Good to be Home

We got home late Monday night after spending the weekend in San Francisco for Pride with Mister B&B. As soon as we walked through the door and saw Alyster and our two little girls (the big girls are at PJ’s mom’s house until we pick them up tomorrow), we got the biggest feeling of comfort and relief. We were home! Finally.

We had the time of our lives in SF, though! We met some amazing people who we feel blessed to call new friends! It wouldn’t have been as much fun without Kyle, Titus, and Raymond, who were so kind and ended up showing us so much of the city, we guess you could call them our tour guides (even though none of them currently live there, they new their way around the entire city!). We also finally met Brock & Chris from Yummertime after being friends on a Instagram for what feels like forever. They were beyond sweet and just as charming in person as they are online. We plan on making a blog & a vlog of the whole trip so stay tuned for that to see how we spent our time in SF!

Before we went to SF, PJ was working in Ohio for 5 days, and before that we were on the cruise for a week, so you can imagine how good it felt to come home and just be HOME. Relaxing on our couch, cuddling in our bed, watching Netflix and playing with the girls and Alyster. It’s also fun to drive around town and see small, subtle changes that occurred while you’re gone, you know? Maybe a house that’s being fixed up is further along or maybe a road has been newly paved. There’s always something that’s slightly different when we get back from being gone and that can make coming home to the same town you’ve lived in forever all the more exciting.

We have 3 house guests (from two different cities!) coming to stay with us for the next couple of days and they’ll be here in just a few hours! We are so excited! You may recognize their faces from Instagram ;) so keep an eye out to see who it is. One of the main things we love about Instagram is how many people we are able to meet from all over the U.S. and become friends with. All from an app. How cool is that?

We hope you had a wonderful pride weekend and are getting back into the swing of things this week. Take care, friend. xx

 PS- we leave on another trip ONE WEEK from today with more Instagram friends!!!! We CANNOT WAIT!!  

Away We Go!

We’re currently at the ATL airport waiting to board a plane that will take us to San Francisco for the weekend! We are SO excited. We’re traveling with Mister B&B (the BEST gay travel app out there. Have you downloaded it?) and it’ll be our first time in San Francisco and PJ’s first time in CA in over a decade.

Looking at the weather this weekend has us stoked because it’s not going to get hotter than 73 degrees (in June!!) which will be a nice break from the 85+ degree weather here in TN. A lot of you told us to bring jackets and pants, so after we put a bunch of shorts and t shirts in our suitcases, we repacked appropriately so that we won’t freeze. Who knew?! 

Another reason we’re so excited to be going to SF is because it’s our first time going to this big of a Pride celebration! We hate that we’ll miss the parade on Sunday, but it doesn’t start until around 2p and our flight leaves at 12:30p :(. Hoping to still get to do some fun Pride events on Saturday, though. It’s such a short time to take in a city as beautiful as SF so we’re going to make the most of it while we’re there. We want to eat at all the good restaurants, see all the pretty sights, meet all the nice people. You’ve been giving us suggestions on Insta and we really appreciate it!!! 

Besides Seattle two years ago, this will also be the most gay-friendly city we’ve ever been to. We don’t know what to expect but we would be lying if we said we weren’t looking forward to walking down the street holding hands without judgey eyes looking at us. We don’t know what that’s like! What if we love San Fran (is that what the locals call it?) so much that we end up moving there?! 😂 TBD.

Well we’re off for now. Our plane is about to board which means it’s time to settle in and (hopefully) fall asleep on the five hour plane ride. Maybe we’ll see you in CA? xx

Creamy Garlic Avocado Pasta

Tonight we were in the mood for something rich and savory, but that wouldn't be absolutely terrible for us. We had noodles, we had avocados, and we had garlic. Suddenly, a dinner was born. This pasta is quick and easy and tastes delish. A nice summer dish that you won't feel guilty about eating (tbh you should never feel guilty about what you put in YOUR body. You do you xx).

Let's get right to it, shall we?

Ingredients

• Cavatappi noodles (however much you want)
• 1 avocado
• Olive oil, to taste
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup of parsley (preferably fresh) 
• 1/4 cup of basil (preferably fresh) 
• Salt & pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Fill pot on the stove with water and salt and heat to a boil. Put noodles in and monitor while stirring often.
2. Peel avocado and place whole in blender or food processor. 
3. Squeeze the lemon and pour the juice into the processor. 
4. Heat tablespoon of olive oil in a pan on medium to high heat. Once hot, put minced garlic in and sauté for 30 seconds or until fragrant. Pour garlic into the food processor.
5. Pour basil, parsley, salt, and pepper into the food processor and puree for 1-2 mins.
6. Mix sauce with noodles and sprinkle a little parmesean cheese if you're feeling crazy.
7. Enjoy :)

Where in the World Are We Going?

(Alyster keeping us company as we write)

We have been traveling SO MUCH this year, more so than any other year. It's crazy to think about, though, because that was one of our new year's resolutions. We were going to make this ~The Year of Travel~ and we feel confident in saying that it officially is!

This coming Friday we are heading to San Francisco to celebrate Pride! We are slightly embarrassed to say that this will be our first major Pride event we've been to. We've been so busy the last couple of years fixing up houses (seriously, we've had a house to work on every summer for the past 3 years) and then last year promoting the show, which happened to air on this same Pride weekend 1 year ago (!!!), that we haven't made time to go to one. We did go to Knoxville's Pride last year which was fun because we got to meet some of y'all there and experience what goes on at an event like that, but we think San Fran's will be on a whole other level. Have you ever been?

We are staying with a fun, surprise house guest that we can't wait to tell you who it is. We've never met them in person, only through Instagram, so we're looking forward to getting the chance to say hi IRL. 

We will only be in SF for a couple of days, so it's a really short trip. We've been getting some messages from y'all on where to go and what to do so thank you! Keep them coming! We've never been to California together before (PJ went with his aunt to L.A. years ago) and it's something we've always wanted to experience together, so we are beyond excited to get to go!

Our friend Lindsey is the best house sitter in the world, and she will be watching our place and our dogs while we're gone. We don't know what we would do without that girl! You may have seen her pop up in our Instastories from time to time. #loveher

So that's all for now. We'll update you more as it gets closer! Hope you're having a great week!!! xx

Good Intentions

(How cute does Alyster look here?! It’s the new background picture on my phone, don’t mind me)

Why aren’t there enough hours in the day?

Do you ask yourself that from time to time? Doesn’t it seem like there’s always SO much to do and never enough time to do it? We just asked you a lot of questions in a row so we hope you don’t feel pressured 😂, but it’s been on our minds a lot lately.

May, June, and July are shaping up to be our busiest months in a while, with traveling out of state, even out of the country, not to mention lots of work to be done at home. We also just added a new member to the family (above) so trying to balance work, relationships, friends, etc, has us asking again, where are all the hours in the day going?! And why can’t we get more!

We have a couple of letters sitting on our desk from you guys that we planned on responding to this past weekend, but PJ just got home from being gone all week, and we had some out of town friends come to stay with us (which was so much fun!!!) and before you know it, it was Sunday night and we were pooped.  We plan to get them in the mail this week, though!

So, we always have many, many good intentions to get everything done that we have on our plates, but sometimes there are just not enough minutes in the day. And after writing this post, we think that’s okay from time to time. We can only do what we can do, right? It’s important to strive to be better, but it’s just as important to remember that we need to cut ourselves some slack and know we are all just doing the best that we can, don’t you think?

That last one was a rhetorical question ;). 

(Above photo by Cameron Hinkle) 

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday!! How has your week been? PJ has been out of town all week working on an exciting new project with our friend Brian Patrick Flynn. With PJ gone, Thomas has been spending a lot of time with his family and catching up on some much needed house cleaning.

What are you up to this weekend? We have a few friends coming to stay with us, plus PJ gets back into town (!!!) so it should be a fun weekend. 

We've been digging some items recently and we can't get them out of our heads. We think you'll like them, too. Check them out below and click the pictures to shop!

This nautical inspired bedside table that we ordered two of for our guest bedroom. 

This fun-shaped wooden end table that we also recently got from Wayfair. It's even more beautiful in person.

How fun are these linen pants from Gap? Perfect for summer don't you think?

We've been really into decorating with tans lately, so we can totally see this vase from Target on our bookshelves in our living room.

We're not normally into fake plants, but for $8, you can't beat this faux succulent that looks real enough that no one would even notice.

An oldie but goody, this lamp from Threshold is a cheaper alternative to similar lamps by Pottery Barn and West Elm. We have two of these lamps in our house and love them.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend, friend! 

Home Again

Not to be confused with the 2017 Hallie Meyers-Shyer movie, (which was so good, have you seen it?) but we are HOME!

We got home Sunday night and there’s no better feeling than walking in your front door after a long trip. We had an absolute BLAST on the cruise so expect to see a new YouTube video about the entire thing next week, including meeting a certain someone that we never thought we’d have the chance to meet!

To catch you up, we went on a 7 day cruise with Celebrity Cruises. We cruised with them in Feb of this year, along with our friends Beau and Matt from ProbablyThis, and had so much fun, so we were thrilled when they asked us to go cruising again last week.   

We’re just going to come out now and say it: we ate WAY too much. It’s honestly hard not to when you have so much good food readily available for you at all times!! We plan to get back on track this week with eating better now that we won’t be so tempted ;).

(Celebrating at the #PridePartyAtSea on board the Celebrity Summit)

We had the time of our lives celebrating Pride with Celebrity Cruises last Tuesday on the ship. How cool is that, that they support the LGBTQ community so much? We walked in a parade around the top of the ship, danced until we were sore, and just had an all around great time. Wish you could have seen how many people cheered when we all started the parade with our rainbow headbands and glow sticks. It was a beautiful site seeing everyone come together to support equality for all.

Happy Pride month indeed.

We'll be back later this week with more updates! So glad to be home!!!!

We Finally Finished Our Front Guest Bedroom

If you have been following us for a least a year, you know our ongoing struggle to finally finish our front guest bedroom. When we first moved in, it was staged as a bedroom for the show, and looked like this:

It was simple, clean, and honestly, not much to it. It did the job for what it was supposed to do, which was look like an upstairs bedroom as the camera showed it onscreen for maybe three seconds. After the show was over, though, it became something else. Something much, much worse. 

See, we moved into this house last year, but after we moved we still had some stuff over at our old house that we had to bring over. Why we didn't bring it all over in the first place? Honestly who knows. We think we were just so exhausted from the months of filming the show that we kind of took it easy for a second. Well, bad idea, because someone broke into our old house (where a lot of our stuff was still being stored) and stole a lot of stuff. It was bad and we felt so violated, but luckily it wasn't anything replaceable (though our old camera was stolen so, yikes).

After that, we moved everything into our current house and unfortunately, a lot of the stuff went into the front bedroom and it became a major junk room (which you can see footage of in the video below) for almost a year. You could barely walk through it and it always felt so overwhelming every time we went in there. 

Well, that feeling is no more! And you can walk through it just fine! We partnered up with Wayfair to help transform our guest bedroom into a room that our guests will actually enjoy staying in. We set a budget and surprisingly ended up sticking to it! We detailed it all in our YouTube video below, if you want to check it out.

 In the meantime, here’s how it all looks after we put it all together:

We wanted to go for a bright, classic look, so we used whites, blacks, warm wood tones, and blue got a fresh and somewhat coastal theme. This room gets the most beautiful light in the morning and we wanted the room to reflect that happy, positive feeling of waking up.

Again, you can check out the whole process in our newest YouTube video below! 

Source list: 

• Jute rug 
• White nightstands 
• Wooden stool

Feature Friday with Andrew Kutz & Tyler Coldwell

Happy Friday y'all! How has your week been? Doesn't it seem like they're flying by? We can't believe it's already June. Any plans for the weekend? We have a very fun (and last minute) trip planned that we can't wait to tell you about!! 

This week's FF is so cute and relatable for a number of reasons. They argue over what they want to eat (#same), they are big on family (#same) and one of them came out around the age of 20 (also, #same). Wait until you read how they each knew each other were "the one", it's one of those perfect moments you only see in the movies. We're excited to share Andrew & Tyler's story with y'all today. Take a look...

Where are you from? Andrew: born outside Seattle and raised in Newville Pennsylvania Tyler: born and raised north central Ohio

Where do you live? Currently we just moved back to the West Coast to Downtown Los Angeles.

 What’s your Instagram handle? Joint: AKTC0702 Andrew: ABKUTZ Tyler: TJCOLDWELL

Age: Andrew=29 (till July, holding on to my twenties) Tyler= 30 (we don’t discuss it)

Relationship status: Engaged

What is your favorite place you have travelled to and why? Paris, it’s where we got engaged.  Andrew flew into Paris to surprise me and propose outside Sacré-Cœur Basilica (sacred-heart basilica) for 24 hrs before flying back. 

How did you guys meet? Who asked out who? Tyler had decided last minute to go to Vegas for his best friends 30th birthday. Tyler and his friend, Vanessa were leaving a local bar to go to another place to continue the celebration. As Tyler was backing his car out of a spot so Vanessa could get in, she spotted Andrew walking towards her and asked him for a favor, she said her best friend was trying to leave her and he should call him a D-bag. To which Andrew obliged and yelled “hey Tyler, your a deuce.” Tyler being very puzzled looked like who is this guy. Vanessa laughed the whole way to the car and they left. About an hour later they came back and saw Andrew going between groups of friends at the bar. Tylers’  friend spotted me (Andrew) and said hey that’s the guy.  At that point I thought I should actually introduce myself and said “Hi I’m Andrew”.  After some time talking Tyler and his friend decided they were heading home while I was going to join other friends at a club near.  Upon leaving we exchanged numbers and I said I would call him or message him from a hour after I get in.  Well that hour came and when I was walking out to head home I walked to my car which was towed.  Upon letting Tyler who was still up came back with “I can come get you,” I was surprised at how nice and genuine he was and accepted. I put him through the ringer that next 24 hours when I not only introduced him to my parents who were in town for the holiday but also had him join us all for the car at the impound but also tell him that my mom said she wouldn’t mind Tyler calling her mom.  This one night lead to several other crazy events the next few days but have been together ever since. 

How did you know each other were “the one”? Andrew: there were two moments for me that I knew Tyler was the one, the first one that night we met and he offered to pick me up but also that night after meeting his three dogs we also cuddled that night and it’s the first night that I fell asleep on his shoulder in his arms and woke up in that same spot the next moment.  The second is right after we moved from Vegas to DC and were out with friends after getting back from his best friends wedding in the Dominican that I had decided to get the ring from Tiffany’s and when I found the perfect one the look I had on my face and the realization that I was more than happy to say he is going to be my fiancé.  

Tyler: the moment I knew Andrew was the one was when I had to leave on Monday (the weekend we met). I extended my trip and left Monday instead of Sunday. When I got in the car and said goodbye to Andrew and started driving I felt this awful feeling of pain. The further I drove the more it hurt and I wanted nothing more than to turn around and go back to him. I realized then in that moment that I never wanted to live another day without him. Even though I knew I would see him in a few days it was too long. He was the one for me and I was excited to see what our next adventures would be together. 

Any big plans for the future? Where do you see yourselves in 10 years? First we see ourselves married, we are big on family and are looking to foster/adopt.  We are also looking to continue to grow Tyler’s real estate/ development firm here on the west coast while having opening Andrews Coffee/ wine bar.  Ideally we are looking to settle down in Seattle with our own house big enough for the kids but also my larger family to visit and spend more time with us. 

How would you describe your home decor style? Well Andrew’s idea of furniture when we met was two bar stools and a couch and bed ( both of which were inflatable). Meanwhile I came with a fully stocked household with accents like my home was staged for sale. While admittedly almost all of the style is mine (Tyler’s) it’s because I do it for a living. Our perfect home style is a nice transitional farmhouse style as it is our roots but also keeps us in the trendy LA and developer community. We always want the house to be warm and inviting for guests while comfortable for us. 

What is the last show you binged watched? We regularly watch the real housewives of anywhere, but binge watch would be Grace and Frankie. ANDREW would choose Unearthed but I’d rather do my taxes. Lol

How do you guys handle arguments? AND what’s the silliest thing you’ve ever fought over? Typically over dinner and a bottle of wine.....sometimes it takes a few bottles but then we get to a resolution. The silliest argument we ever had was picking out what to eat after a night out. I wanted tacos and Andrew hates Mexican food. Lol

How old were you when you came out and what was your experience like? Tyler- I came out when I was 20 years old. I had met a guy who I found myself attracted too. I had eased into everything first telling my best friend I was bisexual and later my mom suspected and ask me. I told her she was right and all she said is “ now don’t you feel better that is out, I already knew and nothing is going to change as long as your happy.” My Dad on the other hand (divorced parents) threatened to hit me and said I was lucky I caught him in a bad mood. We don’t really have a relationship as see each other every few years. 

Andrew-I didn’t officially tell my family till the February before Tyler and I met in 2016.   For me it was waiting for that moment to feel safe and that it was the right time.  I wasn’t completely out as I had also dated Women prior and for me it was who I felt comfortable with and it didn’t matter if it was a male or female, It’s the personal connection that makes a relationship not the label. 

Have you faced any backlash as a couple since coming out? If so, how do you deal with that? Andrew- Yes- not from our friends and family though but from other guys in the community. Mainly the story of how is this guy the one when I wasn’t and how are you really going to make that work when you can’t make it work with me or even make time for me. 

Tyler- We tune it out. It’s not worth our time and energy as we both have very rewarding lives already and we know what we mean to each other. All of the rest is white noise. 

What is your favorite thing about one another? Tyler- my favorite thing about Andrew is how he is always so supportive and would move heaven and earth to make me happy (including Moving across the country and away from his family for my career). He is my strength when I am weak and my hope when I am beaten. I think the phrase I like best is that he is “the butter to my bread and the breath to my lungs”

Andrew- My favorite thing about Tyler would have to be the amount  of compassion he has and even though he’s the sensitive one he never loses the drive for the things or ones he loves.  He is always there for a family member or friend and regardless of obstacles makes sure that he is there for them or will find a way to be. He compassion is what many see right away and what makes him a true friend and soon to be husband