cheers, winners and the big move!

After watching the cheerleaders during the boys football games the last 2 years, Tessa really wanted to cheer this year.

I grew up a soccer player, one that made fun of cheerleaders... and now I have one.

And I love it, she is adorable :)

But I know NOTHING about cheerleading...



*****

Time to pick winners of the midsummer blog party! Thanks to all that participated.

I hope you had fun blog hopping :)

The randomly picked winner of the $75 gift certificate is
Dave and Ashley
who said:
I'd love, love, love the monogrammed bracelet with the heart charm. It is so delicate and beautiful. My husband has gotten me every piece of main jewelry (except for a bracelet) that I wear every day, and I would love the bracelet with our names on it to wear while he is deployed.

The randomly picked winner of their choice from the ready to ship shop is
Lisa
who said:
Your jewelry is so beautiful. Hard to choose...but I love the 'faith' necklace. Thanks for chance to win!

Email us ladies!

*****

I have a few new designs to show you, but unfortunately my computer that has them saved has been packed.

We are getting ready to move it into our new space... in our new store! We are moving into the back studio area to start working from there- we desperately need more space :)

We plan on opening the front retail space in September.

{ YAY!!! }

I will have pics to share on monday of our big move!

Have a fab weekend!

ps... use code MOVING to get 20% off of anything in our ready to ship shop, good until monday!

the last night.

We almost made it.

We just needed about 8 more hours.

But the last night of our hotel adventure we woke up at 1:30 am to the alarm sirens and lights flashing.

Ryan and I sprang out of bed, raced to the living room where the boys were out of bed and looking scared.

We could hear Eden screaming, Ryan ran to grab her.

Tessa was still asleep!

I felt wet carpet with my toes and I looked at the front door and saw water seeping in!I opened the front door and saw that our whole hallway was flooded. I felt relieved, a flood is way better than a fire! We started throwing our stuff up on the beds to keep it dry.

And Tessa was STILL asleep! The alarms were screaming ear piercing screams the whole time. I woke her up to have her get shoes on and she just rolled over and pulled the covers back over her head! I told her alarms were going off and she finally rolled out of bed.

We grabbed the kids and evacuated.



The hot water pipe in the mechanical room (which was across the room from us) had burst, and the heat had caused the fire alarms to go off.

(sorry for the small pic, taken with Ryan's phone).



The kids and I sat in the car and watched Dora until about 3 am, Ryan gathered all of our stuff together...

...some of the stuff we failed to throw up on the beds was FLOATING by the time he went back up...

...and we headed to his parent's house for the night.

Tired, but thankful everyone was ok :)

Our cRaZiEsT hotel experience ever!

football & geese.

This week the boys have football camp every night...
(is it really that time of year again already???)
and they LOVE it!
Don't they look TOUGH :)

*****

On the way home (aka the hotel) we were stopped by this...


Driving through town, it's not rare to have to wait while geese cross the street...
I guess they like Tulsa!
And it just makes me smile to see all of the cars that patiently stop and wait for the geeses families to cross :)
This time I had my camera with me :)

hotel life

We have been living in a hotel for a few days, we moved in Friday and hope to go home tomorrow. We had wood floors put in almost the entire downstairs of our house (it was either carpet or wood floors as our current carpet was yuck, and we chose wood floors!) , thus making it un-liveable



3 GREAT things about hotel life:

1. housekeeping everyday (amazing!)
2. the free breakfasts
3. the indoor pool for the kids with a hot tub for me :)



3 not so great things about hotel life:

1. not having the comforts of home
2. not being able to send the kids out to the backyard
3. the confined space



It has been an interesting adventure...
but we are all ready to go home!!!

midsummer blog party {a giveaway!}

We joined in the midsummer blog party- fun!

There are lots of bloggers with lots of fun goodies to win!
(links are below)

Just for fun let's give something away, mmkay?

How about 2 things? So we will have 2 winners!

A $75 gift certificate to our website for one winner...



OR your choice of anything from our ready to ship shop for another winner!



Just leave us a comment
telling us: what would you pick if you won?

Blog it and tweet it @thevintagepearl for extra entries!

**********

Join in the party! Link up your giveaway below or just click the thumbnails below to visit more giveaways!

photo contest winners!!!

Thank you so much to ALL that entered our photo contest!

We had so much fun looking at all of your pictures and reading your stories, and we had hard decisions to make.

After much deliberation we chose winners...

1st place winner is Allyson...

I love baby feet, and the angles and colors in this pictures are fabulous! This definately captures the sweetness of motherhood!



2nd place winner is Rachel...

we loved the creativity in this shot!



3rd place winner is Jamie...

this is a great shot of our wide leather cuff and love the Bible with the scripture!



Congrats winners! Please email us- thevintagepearlinfo@gmail.com

**********

Just a few of our other favorites (there were too many to post them all!)...































See why it was such a tough decision???

I enjoyed this contest so much
that I'm thinking of having
more contests in the future :)

Thank you again to all that entered!

just dance.

My sister in law Jennifer told us about a new wii game
they got called Just Dance.

We bought it friday...
and we. are. hooked!

You dance to the beat,
following the moves of the dancer on the screen.

We laugh and laugh and laugh...
we were up til 1 am playing with friends saturday night!
Boys vs. girls...(girls won, of course.)

And watching the kids dance is a RIOT!!!
(even Eden gets in on the dancing!)

Plus it's a pretty good workout...
once you stop laughing :)

*********

ps. don't forget about our photo contest,
the last day to enter is today...
winners will be announced on friday!

smile!

be silly...



play a game...



eat a treat...



it's monday :)

ava kate

If you have emailed us over the past several months, most likely you have chatted with Alissa. Alissa just gave birth to this precious baby girl, Ava Kate.

Isn't she beautiful?



{ Adorable baby booties from Curly Birdie. }



Jennifer is filling in for Alissa for a few weeks (thank you Jennifer!)

***

Holding Ava almost made me want another baby- the newborn stage is my absolute favorite!

But 4 kids are good for us for now :)

***

Congrats Alissa, she is beautiful!

store progress & a photo contest!

The construction on the new store is slowly coming along!

We are so anxious to move in.

Come on in a take a peek!



We hemmed and hawed over the paint colors and decided to stick with the original black trim with the brown walls. Everyone has white trim, black will be unique :)

The wall on the left was one of the newly built walls, and new track lighting that will eventually shine on pictures...



Soon to be black french doors that open from the retail area back to the work areas. You can see another new wall and new french doors inside leading to the new assembly room...



and the front retail area will soon have hardwood floors...



**********

the PHOTO contest :

We want to see YOUR pictures with our jewelry on our walls of the new store!

Get creative,
capture feeling,
have lots of fun with it!

Here is an example that was emailed to me by the amazing Tonya Joy...



and this was taken by Torie, so sweet!



Please send us your pictures to erin@thevintagepearl.com by next wednesday, July 21st- you have one week!

The pictures need to be taken in high resolution so they can be printed in great quality as large as a 11x14 picture.

Take them with babies, brides, props, whatever inspires you!

The winners will get:

1st place- $250 gift certificate (plus a surprise)
2nd place- $150 gift certificate
3rd place- $75 gift certificate

Major shopping!

Winners will be chosen and announced thursday, July 22nd.

Can't wait to see your pics!

Disneyworld!

Disneyworld was fun.

It was definately different having Eden with us.

Our babysitter (in the picture on the right- we told people she was our adopted child!) Michaela came with us to help with Eden, which was a blessing. At naptime and bedtime we took them back to the hotel and then the rest of us could go back to the park and play :)

Thank you Michaela for helping out!



*disclaimer- we only took Ryan's camera with us, I didn't feel like lugging my camera and Eden around, so please excuse the pictures :)



we visited Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom...



we went to Clearwater beach...



We went to a Pirate Dinner Adventure, and Eden hid under the table the entire time watching Dora on Ryan's iphone!





Disney was a great distraction for me :)

Still unpacking
and trying to catch up on emails
and get cack into "business mode"
with the kids at home
and get back to "normal" life :)