93 Months: Ryan and Bekah's Day of Fun

You guys!!!!!!! I feel like it has been 812 years since I've been able to write a post about a proper date adventure! We went on that fun weekend adventure to Indianapolis for Valentine's Day, and right after that, we had to start staying home. Just about the time things began to open up a bit, we were knee deep in packing, moving, training, unpacking...so I think the only true full day adventure we had since then was our trip to Hocking Hills back in May. (You remember that one, right? When the park we went to hike was closed? We're almost to where we can laugh about that. But it's still a little too soon.)

All that aside, I'm happy to report that yesterday we had our first all-day date since our move, and it was delightful in every way. It was our 93rd monthiversary and it was our Saturday, so we had the best time together, celebrating and exploring our new area!

It started with sleeping in, which is pretty much the best way to EVER start a day, in my opinion. Ryan made omelets for us, and they were DEEEEE-lish.

After that, we decided to explore some of the little shops here in Grabill. We didn't hit them ALL, but we stopped by the bulk of them. Some of it kind of reminds me of little shops down in Brown County, and some of it reminds me of the Treasure Mart in Kokomo. All kinds of fun things.

I loved all the vintage signs with the new mask one added to it. ;) 

 CANDY!!!! This store had it all. Chocolates, bulk candy, bottled pop...the whole nine yards.

 And all the pretties. It reminded me of so much of Ryan's mom. She loved stores like this. (Her house looked a lot like this store, actually.)

 This was one of my favorite finds. (I didn't buy it. I just liked it.) Both the sentiment and the author were winners!

 A train room!!!

 Truth.

 Speaking of Little House...

 And this space was so cool!! It was an empty booth area in the flea market building. I thought it was SO adorable. Sent it to my artist friend Amber and told her she needed to open her art booth right there by that chimney!

After we left the stores, we headed toward Fort Wayne to get a late lunch. We had a gift card to Panera and haven't been there in about 100 years, so that was our pick!

I got all caught up in the conversation of the people at a nearby table. The stories were like a whole TV series, and I didn't want to leave! I wasn't done hearing the scoop about the kids in college and how they're dating over Snapchat!

But alas, we did leave, and that's when we happened upon Salomon Farm. I'd heard of it before, because when I worked at the station, my friend Cindy's daughter got married there. I knew it was a beautiful area, but I had no idea it was more than an event center! It's an old farm that is now smack in the middle of the city - but (now that I've visited...) you feel like you're back in the country when you get into the heart of the place.

We explored around the barns a bit (kept our distance since they were setting up for a farmer's market) and saw some animals!

Then we took a stroll through the SUNFLOWERS!!! (The signs said if you're a hobby photographer, you can come and take pictures at no charge. If you want to do a professional photo shoot out there - meaning you are paying someone to take your pictures - the photographer does have to purchase a pass. It also said that starting September 9th, this field becomes a U-Pick field! We had fun enjoying the view!

And then we hopped on the trail that goes around the property and got in a good, brisk walk-and-talk!

We were pretty toasty by the time we got back in the car (and my beloved shoe had developed a hole in the bottom). We hydrated and then headed to another place I'd been wanting to try since the day we moved here: The Frozen Spoon! It's an ice cream shop in Leo, which is the town next door to ours.

It just opened this year and is cute as a BUTTON!

We were the only ones there right at that moment, so we had the picnic tables to ourselves. Delicious ice cream!!

By the time we were all done, it was later in the afternoon, and we came back to our apartment to cool down, take naps, catch up on Pinterest (okay just me) and cap off the day!

We LOVED our day. The only bummer was the very end of it when we scurried over to Wal-Mart to see if we could buy a bike for me. (We've been hunting for one for weeks, but along with everything else in the outdoor world, they don't stay in stock anywhere.) The ones we saw in stock online were not there, so the employees went to look and said they must have sold but not reflected that online. There was one more in the back, they said, in a different color, and when they went to get it, it was gone. As Ryan and I walked back to our truck, we saw a couple strapping it to the back of their car. And that is when you realize that taking that one extra bathroom break before leaving home is the difference between having a bike and not having a bike! Sadness.

But it's all okay because the Lord will provide a bike at the right time, and meanwhile, we had the BEST DAY!!!!!

Thanks, Ryan, for spending the whole day with me! I love you, and I've loved these 93 months!

Shafferland 3.0: The Dining Room!

When I moved into my first home (which later became our first home, or Shafferland 1.0), it had a proper dining room. It was actually the same size as the living room and it caused me nothing but consternation the entire time I lived there.

I wasn't very good at consistently entertaining back then - and about the time I became good at it, I was also a commuter and married and never home. It felt like the dining room was just this huge amount of square footage that we never needed and always wished we could add to a different room - like the living room!

So we moved to Kokomo. Shafferland 2.0. The house had no dining room at all, and we shrugged and said we didn't care, because obviously we didn't need it. Except we learned that when we lived and worked in the same general area and were actually home, we had time to entertain. That's why we ended up finishing the garage. It was our spare dining room.

We're pretty excited that our apartment has a dining room. (Or should I say dining cove?) We are looking forward to having people over and entertaining them in this delightful little space in the corner of our main living area.

And we're excited to use our dining room table as a proper dining room table again! You may or may not remember that in our Kokomo house, this was our desk in our office, because we didn't have anywhere else to put it!

In the above photo, I'm standing in our living room with the TV to my left. That doorway in the upper righthand corner is our guest bathroom.

In this picture, you can see how the space sits in relation to the kitchen!

The dining room table used to belong to Ryan's mom and stepdad, and years ago (before we were married) they upgraded to something newer and set this one aside for Ryan. He didn't have room for it at that time, so it went into storage out at the farm. Shortly before we moved to Kokomo, we picked it up and used it (briefly) in that baffling dining room we had there. Then, as I said, it became our desk in Kokomo. And now it's back to being a dining room table. We have a couple of leaves for it in case we ever need to make it longer, but this is how it sits at its smallest. I have dreams of one day doing a color upgrade to it, but it's really a beautiful piece even as it is. It's solid!

The buffet belonged to my grandparents and was our coffee bar for a while. After that it was a spare dresser. It's catch-all storage for us now. It's pretty worn from a long life and some coffee pot damage, so we would love to do some refinishing work on the top of it at some point. But for now it serves its purpose well.

Our "Shaffer" sign was a wedding gift. The two watercolor paintings are of our two previous homes. We're going to have my friend Amber paint WillowBridge, so we left a space for it! :) You might recognize Brutus, Ryan's rhino that previously lived in his cloffice at work. And the rose is what he gave me when he proposed! That middle piece is something I found at Sam's not long ago, and I thought it would be perfect for holding our breakfast bars and fruit. We've also been able to use it for community events, so it's got a double purpose!

Here's a closer shot at the paintings. We love them dearly.

And here's the little collection behind the dining room table. Our clock was one of the first gifts I bought Ryan after we got married. All three of the other pieces were gifts to us.

The same little pitcher and salt/pepper shakers we had on our table in Kokomo. In case you are wondering, we sold our beloved little farmhouse table to the people who bought our house. They loved it, and it was the perfect fit in size for that kitchen. We knew we didn't have room for two tables, so we elected to choose the one that could seat our company.

One more peek at the room - from the kitchen:

We do keep the table pushed up against the wall, since we don't need all the chairs every day. It buys us a little more room on a regular basis. :)

So that's our little dining area. We can't wait to have our first dinner guests!

Shafferland 3.0 - The Kitchen

Hello, and a happy SEPTEMBER to you!! What in the world!? It's felt a little fallish in the mornings and evenings around here the last few days, so if it's going to do that, I'm happy to have the calendar match the feels. :)

I'm pretty excited to share today's post with you, because I've been dying to show you our new kitchen!! It is actually one of our very favorite parts of our apartment.

Our kitchen is vastly different from the one in our Kokomo house (in all of its various stages during our time there). But we love it for all its uniqueness! You won't really be able to fully tell in the pictures today, but our kitchen, living room, and dining room are all one great big living space, and that is what we love most of all about it. It's the perfect, perfect fit for us.

I took the photo below from our couch, so you can see how beautifully open it is to the kitchen, and over to the right there, you can see our dining area. (I'll show you that room on a different day.) I still have a little bit of work to do on the decor above the cabinets. I have a cloche jar up there that I want to put some candles in, and I have a covered glass cake plate that needs something inside it. And I have one opening that I think will hold a faux plant - as soon as I find one I like (in my price range).

We have never had white cabinets in a kitchen before, but we love them. They are so bright and cheerful! and they are quality. We really do have a TON of storage in this kitchen. Possibly more than we had in our last one. The cabinets and drawers are also soft-close, which is a perk we've never had before, and we are sort of in love with it. The wall color was here when we moved in, and we love it. Most of our stuff coordinated perfectly with it, even though we've never had this wall color before.

This little bar counter is Ryan's top pick for favorite thing in the apartment. He uses it for a desk, and we eat pretty much every single meal here. (We pull the stools around so we can see the TV while we eat. And yes, that is Andy Griffith running strong on the TV.) I personally love it that there's a plug-in right under that counter top, so we can run computers or our diffuser or slow cooker or anything else we need right from that little peninsula!

Though we have a separate area for the bulk of our coffee stuff, we do keep our main coffee pot, one of our mug trees, and a little coffee spot right there in the corner, and it's one of my favorite things about the place. Fun fact: this little coffee vignette was the first thing I did when we moved in. I needed ONE decoration, and this was it! A little white pitcher I found at a garage sale this summer, filled with all my wooden utensils. The cake plate was my mom's, and the little pitcher with the coffee filters was a Hobby Lobby find. We have our coffee bean canister here, and hey Shari! See my little espresso mug? Think of you every time I see it! :)

Over on the other side of the counter - by the sink - is my utensil holder I bought early in the year, when we still lived in Kokomo. I love it because it isn't round. It sits up flat against the wall. That little coffee sign was a going away gift from my friend and church co-worker, Jenny. She and her husband just adopted a sweet baby boy, so I think of and pray for them every time I see this sign!

I have to tell you about this picture!! One of our friends from small group is a hobby photographer, and he recently started a website to sell some of his prints. This is a picture he took at a park in Kokomo (obviously in the fall), and I loved it for several reasons. 1. Fall. 2. Sunset. 3. The park is one that we used to walk with our friends David and Sheila and our beloved Miss Phoebe. 4. The tree is one that we had our picture taken under a couple of fall photo sessions ago. 5. Our friend took the picture. So I ordered a print of it, and since we don't have a window at the sink, I made my own window!! I love it. And I love praying for Colby and Sarah every time I see the picture!

Here it is up close:

And here is one of the pictures taken under that tree!

Now...back to the kitchen...

I love this engagement picture. It's one of my favorite ones, and since we were drinking coffee, it seemed appropriate for the kitchen...

Here's more of my cooking space!

I no longer have a double oven, which I was initially sad about, but there is an oven out in the community room, so in all fairness, I kind of do still have a double oven if I need it! And I love the smooth cooktop on this one - it's basically the same stove/oven I used to have - just a single version. Same with the microwave. It's almost the same as what we had.

And here's the fridge!! It's also very similar to what we had before. Our old one had French doors with a veggie drawer underneath that opened from the outside. The veggie drawer on this one opens from the inside. Otherwise, it's largely the same. Ryan likes knocking on the window to see the light come on inside. Ha!

There's a little nook on the other side of the fridge that holds a few more treasures:

And on this little angled wall that goes from our coffee nook into the kitchen, we put up a few of our coffee art pieces. (We weren't able to hang up all the wall hangings we had in our old house, because we didn't want to punch TOO many holes in the wall. But we kept the rest of the pieces so if we ever want to switch things up, we can!)

So that's our kitchen! It's a cozy space that we love dearly. We have cooked in there together, and there's plenty of room to move around. We love the open space, we love the storage, and we love how easily it became our coffee kitchen - the new version!