A Makeover

Before (what our house looked like when we bought it):
In-Between (what it looked like for two years- we had to replace the windows and front door before we moved in):

After (painted the outside, paved the rest of the driveway):

Of all the remodeling projects we (well, mostly Mike) have undertaken since buying our little fixer-upper, painting the exterior has definitely been one of the most grueling. We (again, mostly Mike) spent the better part of the month of June sanding and painting our little hearts out. Butch was a superstar from start to finish as always, but my lifelong fear of ladders got the best of me at times so I devoted myself to important tasks like standing on the front lawn complaining that the shade of taupe we chose looked too warm or stressing over what color to paint the front door. At one point I was mixing paint from various sample cans to try and create the apple green I pictured in my mind. Shiz got crazy. But now that it's finished I'm really happy with the outcome. The photos don't really do it justice (probably because there were shadows everywhere when I took them) but the paint job takes at least twenty years off the place. And I did finally find the perfect color for the door (offbeat green by Sherwin Williams).

In other house updates, I finally found a chair for my living room after looking for one since I wrote this post. I’ve come to the realization that in order to have a decent looking home you need to spend either time or money, and both are constantly in short supply at the Cassity house. Which is why it took me roughly ten months to find this little beauty at the overstock.com warehouse sale:

At first Butch was a little hesitant about this chair but after he saw that it reclined he was sold. Is it pretty lame of me to be blogging about a chair? I’m thinking it probably is. But such are the small accomplishments that make up my life these days.

If anyone is interested, we are selling the old chair. Details here.

You'll also say fewer swear words when you drop it for the millionth time

Sometimes it pays to have a phone that looks like this:

And not like this:

Like when your phone happens to fall out of your pocket as you’re making your way through the swarm of people at a free Bright Eyes concert. Because your phone is not password-protected, the person who finds it will text random numbers in your contacts to inform them of the situation, and when you call your phone after discovering its disappearance he will kindly offer to meet up with you so you can reclaim it. But just when you start thinking how lucky you are to have found a Good Samaritan in this sea of drugged-out hipsters, he will say “you’re lucky it wasn’t an iphone or something. I probably would have just kept it.” Classy.

So maybe the real hero of this story is Butch. Who, after discovering that the reason my phone wasn’t charging a few months ago was not because it is an old piece of crap but because I had somehow managed to melt chocolate into it, said “this is why we shouldn’t get you nice things.” Wise words, husband.

"It's not even worth going if we miss the previews"

The title of this post refers to my response when people imply that missing the previews before a movie is not a big deal. The fact of the matter is that I live and die by the previews. More so now that I average about 2.5 trips to the movie theater per year and in spite of the fact that every movie trailer is now posted on YouTube. So when we saw Planet of the Apes with Meg and Trav this weekend, I was super jazzed when the theater showed not two, not three, but at least six previews before the movie started. And I about peed my pants when I saw this one:

Yes, Tim Riggins is officially starring in a movie. I can’t make any sense of what it’s supposed to be about, but the shirt is off and the southern accent is intact. Which is really all that matters.

And while we’re on the subject of movies, Hunger Games keeps looking better and better:

Happy Monday.

The end of a magical era

When I think about having children someday, the thought of the bedtime story ritual is one that warms my heart. I’m excited to revisit all my childhood favorites with my own kids, which means that as soon as they’re old enough we’ll be reading Harry Potter together (or maybe just following along in the book while Jim Dale reads to us, since he is amazing). And I’m sure that, somewhere along the way, I will tell them all about what it was like to experience Pottermania firsthand.

I will tell them about how I read the first book in the series when I was twelve and deemed it overrated, then had to swallow my words after I finished the second and third and realized what all the fuss was about. I will reminisce about the fighting that took place between my siblings and I over whose turn it was to read the latest hardcover before we wised up and each just bought our own and read them together in the backyard.

I will tell them about how the bookstore I worked at in college had a midnight release party for both the 6th and 7th books, which meant that I not only got to start reading the books a day before the general public (shh…nobody tell Richard), but also that, once the clock struck midnight, I got to hand out copies to scores of eager kids decked out in cloaks and lightning scars that smiled at me like I was santa. Those parties were also a bit hectic and crazy at times, but luckily friends showed up to keep me company:

When the subject of the Harry Potter movies comes up, I’ll be sure to tell my offspring about how, on the night that the very last movie was released, their dad and I went to the Ivory’s party dressed up as Oliver Wood and Katie Bell, Gryffindor’s finest quidditch players.


An obscure costume choice to be sure, but the rules of the Ivory’s HP party are firm: you must RSVP with your character in advance and no duplicates are allowed.

The party itself was elaborate, whimsical, and a great excuse to unleash my inner Potter geek. In short, it was the perfect way to say goodbye to this phenomenon. Thanks for the invite, Abs.

With Smash, Matt, and Smeegs...a.k.a. Bellatrix, Crabbe, and Kreacher (Smeegs even shaved his head for the occasion):
Quidditch:
The feast:



Preo siblings with Abby and Steph (Fred Weasley and Hermione):
Honeydukes Sweet Shop:
The midnight screening of the movie at good old Holladay theater:
Would you like to hear my take on the movie? If not you may kindly exit out of this screen, because here it is:

I liked this movie up until the last half hour or so. I’m usually down when the HP movies deviate from the books a bit, since the movies will never be as great as the books anyway so you might as well change it up, but in this case I thought the changes they made to the plot after Harry meets up with Dumbledore in that parallel universe thingy were pretty freaking lame.

If the filmmakers had left things more or less the way JK wrote them the ending would have been a lot more satisfying and theatrical. Instead we had to hear Neville deliver some cheesed-out speech and see Harry and Voldy spin around in a weird scene that looked like someone made it using the photobooth function on their Macbook. Plus Ginny is awful as usual. When I watch the movies I always find myself wishing that the writers would have just gone for broke and had Harry hook up with Luna instead since they have way more chemistry together. Oh well. At least we still have the puppet pals:

Last but not least: Manuel Antonio

The last stop on our trip was Manuel Antonio, a city located on the ocean. We splurged this time around and booked rooms at a nice hotel called The Falls. Worth every penny.
Most of our time here was spent just playing and relaxing at the beautiful beaches.

We also saw a ton of the wildlife that Manuel Antonio is famous for. On the drive from Monteverde we pulled over to see these crocodiles hanging out under a bridge:

And this sloth was just chillin in a tree outside of our hotel:
Although I wouldn't consider myself much of an animal person, I went completely ape shiz (pun intended) over the monkeys. I seriously wanted to bring one home with me.

You can hear me spazzing out over them in these videos:

There was a restaurant across from our hotel that was built around an old military plane (for you history buffs, it is the twin of the one involved in the Iran-Contra Crisis). Delicious food and it had an incredible view of the ocean.

And even though we were in a foreign country, we still caught a bit of the NBA playoffs:

Our last day ended up being overcast and a bit stormy, which was kind of a bummer since that is the day Josh rented a surfboard. The boys attempted surfing on the crazy choppy waves, but Heather and I were content to just relax on the beach.

Since our flight left at 6 in the morning, we decided to be adventurous and, instead of booking a hotel for that night in San Jose, just left Manuel Antonio in the early evening. Despite a few stops (we checked out the city of Jaco, and I got my last dose of Costa Rican food in the form of some rice, beans, and amazingly delicious fresh fish), we still rolled into San Jose before midnight. So we killed a few hours at Denny's and then ended up trying to sleep on the floor of the airport. Kind of miserable but all part of the traveling experience, right? The 6-hour flight home was one of those hellish ordeals where you are so tired but can't sleep. I felt like a cranky toddler and by the time we landed I was about ready to pull my hair out.

But the nice part about the flight home sucking is that it makes you forget that you're coming back from a beautiful place where you got to just hang out with your husband and friends all day with no real-life worries to speak of. Instead you just focus on how awesome it's going to be to get home and collapse onto your bed. Of course, that feeling died pretty quickly and now I'm ready for another vacation. India next spring, Butch?