#BookWorm: Once and For All

Happy Sunday!

I can't believe that the month of August is flying by so quickly. I feel like we were just cruising to the Bahamas, but that was a month ago! Where did the time go?! I felt like this summer I was going to make time to get some hard core reading done, but it did not happen. However, I did get to read one of the top books on my list Once and For All by one of my all-time favorite writers: Sarah Dessen! She is a North Carolina resident, and unfortunately went to UNC-Chapel Hill :( boo. Just kidding I still love her. This is her most recent book, which came out in June (yeah see how behind I am). It is about a girl named Louna who is against opening herself up to love after her last relationship. But the kicker is, she works in the wedding business with her single mom and is surrounded by people in love all the time. Instead of this making her fall more in love, it seems to harden her to the world of love and marriage. In comes quirky Ambrose, who is probably the most annoying person she has ever met, but was hired to work the wedding business with her and her mom in order to keep him out of his sister's hair for the summer leading up to his sister's wedding. I won't give away too much more than that.

This book was a quick and easy read for me, as I love Sarah Dessen's writing style. For the most part it is a predictable plot, but there are definitely some elements of surprise that make it a page turner. You'll see what I mean when you read it. Even though this book is for "young adults" AKA teens, I still love it. I still love the whole YA genre and will probably keep reading it even when I am 75 years old because I love it so much. I would rate this an 8.5/10. Really good, not life changing, but totally worth reading in your spare time. If you love Sarah Dessen or have liked any of her other books, this one is great! And has been on the NYT bestseller list for weeks!

Now I am onto the next book that I have in my stack: Wonder by R.J. Palacio. So far, SO GOOD. The movie comes out in November so I will definitely be posting once I finish and most likely heading to the theater to see it! What did you read this summer? I only knocked out four books. What is life these days?! Oh yeah, working... Good thing I love my job!

Until next time,
- Olivia :)

DIY Floating Wood Shelves

Hey all,

Now that we are getting our new place together and our vacations for the summer are over, we finally have had time to do some DIY projects for the house! We got the idea from this awesome blog, Mommy Suite, that I follow and has a lot of ideas on Pinterest too. It was pretty simple to do, and the shelves ended up costing about $12 each. We had wood cut for 10 shelves but only put up 6 for now. Below is how I made my shelves, you can check out the Mommy Suite link to see exactly how she did hers and for more detailed pictures about steps along the way, but it was pretty straight forward!

What you'll need:
-Sand paper (or sanding tool) $3
-Wood stain of your choice (I used Minwax 1 qt. Wood Finish Classic Gray Oil-Based Interior Stain) $8
- 4 in. stainless steel corner brace (ours was a pack of 2 for $7) $21 total
- 2x10x10 wood (cut into 2 ft pieces at Home Depot) $26 for 10 2ft pieces
- Dry wall anchors and screws (we got 50 screws and anchors) $10
- Laser Level (already had from IKEA)
- Drill with large bit (already had from Target)
- Hammer (IKEA tool kit)

How to do it:
1. Sand the shelves down so they are as smooth as you want them to be. This is easier with a sanding tool, but I did not want to buy one, so I sanded them by hand.
2. Stir the stain WELL. Stain the shelves and let them sit for at least 6-8 hours.
3. Use the laser level to mark the two spots where you will drill your initial holes. This will end up being about 1/2 an inch above where the bottom of your shelf will sit. My two spots were about 14 inches apart.
4. Drill a hole in the wall the size of the dry wall anchor in the two spots that you marker.
5. Place the anchor in the hole, you may have to slightly tap the anchors with the hammer.
6. Put the first bracket against the wall and screw it into place using a drill or screwdriver.
7 Mark the second hole spot with the bracket in place. Turn the bracket slightly and drill your second hole. Repeat process #5.
8. Place the wood shelf on the brackets. Screw the tiny screws into the wood that came with the brackets, or use 1/2"-3/4" wood screws to screw them into place.
Tip: You will need two people for this step unless you are tall and/or good at holding wood in place while drilling.
9. Use the level to make sure they are even (I had no trouble with mine)
10. Decorate!

Where we bought the decor:
- Mason jar flower holder,& sign, and fake plant: Michales, on sale for $7, $3, and $2
- Wine glasses, stemmed and non-stemmed, and candle : Marshalls, $20 for all 12 glasses, and $7

I LOVE these shelves! And for the price you can't beat it! We hung up one in the half bathroom downstairs and may hang up another above it, but for now I am just happy with how the dining room turned out. #proudwifemoment. Also take a minute to love our BEAUTIFUL table that my Grandpa Ristow built us. Isn't it gorgeous?! Literally chopped down the trees and made it by hand. He's the real MVP. Really excited as we keep putting together our home and can't wait to share all of our fun projects with you all along the way!

Thanks for reading,
- Olivia :)

These Are A Few of My Favorite Things: Disney Dream

Hello all,

Last weekend got back from our two week summer adventure and we had a BLAST! We traveled over 4000 miles driving, including a 22 hour straight drive from Bradenton FL to Alpena MI. IT.WAS.CRAZY. But I'd do it all again because it was worth having the extra day in Michigan. We drove from Durham to Bradenton FL, spent some time there, then headed to Cape Canaveral where we set sail to the Bahamas on our 3 night 4 day Disney cruise on the Disney Dream. IT.WAS.AWESOME!! After that we hightailed it to Alpena Michigan to spend some time with my grandparents for five days before heading back to home sweet home in Durham. A lot of people have been asking, how was the cruise?! Well it was much better than my first cruise experience in high school, even though at the time I thought that was the coolest thing ever. Disney definitely does it best. Below are a few of my favorite things about the Disney Dream and our trip to the Bahamas and I highly recommend each one of them if you are about to embark on Disney's beautiful Dream boat.


1) Eating at Animator's Palate
By far the coolest regular dinner restaurant on the boat. The others are cool and all, but this one had a Finding Nemo theme and Crush interacted with your table. It also had the best food and desert out of the three dinner restaurants in my opinion.

2) Riding the Aquaduck at Night
So awesome during the day, even more awesome during  the night. If you plan your day right, you can hang out on Castaway Cay in the morning, then head back to the ship early around 1pm and ride that slide with less than a 10 minute wait until about 3pm. But if you want to go at night, head there right after the evening show, we only waited like 5 minutes both times we went. SO LEGIT.

3) Playing with the Dolphins
This is a big ticket item as it costs about $300 to do the deep water dolphin excursion. You can pay more at Atlantis, but we did the Blue Lagoon Island tour and while the Island itself was "ehh" the Dolphin excursion was AWESOME. Well worth the $300. Do this in a group if you can, because you can get a USB of all your pictures and split the cost with your group. It honestly didn't even seem real that the dolphins were right there with you and they legitimately seemed happy to be there! If you can avoid eating on the island, I would suggest it because it's crowded, hot, and overpriced. Just head back to the boat and eat there.

4) Unlimited Ice Cream
I know this is on most cruises, but for real? As much as you want all day?! And it's freaking delicious. I don't remember it being that good on my last cruise.

5) Disney Everything
I am Disney obsessed. Many people on the Disney cruise love Disney too. You wouldn't pay the high ticket price for the Disney cruise if you hated Disney (or at least I wouldn't). They have characters on the boat, Pirates Night (with awesome fireworks), Disney shows, Disney trivia, Disney Karaoke. Hidden Mickey's everywhere, all right up my alley. The movie theater had new release movies like Spiderman: Homecoming and Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man Tell No Tales. So much to do and see. If you want to be busy the whole time, you can be busy the whole time. When we have kids I would totally shell out the extra cash to do a Disney cruise vs. a regular cruise.

Anyways overall we LOVED our cruise. It was expensive, and not something I would do over and over again, but if you want to cruise and also love Mickey (or have little ones who do), save a little longer to take this trip. Honestly I would probably have enjoyed three nights and four days at Disney World just as much but this was cool because you got to relax and have unlimited food that you already paid for so it was pretty legit too. We've had a busy busy summer, but the month of July alone has been SO busy and crazy. Watch our video below to highlight our awesome month and catch some footage of what we've been up to this month! So what do others who have been on a Disney cruise think? Better than a regular cruise? Or overpriced and not worth it? I'm curious to read thoughts.

https://youtu.be/h7ARQ7iOl1o

Thanks for keeping up with us,
- Olivia