision."

We also had a painting framed. We picked this up on our second to last day in Maui. There was an art fair being held under the Banyan tree on Front Street, and we were both drawn in by the work of "D. Marie" (Her name's Dorothy). We picked a painting and since we returned I've been dying to get it framed and hung up. We dropped everything off at the store last week and finally got them back earlier this week. Right now, the painting is in our living room.

Painting of a waterfall on the road to Hana.

The 5 photos are currently in the bathroom. We've got a beach theme going on in there and these compliment the bathroom really well. It also gives our guests something to look at (as opposed to staring at the dirty floor).

You'll have to pretend the glare isn't there....I took the photos at night and couldn't avoid the flash from the camera.

I'm really glad we got them framed and now that they're hung up, it helps make the place look a little more settled. The photos definitely add some character to the restroom, and the painting helps fill in a large gap on the wall in the living room. Now we just need to add some photos from a few weddings we have coming up and we're all set!