Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

| By | | 262 Comments

The Wild Wild West

Can you believe it’s been three weeks since our last tour update? But even though you haven’t heard much about it, we’ve been on the road (and in the air) quite a lot lately. It took us nearly to the end of our book tour, but we finally made it all the way to the other side of the United States. So let’s dive right in with our recap of our stops in all three west coast states. #warningitslong

We started off in Tacoma, Washington at the Tacoma Home & Garden Show on Friday, January 25th. The people running the show did a great job getting the word out that we’d be there, even scoring this local newspaper article that featured an awesome / hilarious illustration of us which I just had to throw in. We think I look pretty spot on, but Sherry is a little Courteney Cox-ish. And clearly Burger wins.

Tacoma Newspaper

The Home Show was being held at the Tacoma Dome which is this big arena that also hosts concerts and sporting events. We even learned that Lady Gaga had performed there the previous week so we spent a few minutes walking around the backstage areas saying things like “Lady Gaga used this bathroom! Probably.” and striking in a Gaga pose or two. Ok, that was all Sherry.

But the Dome looked quite different than a Gaga concert when we were there. Much like our trip to the Portland Home & Garden Show last year, the place was decked out in vendor booths and awesome gardens displays built just for the few days of the show. I was particularly mesmerized by this water feature. Isn’t it convincingly outside-looking for being inside a big industrial dome?

Tacoma Show Cool Pond

Our favorite section was an area called “The Vintage Market” which was basically a flea market / antique mall set up right amidst all the usual home show fare. Amongst other things, we really liked this vintage classroom map of the United States. It was $50 and the only thing that stopped us from buying it was figuring out how to get it home.

Tacoma Show Vintage Map

Sherry also was obsessed with these old metal, powder blue chairs while I was oooh-ing over a bunch of the vintage letters at various booths. It was probably good that we couldn’t fit anything into our carry-on, otherwise we probably could’ve done some damage to our bank account.

Tacoma Show Vintage Chairs P

After some press stuff and a private meet-and-greet with Ali and her family (which you can read about on Ali’s blog) it was time for the main event: a presentation and book signing. They even let us give a 10-minute warning announcement across the PA system. Apologies to anyone who had to hear it – it was our first time speaking to an entire dome full of people and I’m sure we yelled more than we meant to. I also remember it starting with an extremely smooth: “Hello? Is anyone listening?” Nice, right?

Tacoma Sherry On Mic

The stage for the presentation was pretty sweet and made us feel much more legit than we really are. We were even miked!

Tacoma Talk Kyles Photo

It was pretty awesome looking out at your smiling faces (and various baby strollers).

Tacoma Talk Alis Photo

Following the talk and a short Q&A session, it was book signing time. In addition to books, there were requests to sign fun items too – like a sexy gold spray painted rhino (I think the only rhino Sherry could like more than a white rhino is a gold one). And I got my first ever plunger-signing request. Before you try to interpret the meaning behind me signing a toilet tool, let me explain that there was a booth nearby that was giving them away – so I think it was just coincidentally a home-related item. I hope it was, at least, because I think I signed three by the end of the day.

Tacoma Signing Plunger

Tacoma also knocked our socks off with the thoughtfulness of its residents. Reina and Tina of hello, cupcake couldn’t make the signing but sent over a dozen personalized cupcakes. They were delicious – and we earned points with the home show crew for sharing. Although it was a bit strange inviting people to take a bite of your own face (Sherry ate Clara and I ate Burger because we missed them the most).

Tacoma Signing Cupcakes

Sherry also received her first pair of gifted underwear, which had me cry-laughing. Andrea picked them out for Sherry because of the gold lettering (Jersey represent!) and the “Young” reference, but also because “if Sherry’s underwear situation is anything like her bra situation – the girl needs ’em.”

Tacoma Signing Underwear

In addition to getting our first undergarment in Tacoma, this was also the site of my first baby dental exam – courtesy of baby Ruby who was so mesmerized by my mouth that she had to get a feel. Her mom Jennifer is very apologetic on her blog about it, but I must say that I wasn’t fazed in the least (despite what my face says below). How could you have anything but love for that little lady?

Tacoma Signing Baby Mouth1

When the signing wrapped up around 4pm we were ready to call it a day (we had been there since 9am), but first I made Sherry take a spin in weird contraption. I just thought it looked funny, but I actually had trouble getting her to get out once she experienced it. It was basically a dry hot tub / steam free sauna that, if you’re really curious, is explained in more detail on their website.

Sitting In A Box

The next morning we hit the road for Portland. Since the drive is only a little over two hours, we opted to rent a car instead of go through the whole airport rigmarole. We like road trips so it was much more our style. Heck, if had the time and energy I probably would’ve been happy to drive to every stop on this tour.

Tacoma John Driving

Once in Portland, we headed to Rejuvenation for our signing. It was our first time at the store ever, because during last year’s visit we actually got lost trying to locate it. So we were really glad to get to experience it this time around because in addition to all of their new production lighting, furniture, and accessories (which is how I always think of them), they also had another half of the store that was filled with architectural salvage. I could’ve spent hours browsing there, but again the whole getting-items-home (plus the gotta-go-start-a-book-signing thing too) cut our shopping adventure short.

Portland Rejuvenation Salvage

We started the signing with a quick talk from this “stage” at the bottom of the stairs. I hope no one who came was disappointed when they realized we weren’t selling snacks like the sign above our heads indicated. If you’re curious as to what we talked about, you can watch a video of the one we did in Austin earlier this month.

Portland Rejuvenation Snack Bar

As the signing started, we were again greeted by some amazing personalized cupcakes (this time from Lindsay at Undercover Cupcake). I ate the Burger after the signing and he was incredible.

Portland Signing Undercover Cupcakes

In the “unusual items signed” category for Portland, we can’t forget Ellen’s request to sign the inside of her black blazer in honor of Sherry’s book signing “uniform” (Sherry changes her earrings, shoes, and the shirt under her blazer, but she has rocked the same blazer the entire time, which I appreciate to no end because there’s not a giant “what should I wear?” debate before each of these 22 events).

Portland Signing Blazer

Someone also requested that we sign their book in the form of speech bubbles over our pictures. Sherry wrote something normal (with lots of exclamation points) and I wrote something obnoxious. I wasn’t actually hungry, but I just figured that’s something I think a lot. So, in short, I was going for accuracy.

Portland Signing Im Hungry

These signings are also great because we get to put a lot of faces to comment-names. We also get to see familiar faces, like Katy who we met in Portland last year. At that meet-and-greet she broke the mold by asking us to pose with her laying on a nearby model-home bed so we had high hopes for her photo concept this time around. She delivered by suggesting we do a cheesy 80’s sitcom pose. She’s playing the role of the wacky neighbor.

Portland Signing Katy Sitcom

We love when folks, like Katy, come up and say “let’s take a funny picture.” And since we’re running out of weird facial expressions to break out, we’ve started doing extremely strange off-the-cuff things. Like this. Sherry swapped places with Amy so that she and Ben looked like excited fans. I love how much Ben committed to the role. Amy even did the Sherry head-tilt.

Portland Signing Switch Seats1

We also got a great engagement story out of the visit. Veronica’s now-fiancé had originally scheduled a weekend getaway the day of our signing in order to propose to her. But when he learned how much she wanted to come to the signing and a business trip got moved, he rescheduled the engagement plan for a few weeks earlier so that Veronica could get her ring and her book signed. Sounds like she snagged a good one.

Portland Engagement1

The signing actually wrapped up a couple of hours before we needed to leave for the airport, so we were excited to take in a couple more Portland sights that afternoon. So excited that I wasn’t paying attention while chatting with someone and closing the trunk of our rental car… with the keys in it. Yup. So instead of enjoying PDX, we spent 90 minutes waiting for the rental car company’s roadside assistance to come rescue us.

Portland Locked Out Of Car

I’m glad we had been in Portland last year so at least we didn’t feel cheated out of learning about the city (for anyone visiting, you have to check out Pine State Biscuits, Por Que No, and Salt & Straw – all of which we loved last year). In fact, Portland is the only city on this tour that where we didn’t spend the night (well, it happened in DC too, but that’s local-ish). Since we drove from Washington that morning and flew out that night to Northern California, we actually managed to visit three west coast states in a matter of 12 hours. And that’s not just a layover situation, we actually had breakfast in Washington, drove to Oregon for the signing and most of the day, and then flew to California that night to check into the hotel and sleep there.

Portland Flight

After getting some much needed rest in our hotel in Palo Alto, we were up bright and early to spend some time with my Aunt Liz before our book signing. She lives in nearby San Jose so she and her friend Joan came down to hang out for a bit. For the sake of my other aunts, I should note that Liz made the sign.

PAlto Aunt Liz

And if anyone saw people cut the line and sneak a picture in before the event started, it was my friend Jamie and his fiancée Ashley who live in Berkeley. You may recall Jamie from this uber-thoughtful gift that he gave Clara last year, so now you know why he got special privileges.

PAlto Jamie N Ashley

When the signing doors opened for real, we were first greeted by these lovely ladies who had driven up from Los Angeles that morning and – if that didn’t prove their dedication enough – had also DIYed these awesome homemade shirts. How cool is that house with the heart in the middle? Sherry wanted one.

PAlto Girls With YHL Shirts

We also met Emily (left) and her friends Abigail and Jillian who brought some of their finds from completing the Macklemore Challenge earlier that weekend. You can read more about them on Emily’s blog.

PAlto Friendship Mugs

Tasneem and her husband Asif (who, by the way, drove 300 miles from LA even though it was his birthday) arrived with a white ceramic dog for us to help us cope with the still fresh loss of this guy. I think our matching faces say it all.

PAlto Ceramic Dog

And how cool is this? Akiyo makes these stuffed penguin toys and she made one for Clara that’s dressed in a Burger costume! It’s not ceramic, but it ranks way up there with one of my favorite animals in the house.

PAlto Burger Penguin

Palo Alto was also fun because we had our first canine visitors. I wish I had the mental capacity to remember their names now, but regardless – they were enough to soothe the missing-Burger ache we always have on these trips.

PAlto Dog Daschund

PAlto Two Dogs

After the signing wrapped up, we met up briefly with our friends Matt and Kristin who have made several appearances on our blog (here’s one of ’em) thanks to their stylish place in Charlotte, NC. Last year they actually moved to San Francisco, hence our meet up on the other side of the country.

PAlto Friends Matt KK

We went out to lunch with them (Oren’s Hummus was awesome!) and caught up on the life they’re loving out there in the Bay Area. Oh yeah, and they even drove us to a street nearby with a very special name.

PAlto Clara Street

We then spent the night back in our hotel and got up crazy early (4am) for our flight back to our side of the States. It’s one of those days where you wished the time zones worked the other way, since despite leaving at sunrise, we didn’t get home until sunset in Virginia.

PAlto Early Morning Plane

But we’re so so glad we got to spend some time on the Pacific Coast with a bunch of you guys. I’m sorry we didn’t get scheduled elsewhere in California, but hopefully an LA stop will happen someday for some fun event. And if that happens, we’d better get to meet a celebrity or else I’ll feel cheated. Someone get Matt Damon on the phone!

Psst- If you want to read about some of our previous book tour stops, you can check a round-up of them here.

Comments

  1. Claudia says

    Sorry to be off topic, but I noticed you were having trouble with your feed yesterday and I’ve been having trouble with mine. It hasn’t updated in Google Reader or on Blog rolls in 3 days. Did you figure out what to do?

    Thanks so much,
    Claudia

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Hi Claudia,

      We haven’t yet. We use Feedburner for ours so there seems to be an issue with that and we think it may be associated with an update we did to our W3 Total Cache plugin earlier this week. Hope we both figure it out soon!

      -John

  3. Tasneem says

    What a fun day it was meeting ya’all in Palo Alto : )

    We made a 1 night weekend trip to the Bay Area out of it (from LA) and where SUPER EXHAUSTED. I have no idea how you toured the entire Wild Wild West in such a short time. You must have so much energy.

    We hope to see you again soon (once you recover from tour 1) on book tour 2 ….but in my hood this time, Los Angeles. I’ll try and bring Matt Damon ; )

    BTW – For the reader that asked, the ceramic pooch is from Marshalls I have seen him (her?) at HomeGoods to from time to time.

    Reply

  5. Alanna says

    So many of us Californians were glad you two got good weather while you visited (albeit “cold” for us!). Broke that bad weather curse you had at the beginning for sure!

    Reply

  7. Catherine says

    You guys have such committed fans (me included)! Great update.

    …Not sure if someone has already reported this, but for some reason your blog posts are showing up in my RSS feed reader super late (like 12 hours late). It could be a Google Reader issue, but thought I’d alert you just in case!

    Reply

    • Catherine says

      Oh never mind, it looks like someone has already said something a few comments above me. Sorry for double-reporting!

  9. Veronica says

    Oh my goodness, how fun to see Michael & I on the blog! Thanks for posting the engagement story, it was so awesome to meet you guys, glad you could come to Portland! :)

    Reply

  11. Stephanie Nelson says

    Lots of cool gifts on this leg! I betcha you are kinda happy, kinda sad to see the book tour end (and not because of the gifts).

    Reply

  13. Rachael says

    Yay, I see half of the back of my head in the group shot at Tacoma Dome!! :) By the way, Sherry, when you did your 10 minute thing on he mic, everyone in the audience perked up and starting looking around saying “it’s Sherry!! It’s her!! Where is she?!?” It was pretty funny. :) It was so SO amazing to finally meet you guys! I think I spent my whole wait in line trying (and not succeeding) to think of something clever to say to you! I was so nervous when it was my turn I honestly don’t even remember what I said. :) I know you don’t think of yourselves as celebrities by just think of how you would feel if you met Bethany Frankel!! Well, that’s how we feel. :). And thanks again for holding the happy birthday sign for Laura, she totally loved it!!

    Xoxo,
    Rachael

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      No way, that’s so funny about the announcement. I was totally blushing about it. You guys were so sweet to come out to see us. We had a great time!

      xo,
      s

  14. KathyL says

    I’ll just bet if you guys wanted something big toted across the states, that there’s enough of us readers to do a chain. It would probably take …what? an hour drive to the next meetup and then home? easy. What a fun idea, maybe this summer we can do a trial run, LOLOLOLOLLLLLL you could pay us in cupcakes!!!

    Reply

  15. Christi says

    My dad loves your site and then reminded me of when I was 16 and locked my car and thought my keys were inside… Nope, they were on the ground….for three days! I swear my dad attached them to me with duct tape!

    Reply

  18. Hansa says

    You should check out Class & Trash in Richmond for giant vintage looking letters. They are like the “p” in your post. I got them to ship me an “&” all the way to Califormia and I luv it!!

    Reply

  19. Claudia says

    Sorry if I my question about the feed problem was off topic. I think I’ve figured it out. Hopefully!

    I am a regular reader of your wonderful blog and am delighted by your talent and the down-to-earth quality you bring to all your posts.

    Thanks!

    Claudia

    Reply

  22. Dawn says

    My husband and I had so much fun listening to you guys at the Tacoma home and garden show! We made it into one of the back-of-the-head pictures too (hubby is the one with the orange shirt with his arm around me!). Thanks for coming all the way over to the west coast. Glad you are home safe and sound with your family for a while.

    Reply

  27. Samantha Horseman says

    Looks like you guys have had a blast! I’m so glad I got to meet you here in RVA! So, when are you starting on book 2?! HAHA

    p.s. those girls that made the shirts should sell them…i’d buy one! :)

    XO Samantha
    Designer in Teal

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Fortunately our publisher is putting no pressure on us to start book #2 yet. I think they know we’ll make a much better product if we get a breather first. :)

      -John

  29. Kacie says

    I had SUCH a fun time in palo alto meeting you both! Thank you for being amazing and so down to earth. FYI my fb profile picture is of the three of us with the caption “we’re basically best friends now.” ;) LOL congratulations on an amazing tour, book, home and most importantly family. :)

    Reply

  30. Susie Hamlin says

    I have one of those school maps in my basement, I was saving it for my daughter (a teacher) when she gets her own classroom…maybe I’ll keep it now! Or, if you come to Left Bank Books in St.Louis, it’s yours! How can you resist?

    Reply

  31. Katherine says

    That is SO creepy that someone gave you underwear, Sherry! Do you guys feel any less safe and secure now that you’re not only getting attention on the web but in real life (and meeting fans, etc)?

    Reply

  32. Stephanie says

    I am a long time reader who also lives in Richmond (Carytown area). They have those giant metal letters at a thrifty/antique-ish store called ‘Class and Trash’ in Ashland. If you guys haven’t been you should totally check it out!

    BTW- You guys are great!

    Reply

  35. Jennie says

    Come to LA!!! We’d love to see a tour in LA. We used to live in Richmond and moved to LA in 2008, spare guest room is ready for you guys!

    Reply

  36. Tracey C. says

    Hey guys! I am a YHL book owner and blog devotee, but first time commenter. Sad to confess I fell behind on your blog through the holidays. But this weekend found me flat on my back in bed with the flu…and the backlog of awesome ideas and antics kept me happily entertained. Thanks for sharing your inspiration, hard-won know-how and cutesville family. I’m feeling all inspired to go paint something…as soon as I kick the flu. Boo.

    Hugs!

    Reply

  40. Amy @ a new old house says

    Looks like you guys are having a blast! You deserve it.

    I’m a teeny bit jealous about your Rejuvenations visit- I LOVE their catalogue & website and can only image the salvage section of the store must be great!

    Reply

  42. Ellen says

    Yay! Thanks again for signing my blazer! I wore it this weekend and thought: “Yup. Sherry really does have my back!” Thanks for playing along with my dorky request. So great to meet you guys! Thanks for being so down to earth and relatable. That’s why we all love you.!

    Reply

  43. jbhat says

    I too wish that the Tacoma/Seattle stop could have been in a different venue (a quick stroll through the exhibits before snagging my seat at your talk at the Dome proved to be pret-ty underwhelming, minus the Vintage Market part), but I’m glad you got to get goo-goo over Gaga’s having been there. And then of course I was totally gaga over meeting you guys. So glad I got to! And I’m glad the rest of the west coast tour was fun for you. Come back soon!

    xo
    jbhat

    Reply

  44. Chelsea @ two twenty one says

    Holy smokes. I own that white ceramic dog! I picked it up at Home Goods the other day because it looks like the white ceramic dog version of our Jack. There was also a posse of white ceramic poodles. I almost Instagrammed them.

    You guys look like you had so much fun on your tour! Such an amazing way to see different cities and meet a boatload of awesome people. I’m happy I could run into you guys even though I was expecting Channing Tatum.

    Reply

  45. Heather says

    I was SO SAD to have missed you in Portland! I had RSVP’d and everything, and then I ended up falling ill the night before and there was just No. Way. that I was going to handle the cold and the bus or parking and standing in line and who-knows-if-there’s-chairs for the talk… My book was so excited to see you one more time before living in its forever home, but alas, it was not to be. Glad you had a fun time though!

    Reply

  46. amanda says

    The home show looks so nice. Thanks for the recommendations of where to visit in Portland- it’s one of my must-visit cities. Speaking of visiting, my friend and her family have moved to Virginia, just entered the state todoay, and I told her to check out your blog since you always have great places to shop and whatnot. I don’t think she’ll be near Richmond, more near Virginia Beach at an airforce base. And I recommended to her and will to you too, if you’re ever in VA Beach, please check out Flour Child Bakery! When I first started baking, I got many great recipes from the owner’s baking blog and she’s awesome sauce! I definitely wanna check it out if I ever make it up that way (and seeing as how my friends and family keeping moving to Virginia and South Carolina for military bases, that could happen).

    Reply

Stuff We Love

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *