More projects..some fun! Some not so fun...

Well, first off, the week after we arrived, after we had just unpacked everything and were finally feeling settled in, we were woken up at 3 AM by sirens going throughout the apartment. It told us to drop all operations and exit the building immediately. It was so scary! We did get to meet a real firefighter, though! He told us that something had happened with the sprinklers through some of the apartments and if we didn't have any water in our's, we were ok to go back. The only problem we thought we had was our air conditioner was leaking a little bit. We learned later that someone had apparently hung a hanger on one of the sprinkler heads, setting it off. They weren't in their apartment so it went off for 40 minutes, setting off a bunch of other sprinklers. Over 30 people had to move out because their aparments were so damaged. We got so lucky! Across the hall, sprinklers were set off, but luckily our's was safe! They did have to rip out some of our walls because we had some water damage inside, but other than that, we were good. Here are some pictures of that! Fun times!

So this is when they cut the holes in the walls and heated our place up! It was so hot! They brought in big blue dryer things. Not annoying at all...

This isn't even the hottest that it got!

My cute hubby :)

This is after they covered up the holes

After they painted. Still needs the floor boards.

I think I like the big gaping hole where the vent usually is!

This is the hallway upstairs from us.

Crazy stuff!

Kari studying away!

We went down to the Newport Temple. It was gorgeous! Probably  my favorite temple! It was so much fun :)

The cool chapel across the street

Then we headed to Huntington Beach :)

Kari's model pose

The waves were HUGE!!! The lifeguard even had to go out Baywatch style and bring a guy back in. Not something you see everyday!

We painted the message board for our kitchen.

This is the couch cover and pillows I hand stitched! It was fun :) It's not perfect, I know! But I think it's pretty cute :)

We finally got our front room back! No more workers! Love it!

We found out we get way better reception in our bedroom, so that's where our tv is now! Visitors can look at themselves! haha :)

Our new life in CALIFORNIA!! :)

Ok, so our life since Hawaii has been CRAZY!!!! So sorry I haven't been posting anything! This post will be extra long just to make up for lost time :) Kari got home from Hawaii July 26th. We packed the moving truck all day the 27th. Kari and my dad, Darin, drove down to our apartment in Pasadena the 28th, they unpacked that night and flew home on the 29th. We spent the day with the family on the 30th. I was up all night sick that night, and we had our reception on the 31st. That was so much fun! I'll have to post pics of that when I get them. It all turned out great! Except the whole torrential downpour part...oh well! We then packed the car that night with as many reception gifts as we could and headed down to our cute place on August 1st. We were able to unpack the car when we got here, set up our bed, and crash. Kari had school the next day! So ever since then, I've been unpacking all day, Kari has been going to school, and we've been exploring our new home town. We were able to make it to the LA Temple! That was so fun! It was gorgeous! Our new ward seems very nice! Kari has a friend from BYU down here that is two years ahead of him in the PhD Accounting Program, so that's nice to know someone! We had a ward party the other night where we made homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream. It was a lot of fun! We've also been working on a lot of projects. Kari's parents gave us a ton of awesome furniture! It's been so much fun to paint them and use them in our new home. So I've got lots of before and after pictures!!

This is our stuff strewn all across the courtyard at our apartments

My dad carrying our bed frame :) haha I'm so glad I didn't have to be part of the unpacking party!

This is our cute bathroom! :)

Our washer and dryer is in that closet!!! :) Yeah! My man got me my own laundry room!

This is our bedroom

The closet on the left and the door to the hall on the right

Our closet

Our front room

Our kitchen

Our front room FILLED with stuff!

Painting :) I look beautiful. I know.

Kari got camera happy

This is the before shot of the chairs. They're so cute, huh?!

The after shot :)

This is the bottom part of the table

The tv stand :)

Our kitchen

We don't have enough cabinets for everything. So we made some :)

This is the pantry/hoodie closet/game closet/storage closet

Our front door

The LA Temple. It was so cool! You're in downtown LA. Totally busy and loud, shops everywhere. Then you turn up this street and go up a small hill, and you're on temple grounds. It has the most gorgeous view over the city. It's quiet and peaceful. It's amazing how the church always seems to get the best pieces of land!

This is a huge palm tree by the temple! You can't really see him, but Kari is standing at the bottom of the tree. We didn't know they could grow this tall and straight! So cool.

We stopped by the USC bookstore before the temple and got us some USC gear :) We changed into it after the temple and decided to go find an In N Our Burger since Kari had never been. We found one by UCLA. We were in the drive thru and the guy said "You know you're in UCLA territory, right?" and I said "Yeah we just realized that" and he said "Typical USC fans..." HA! Whatever that means! Go Trojans!!

Before pics of the nightstand

After shots :) Cute, huh?! Beachy, Newporty is what I was going for!

This wouldn't rotate :( Sorry

Before of the tall dresser

during the process...

and after :)

I used some stencils on the side

These are the drying handles

Before shots of the long dresser

My cute husband came home from school and helped me out :)

The after shot :) I really like how this one turned out

Kari painted the mirror. He did a good job, huh?!

I hand stitched these pillowcases because I left my sewing machine at my mom's. I think they turned out pretty cute!

I think it looks cute in its place next to the bed

The dresser in its home at the foot of our bed

Kari's work area/storage space. We could really use more closets...haha

Our cute bed :)

The long dresser's home in our closet

Crammed much?!

Well! This is all for now! I'm sure we'll have lots more pictures to post soon as we get more of our projects done! This is so fun! We are loving it here!!