Wedding Weekend

Ryan and I just returned from Michigan, where we had been for a week to celebrate my little sister's wedding!!

Aren't they just the cutest!?

It was so much fun to celebrate with the entire family and be all together. The wedding was just beautiful and I cried a lot [surprise, surprise]. I'm so thankful for my new brother-in-law!

I just love my sisters!!!

And this dude is pretty okay too. We will celebrate our 3rd Annivesary in about 2 weeks...my how time flies! 

Happy almost weekend!! 

Fika Friday: Michigan edition

I got to have fika last Friday with these two crazy kids!

It was a quick trip back to Michigan, but SO much fun! I did some serious fika-ing with my parents, obvoiusly. And drank out of my mom's Shelley cup collection, which is tradition when I'm home. We really packed a ton in while I was home! We even made it over to Holland to do some shopping! It was so wonderful to be home and see my mom and dad - good times had by all! 

Cheers!

 [I had been awake for approximately 30 hours at that point...thank you, red-eye flight]

Another highlight of my trip back to Michigan was seeing this sweet girl! My BFF since birth! Speaking of birth, she's preparing to give birth this Fall - woah baby! I got to attend one of her baby showers which I had been hoping I would be able to, and I got to feel the baby kick! She is going to make one great mommy.

My Fika Rundown:

What: Coffee in Shelley cups, pepparkakor and shortbread cookies

Where: in MICHIGAN

Who: With my Mom and Dad! :)

Favorite part: Being able to chat in person with my parents and see their cute little faces! I miss them already!

Happy Fika Friday, everyone!

Hawaiin vacay + world's biggest mug of fika

I'm back on the bloggin' bandwagon! After an amazing vacation in Hawaii with Ryan and his family, and a wonderful quick trip back to Michigan last weeked, it's hard to be back in the real world again. I have a serious case of Hawaii fever.

It was a great trip and we made lots of memories! We drove up to this lighthouse with an amazing view:

Took a sweet boat tour of the Napali coast (Jurassic Park, anyone?!).

Toured the Kauai Coffee plantation and saw the coffee berries!

Just getting in my afternoon cup of fika:

And went to some pretty amazing beaches with awesome snorkeling! We even swam with sea turtles!

I wish I was laying on that beach right now...

Here's to dreaming of vacation. Happy Wednesday!

Little day trip

After a pretty busy and stressful week, Ryan and I were surprised that our Saturday was wide open - no plans.  This rarely happens to us unless we plan it that way, so we decided to take advantage of our free Saturday and hop over to Ojai, California.  It was totally Ryan's idea and I'm so glad he thought of it, it was a great day!

We got to Ojai just before lunch and started our time there by checking out the new Fiber Arts exhibit at the Ojai Valley Museum.  It was awesome! I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit.

This rug has some Scandinavian elements to it, don't you think? (There was no placard for this rug strangely enough so I don't know who made it/when it was made)

And one of my favorite pieces was the below work titled "Sonny and Chair". HA! I just love that kind of humor. 

"Sonny and Chair" c. 1998, mixed media, wood, fiber by Fran Bulwa (1921-2007)

And would you check out that tapestry below? Holy. Cow. I have to say, once I found out it was electronically woven, I was slightly less impressed...but it's still pretty amazing. There's no way I could ever come close to making something like that. Kudos to you, John Nava. 

John Nava, c. 2005, electronic jacquard, cottonwood viscose

There were some other incredible quilts, knits, and various other textiles and fiber arts displayed as well.  If you live in the area, it's worth checking out.

The whole exhibit was very inspiring for me.  It made me ponder the question, "what makes someone an artist?" I personally tend to steer away from ever calling myself an artist because I don't draw or paint (or have the talent to do so).  I don't have a problem calling other crafters artists, but for some reason, I feel like I have to achieve some certain level of artistic ability in the crafting realm before I can call myself a true artist.   But really, an artist is an artist, right? I love to create and design and even if I'm not the best in the world (or in my apartment complex even), I am going to try to think of myself as more of an artist. 

Wow, major sidebar there. Sorry.

Carrying on, we also did a fair amount of antiquing while we were there.  I will post our awesome finds in a separate post. The Peddler's Fair was cute to walk through.  A lot of handmade items and thrift store finds.

Ryan, being the candy fiend that he is, was very excited about Kingston's.

We took a little lavender lemonade break after the candy store.

Then we headed over to Bart's Books.  A really sweet used book shop that is outdoors! You walk around and books are just on shelves outside. It was one of the coolest book stores I had ever been "in".

I have no idea what they do when it rains though.  I'm sure they have a system...I just have no idea what it is.

A grand time was had by all. 

The end.

Back again!

I'm back!  I had a wonderful summer and early fall, I hope you did too!

Instead of trying to catch everyone up on what I've been doing since my last post (over 2 months ago!!), I'll just pickup from this past weekend.

Ryan and I spend a fantastic weekend in Paso Robles and San Luis Obisbo.  There was a lot of wine tasting involved.  It is harvest season in wine country so we were pretty lucky and got to see how the process starts.  We took a tour of Eberle's wine caves which was pretty sweet.  They offer free tastings and tours so if you're in the area I highly recommend them, they make a pretty mean glass of viognier. 

Here we are happy to be starting our winery tour!

At the next winery, we enjoyed our picnic snacks and some local honey we bought from Pipestone Vineyards.  Pipestone was a really cool vineyard - they are completely solar powered, organic, and practice sustainable farming.  They had their very own beehives and the honey from said bees was delicious!

Our second day we spent in San Luis Obisbo and San Simeon.  Here we took a tour of Hearst Castle which was pretty darn incredible.  

And last, but certainly not least, we checked out the little town of Cambria on our way back home.  And lucky for us, it was the weekend of their Scarecrow Festival!!!  There were hilarious scarecrows placed all throughout the city.  The town itself was pretty quaint, a few restaurants and little stores.  We hit up a couple of the antique shops while we were there. 

A very successful weekend!

 In other news, my niece Hannah is 2 months old already! My how time flies. She is so precious and getting some serious rolls already. Yes, major cuteness!  

Also, I don't know if you heard or not, but California just passed the Cottage Food Law which will allow people to sell baked (non-perishable) goods from their own home.  Prior to this, one would have to rent out a commercial kitchen if you wanted to sell any homemade goods.  So starting Jan. 1, 2013, Ryan and I will be going into the home-bakery business! Wooo!  We are still working out the kinks and deciding on a name, but we are so stoked!

And that about wraps everything up!  I am going to start blogging regularly again and hope to share some craft projects and recipes soon.  I also am getting ready for the Scandinavian Christmas series 2013, so if you or anyone one you know would like to participate, please e-mail me (kathryn dot pickledherring at gmail dot com).

Happy Wednesday! :)

Boo!

In true Halloween spirit I thought I'd share a picture from Calico Ghost Town that Ryan and I stopped through on our road trip out West. Happy Halloween!

We also stopped at the Cadillac Ranch and spray painted a few cadillacs.

And we stopped at the Grand Canyon (among various other random stops), woah baby is it grand. It was my very first visit there, Ryan's second, and I was amazed by how huge it really is in person...wow. Overall, it was a pretty darn awesome road trip.

Home again, home again, jiggidy jig

I'm back! I had a lovely Christmas celebration with my family! There was lots of coffee-drinking, chit-chatting, picture-taking, and game-playing (Monopoly, Euchre...). And there was pickled herring aplenty, of course. It was simply wonderful. I hope you had a lovely Christmas too!

I want to give another huge thank you to everyone who participated in the Scandinavian Christmas series, it was so much fun to do. Plus, I met some really awesome new bloggers! If you haven't checked them out yet, now's your chance!

Kate @ Coffee, Photos...Chocolate

Rebecca @ Roots and Wings Co

Astrid @ Red Red Completely Red

Carin @ Created With Love

Carina @ Carina's Craft Blog

Alisha @ Turning Over a New Leaf

Rachel @ Nest Full of Eggs

Ingrid @ The Fable of the Table

Pernilla @ Swedish Corner Down Under

Gone Vacationing

Be back soon*.

:)

*and by soon, I mean Jan. 8th-ish.

A glorious day at the beach

Ryan and I skipped over to Oarai beach yesterday to take full advantage of our extra day off. It's a pretty small beach town and when we arrived the next bus to the beach wasn't for another hour, so we just walked. It was a gorgeous day!

The beach was mostly rocks with patches of sandy spots. I found some lovely little broken shells that were washed smooth by the ocean. They're pearly and pretty and I I have good intentions about making some type of craft with them. I also enjoyed using my new straw hat! I look a little crazy in the picture but it's the only pic of me sporting the hat. :)And last, but certainly not least, my new stash of yarn! I know it's summer and that I should be getting summer colors...but I just love, love, love fall colors. Especially mustard yellow and brown together. The red yarn is for a different project, but I think I will knit (or attempt to crochet even?!) a winter hat for myself. Ravelry has lots of hat patterns (free!) I've been wanting to try.