I Want YOUR Advice : Perfumes

Whitney, here.

I need some advice. 

{Perfume from Anthropologie}

For Christmas, the only gift I'm asking for from my husband is a bottle of perfume (and maybe a pair of black TOMS). 

My biggest problem is that I see a perfume bottle, fall in love with the bottle style so hard that I want to buy it without even caring about the scent. Example: Anthropologie's Happ & Stahns Perfumers above. It's a pin cushion with the loveliest of pins on top... and it's my favorite color. Who wouldn't want something so pretty?!

I'm a lover of lotions but have yet to dabble much in perfumes. 

Perfumes seem so womanly - and I want to smell womanly!

I want to smell delightful to my husband. 

So delightful, in fact, that the words of Solomon flow from his mouth when we embrace:
"How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride!
How much better is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!"
Song of Solomon 4:10

(Ok. So he would never say those exact words... that would be weird.) 
A sweet-smellin' wife adds an extra flame to the candle.


So, here's where you come in. 

I need suggestions on perfumes that smell lovely... 

because if I try to pick one out myself, 
I will base it on the aesthetics of the bottle and not the nature of the scent.

Give me your best blogosphere spritz and help a sister out! 

America Has Spoken.

This morning, we are thankful that, as believers in a Risen Savior, we find Hope in Christ and not in a nation or a president. 

We pray that our country will "move forward" in the direction of good and not evil. 

We pray for the unborn - that they may live and live in the abundance of Christ. 

We pray for the military and their families - that the Lord will protect them as
our heros fight to protect us. 

We pray for the small businesses - that they will excel and be successful. 

We pray for the unemployed - that the Lord will bless them with opportunities
for employment instead of depending on the government to provide for their needs. 

We pray for our re-elected president. 

We pray for this nation. 

And in all things, we pray that the Lord's name is known and lifted high. 

#GodBlessAmerica.


Hawaii : Kualoa Ranch... Movie Sites & Ranch Tour

Happy Election Day!!

Welcome to

Kualoa Ranch

, home of MANY movie and TV sets. 

The Kualoa mountain range stands tall behind the main ranch house. The ranch was a sugar cane plantation at one time... until they realized sugar cane did not grow well on the land. Now the Kualoa Ranch is home to lots of cattle and movie sets.

The steers under the tree were featured in the movie Run Down. 

We signed up for the Movie Sites & Ranch Tour as well as the Jungle Expedition Tour.

With a half-full bus and open windows, we began driving down the road where Adam Sandler tried to get Drew Barrymore to stop for him in the movie 50 First Dates. 

First site stop?

Yeah. This will most likely be our 2013 Christmas Card...

Do you remember this tree from Jurassic Park?

Jurassic Park was supposed to be filmed on Kauai but a hurricane hit, so they filmed it on Oahu instead. 

This is the most famous dead tree you will ever see.

Then we drove by Godzilla's footprints...

...and the garage from the movie Mighty Joe Young...

...and then we stopped inside of the Pearl Harbor bunker to see the Kualoa Goes to War / Kualoa Hits Hollywood museums.

The Kualoa mountains are the background from most of the scenes in the film Journey 2. Remember the

Waimea Waterfall

? That was in the movie too. (We watched Journey 2 for the first time on the plane ride home. It was pretty cool to notice places throughout the movie that the tour guide didn't even mention.) 

The view from the Pearl Harbor bunker. We {heart} Hawaii.

The original tikis from the Biggest Loser TV show.

When we say MANY movies were filmed here, we mean it. Here are just a few of the other ones we jotted down from the tour:

TV shows: 

Lost

Gilligan's Island

Hawaii Five-O

Birds of Paradise

Movies:

Aztec Pyramid

You, Me & Dupree

Wind Talkers

Pearl Harbor

Battleship

George of the Jungle

Do you remember any of the scenes from these movies?

Tutorial : How to Replace and Sew a Button


Have you ever lost a button in the washing machine? Or have you ever wanted to simply add a cute button to an apron or shirt? Follow this step-by-step tutorial and you will want to sew buttons onto all of your fabrics... or at least save you some money by not having to throw away clothes because they're missing a button.

Ironically, the week before I had planned to post about sewing on a button, my husband just so happened to lose a button on one of his favorite shirts while we were in Hawaii. We'll use his shirt as an example...



Step 1: Grab your supplies: seam ripper, a button, a needle, matching thread, and a pair of scissors. If you will be replacing a button on a shirt or jacket, look for the replacement button inside of the shirt material, specifically along the seam around the bottom. Then use your seam ripper to release the button from the shirt (see below).

Step 2: Find the original spot for the button or decide on the place you want to add a new embellishment button. How do you find that spot? Glad you asked. There should be either some broken thread or a couple of itty-bitty holes from where the thread was before. Still not able to figure it out? Easy sauce. Fasten up the other buttons and pass a pin through the hole of the missing button. Whichever way you do it, make sure you mark the replacement button spot with chalk.



Step 3: Thread the needle. (See below for thorough photographic instructions.) Pull one end of the thread through the eye of the needle. Pull that end of thread to meet the other. Knot the ends together by making a loop and pulling the tails through. Knot once more, and trim off any excess.



Step 4: Let's get stitchin'. First, push your needle up through the back of the fabric to the front, pulling the thread all the way through. Slide your button on down the thread to meet the fabric. Are your holes lined up with the button in place? 

Perfect. 

Now you can push your needle down through the opposite hole and out the back of the fabric. Make sure your stitching matches the pattern of your other buttons. Repeat this four or five times per hole. The thread should be tight enough as to where the button doesn't dangle. At the same time, it should be loose enough as to where your fabric doesn't bunch up. Whew! 




Step 5: Shank and Snip... Push your needle up through the back of the fabric to the shank (which is the thread located between the fabric and button). See the needle in the top two photos below? Pull the button away from the fabric and wrap your thread tightly around the shank. Simply slip the needle through the shank twice and trim the leftover thread.



Step 6: Boo-yah. Congratulations... Wear and wash that shirt with pride! Nicely done.


With that being said, learn how to sew a button.
You Only Live Once...
Linking up with Molly & Carly for #YOLOMONDAYS.

Hawaii : Pearl Harbor, USS Missouri

Happy November!! Hope y'all had a wonderful Halloween!

After visiting the

USS Bowfin

, head over to the loading area and take a bus over to the massive USS Missouri. 

This battleship, the site of the Japanese surrender during World War II, is certainly a sight to behold.

The bus ride lasts a few minutes. Oddly enough, the USS Missouri is right beside the Arizona Memorial on the water. 

The floorboards are made of teak wood, making it basically indestructible. Teak wood is rare worldwide. It is mostly produced in India, although there are endangered varieties found in the Philippines and Myanmar. 

Photo Credit to Kamikaze Images

You have to look pretty hard but do you see the fighter plane that is in the top left-hand corner? The Japanese Kamikaze pilot actually crashed into the USS Missouri on April 11, 1945, in Okinawa. There are still dents, to this day, on the starboard side of the USS Missouri.

Chillin' and chattin' in the Captain's Chair.

One of my favorite jewels on this ship was the antique or vintage items lying around. We're fans of Coca-Cola but this Pepsi-Cola dispenser held a retro vibe that I fell in love with!

The "Mighty Mo" docked at Pearl Harbor infinitely on 1992. What made it so significant to Pearl Harbor? The USS Missouri was the gathering place of American and Japanese soldiers as the Japanese chief signed "The Instrument of Formal Surrender of Japan to the Allied Powers", thus ending World War II.

Guided by a Veteran:

You won't find a lazy tour guide here! The only guides on this battleship are retired military veterans who have a passion for history and service to their country.

Time Crunch:

Try to allot a fairly sufficient amount of time to tour the battleship, maybe between 1 to 2 hours. The ship has special nooks and crannies with lots of info about the ship, military officers and history of its fights. 

USS Missouri Stars in a Movie:

Have you ever seen the movie

Battleship

? Most of it was filmed on this ship. How crazy is that!? JD and I had never seen this movie prior to the tour but we watched it on the flight back home. 

2010 Flashback : Happy Halloween Mad Scientists' Style

Happy Halloween!!

Halloween is a pretty huge event at the Adams' home (Whit's side of the family). Mom and dad think of a theme for the following year beginning the night of the present Halloween (i.e. the house was decked out like a pirate ship in 2009. that same night, they decided the next year would be a science lab). It's amazing the things they come up with... and they execute everything to a tee!

Every year, a plethora of brave (and not-so-brave) little kiddos stop by the house. We missed last year and will be missing this year too... but in honor of the Adams Family tradition, we felt it was only fitting to show you the videos we made from 2010: The Year of the Adams Mad Scientists' Lab.

Enjoy!


Get the full tour of my parents' "haunted" home here:



A few characters that stopped by, of course we offered them "brains and hearts" to eat. A few of our favorite characters were Woody & Buzz, the Sumo Girl and Optimus Prime among many others. We ran out of candy bags within the first hour of trick-or-treaters!



What would a Mad Scientists' Lab be without a bubbling, boiling pot of stew? The kids LOVED this experiment - all thanks to my genius dad. :)

 


This was the first year JD took part in the Pumpkin Carving tradition for my dad and me. We went techie-mode... 





We hate missing out on the tradition this year but we'll be thinking about all of our family as the trick-or-treaters come running out tonight. 


So, we're curious... do you have any special traditions on Halloween / the autumn season? Fall Festivals? Pumpkin patch picking? Trick-or-treating?

Hawaii : Pearl Harbor, USS Bowfin

Welcome aboard the U.S.S. Bowfin...

aka: The Pearl Harbor Avenger

From the USS Bowfin website: 

USS Bowfin (SS-287) is a fleet attack submarine that fought in the Pacific during WWII, and helped to make famous the term, “Silent Service.” Bowfin was launched on 7 December 1942, exactly one year to the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. She was nicknamed the Pearl Harbor Avenger, so it is fitting that she is permanently homeported at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

It looks huge from these external photos, but you will learn that it is only a mirage once you get inside. 

God Bless America.

Watch your head when walking into the

entrance

exit. Yeah. We started the tour on the wrong side of the submarine. Whoops! Oh well. JD is rockin' that tour guide headset. 

The USS Bowfin is a super small submarine (I guess all submarines are tiny on the inside though). JD, being the studly tall man he is, would've never been able to work in there. I, on the other hand, strode through that submarine like a pro (being short does have it's advantages after all).

The door was half the size of JD. Would not have bode well in an emergency.

There is something I just love about these meters. They look so classy, vintage and cool. Don't you love them? Maybe I'll enlarge one of these and frame it. 

Keys to the chief's quarters.

Tour Tickets:

You can buy combo tickets for the USS Bowfin and USS Missouri. The Aviation tour is included but we didn't have time to go there.

Audio Tour:

A headset and handheld tour guide is included in the price of the package. There are two versions you can listen to - an adult and a family-friendly version. The adult version includes interviews from Bowfin veterans while the family-friendly version vividly describes historic scenes of what each part of the submarine was like when in action. I must admit, I

kind of

enjoyed listening to the family version just as much as I did the adult version.

Get the Picture:

Almost any tourist place or restaurant you visit will have a "house photographer". While most places have the typical cardboard layout, the USS Bowfin prints your photo onto the front page of a newspaper with info about the Bowfin. That alone makes the USS Bowfin a memorable experience. This is the one and only photo we would actually recommend you purchase. 

Hawaii : Waimea Valley Waterfall

The Waimea Valley Botantical Gardens are pretty extraordinary. The entrance was bland and somewhat dead, most likely due to the season, but the rest of the walk was magical. 

Like Willy Wonka Magical.

Don't forget to wear your bathing suit, as the secret of the Waimea Valley is the waterfall at the end of the gardens! Sadly, most people walked right past the abundance of beauty hidden on the trails of the gardens.

This flower reminded us of the tree tops from The Lorax.

You'll eventually walk past this sign...

And you've made it!! 

Unlike the other Hawaiian islands, Oahu only has a couple of

legally

accessible waterfalls. The Waimea Valley Waterfall is worth checking out. 

You can rent a noodle or life jacket for $2 and swim in the frigid pool over to the falls. If you're lucky, one of the lifeguards will happily paddle out to you and take your photos on his stand-up paddle board. 

The entrance fee for the Waimea Valley is $15 for adults and $7.50 for children. Some days the gardens restrict access to the swimming hole and falls. Be sure to call ahead the day of your visit to inquire about swimming conditions.

Hawaii : We Wanna Wailana

My fingers have been tinglin', ready to show you photos of our adventures in Hawaii... now that we're back home, we can!!

JD had more days off from work this year to play than he did last year. We wanted this trip to be more organic and spontaneous than last year's trip of a

luau, hula dancing

, and

swimming with dolphins

and

sharks

.

First Stop: Wailana Coffee House

These coconut pancakes are the bomb diggity. What's the white syrup? More coconut, of course!!

If you ever go to Oahu, please stop by Wailana Coffee House for these pancakes. The eggs were gross, but the pancakes and bacon were phenomenal.

Here is the view from our first hotel, the Doubletree Hilton. Rain, rainbows and murals of flipping whales.

Oh yes. The wonderful employees of the Doubletree greeted us with hot chocolate chip cookies and we were pumped. 

Originally, because of our late reservations, we had to break up our stay into several different hotels. But, being the awesome and persistent husband he is, JD called the Hilton Hawaiian Village at least five times the week before we arrived and he finally got us a room there for a consistent three weeks. We did have to stay at the Doubletree two nights when we arrived but it was much better than our previous plans of having to switch hotel rooms several times a week. Everyone was super nice at the Doubletree and the rooms were nicer than the Village... but the Village has way more activities so I was happy there while JD was working. If you're going to vacation in Waikiki, we would recommend the Hilton Hawaiian Village. 

Here is our map from Honolulu to the North Shore, our favorite area on Oahu! More to come about that  next post...