QOTD

This is so true. How often are we too afraid of rejection that we don't even bother trying to be friendly to strangers. I know that as I'm out and about I am guilty of doing the duck and weave. No eye contact, just keep going. I'm going to challenge myself to break that habit and to start smiling and stop avoiding. Sure I might get weird looks, or frowns, or people quickly looking away. But that's ok, cause I really don't have anything to lose. 

The Mrs. 

Oh Hello You

I'm dusting off my blogging cobwebs... and they are thick. I had so many plans for my blog this year. And I have sadly let them all fall by the wayside. Life has been busy. That is my honest truth. Between family obligations, work being an absolute nightmare and trying to squeeze in as many fun things with the Mr. that I can I have had zero time that I have felt like dedicating to this blog. Maybe someday when I don't work full time anymore I will pursue those dreams again. I hope so. But for now let's just settle for a quick Pinterest update.  Here are my 3 favs from the last few months.

 Sometimes I feel like my blog is to try and impress others. And that has been a key factor to me not updating it. It used to be more of a journal type thing for me. And then suddenly I felt like I had to catch up to all my amazing blogging friends. Turns out I suck at that. So ya... I'm just going to live vicariously through them. 

This one is so true. November was an absolute nightmare for me. My only escape was reading in the evenings to give my mind a break from the stresses placed on me. The power of the written word is amazing and I love getting lost in a book. 

This has pretty much become my motto this fall. I'm hoping that I will be a bit more fabulous in the new year. It's on my resolution list. But we will see.

No promises,

The Mrs.

Travel Thursdays, Hawaii Life pt 2

Hello Lovelies!

Welcome to my first ever Travel Thursday!

I am really hoping to develop Travel Thursdays on the blog into something that can eventually have guest bloggers so if you have an adventure and are willing to share keep me in mind! Traveling is the one thing that I am passionate above a lot of other things so you can expect my blog to take a shift in that direction soon!

Enough of my rambling though... On to Part 2 of the the Lovely Hawaiian Adventure that I recently took!

The Big Island of Hawaii is a very active Volcano. So of course the best part of a live volcano is that lava right? I was all for hiking down through the lava fields to the shore to watch the lava flowing into the ocean, or taking a boat tour right up to the active rift zone, at sunset. I'm all about mood lighting.
However the more... conservative... members of my travel party vetoed my vote by offering a view by air instead. And it was breathtaking. We saw everything from the Volcanoes, to the valleys, all the major waterfalls and the ranches covering the island. Definitely a must do if you are there. We covered a lot of ground and it gave us a good overview of the whole Island.
Bit on the pricey side, but well worth it.

 

Our Helicopter was a 6 passanger Eco-Star. It was awesome and was a pretty smooth ride for how windy out it was. There were a few times I gripped my seat as we came around the windier parts and the poor Russian girl in our hilo with us was very motion sick... Wear your Sea Bands! 

 

It was so surreal to see the Earth building itself up at the cost line. The steam was hundreds of feet tall coming off the lava going into the ocean. 

It was really beautiful. 

A look at the mouth of the crater of one of the 6 volcanoes on the Big Island. This one is actively flowing and we saw lots of breakaways... Ok Mom maybe you were right and it wasn't the best idea to go hiking across the lava field.... Still would of made for some great photos though. There isn't anything I'm not willing to do for a good picture apparently. Anywho. The mouth of the thing was glowing like crazy for mid afternoon. Again I'll voice how amazing it was to see the Earth literally breathing and growing right underneath us.

The view of Waipio Vally from the ocean was beautiful. I think one of the neatest things about Hawaii is the combination of the cliffs and the ocean combined. 

One of my favorite places that we visited on the Big Island was South Point. Which just so happens to be so aptly named as it is the Southern most point of the United States! Looking out into the ocean and knowing that there was nothing between me and Antarctica was pretty amazing. South Point was nature at it's finest. The waves were so loud and rough crashing into the shore at 90 degree angles. The trade winds coming from both direction were like whips hitting us. It was absolutely amazing. I feel like this is one of the few places in the world you can actually feel Mother natures power. Hawaii is such a volatile state and it was really breathtaking to experience the vengeful side of nature that is an everyday occurrence there.

 I could of stayed here for hours watching these waves roll in! I probably would of gone deaf from the wind noise though!

  We all lost our footing more than once. Don't fall in!

Still don't believe me about the wind? Check out the tree above... One of the most amazing shots from the whole trip probably. (I was hanging out of the car's sun roof to get this shot.)

On our Day trip around the Big Island we stopped off at Punalu'u Black Sand Beach State Park. WOW. I have never experienced a beach like this. The black sand was much coarser than the beaches in Florida I'm used to, but it wasn't rough. Think of it like a really good exfoliation at the salon! The shore was a mix of pebbles and finely ground up lava.

Visiting a Black sand beach was on my Life Bucket List so I was super excited to be able to check that off my list!

This particular beach is also a favorite place for some of the locals! Sea Turtles! They were so big and so chill. They just hung out wherever the waves rolled them up. This guy washed up and then just fell asleep on that rock. We were able to get pretty close too. 

 My Momma taking a rest from exploring on a lava dome on the beach. Isn't she pretty??

Definitely worth a stop. Even if it is out of your way I highly recommend visiting Punalu'u. It's a once in a lifetime experience for sure!

Deep Sea Fishing. Being an Island fishing is a huge thing. And EATING fish is a local must do! Seeing as you are closer to Japan sometimes than the states as well that means Sushi is pretty popular on the Isalnds. And what do you put in Sushi? Ahi Tuna!

 Check out my man's 129 lb Yellow Fin Ahi Tuna! That thing was a BEAST! Congrats babe I now know we won't starve if we have to live in the middle of the ocean! HAH! The Hubs and my Daddy chartered a private boat and took it out for 6 hours. They both caught these beautiful tuna's.

XOXO The Mrs.

Live Aloha!

Tonight I am so excited to bring you the first in my Hawaii Life posts! These will be all about my recent trip to the Beautiful state of Hawaii and will be kicking off a new posting series on my blog called Travel Thursdays.

Let me just start by saying that Hawaii is amazing!
We stayed 6 days on the Big Island, Kona coast, and 2 days 1 night on Ohau, Waikiki Beach. I feel like we conquered the Big Island. We drove around as much as we could without driving into an active lava flow, saw 1/3 of the island by helicopter, and explored every small town we passed! Here are the treasures we found during our many day trips around the Big Island...

**Just so you know this is not in order of how we did things on our trip, but I tried to group similar activities together**

The Hawaiian Vanilla Company factory is a gem of a find on the Big Island. It is the only vanilla factory in the Islands, and it smelled amazing here. It is a full vanilla farm and they give tours to show how the beans are harvested. We didn't get to go on a tour, but we looked around the farm and shop and got the most amazing fresh vanilla bean ice cream. They partner with a local dairy farm and have them infuse their vanilla beans into their ice cream. It was the BEST vanilla ice cream I've ever had! I love shopping local.

I loved these doors leading into the shop, they were huge and heavy and had the coolest details on them like those door handles! 

The shop was adorable and they had the most delicious smelling products, everything from pancake mixes, to teas, lotions, body scrubs, and even BBQ sauce! We of course grabbed a few bottles of vanilla extract and I got this amazing body lotion that smells heavenly. 

They had these beauties everywhere. They are so cool. It's like a cactus mixed with a rose.

For my Birthday I decided I wanted to hike some waterfalls around the Island and to visit the famous Waipio Valley. We decided on Akaka Falls and the lookout for the Waipio Valley. Both were absolutely gorgeous and the views were breath taking.

The Mr. and I at the Akaka falls lookout.

The falls are 442 ft tall and legend says that they are named after Chief Akaka. He fell to his death from them after being caught cheating on his wife with another woman. There is a large red rock at the bottom of the pools that legend says he turned into when he fell from the falls. The nearby Kahuna falls is said to be his mistress and the large rocks at the top of the falls are said to be his wife and dog watching down on him. Kind of a sad story... But the falls were gorgeous! And they were a super easy hike as well. So don't count them out if you aren't wanting anything too strenuous.


What says Hawaii More than Sunsets on the beach? We had ample opportunity to take in this Hawaiian experience almost nightly! Growing up on the East coast you get to see the Sunrise over the ocean any morning you feel like waking up at 6am. But there is something so spectacular about watching the sun go down into the ocean!

 The quintessential Hawaiian Sunset... Don't you think? I have a hundred pictures of this, it was so hard to choose just one. But I loved this palm tree. I wish there was a way to put sound with pictures because one of my favorite things about the ocean is the sound of the breeze going through the palm trees.

While on the Big Island we explored several local beaches. One of my favorites was Hapuna Beach State Park. It was a shell sand beach and was long and wide and not very crowded. The water wasn't as warm as the Atlantic that I'm used to but it was very refreshing on the hot June day! We spent the whole morning here one day just taking in the sights and sounds of the ocean. Not a care in the world eating macadamia nuts and relaxing to the sounds of the waves. Ah vacation.... You bring such peace to my soul!

 This beach was particularly cool because it had all these fun rock formations on either end of it, and on one end there was actually a natural cave you could get into when the tide was low enough. So fun. I kind of expected to find Narnia inside of it... I still loved the tidal pools and lava rocks though.

 One of my most favorite places we went while on the big Island was the Lava Lava Beach Club. This place was perfect in every way. It is an all open air restaurant right on the beach. At night they have local musicians come in and do a mix of hawaiian, reggae and top 40 songs. The picture above and on the right is our view from our table one night. (It was so good we had to go twice!) They served everything from Barbecue ribs (AMAZING) to the fresh catch of the day, I had the Mahi Mahi, It was exquisite. The atmosphere was so casual and comfortable and the wait staff was all so laid back. They bring you your check in a childrens book instead of a normal black check folder. You could take a marker and write a message about your experience or to your waiter over the pages of the book. It was such a fun and unique dining experience that I am already craving being back home!

 Since I can't be sitting on the beach there I'll just have to settle for my satellite radio to bring me the hits from my favorite Hawaiian radio station that is all to blame for this trip, 93.1 Da Pa'ina.

Stay tuned for the rest of my Hawaii Life posts!

XOXO
The Mrs.

Blog Lovin'

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The Little Red Guy

On our Second day in Utah we had a great time hanging out with My Sister-Inlaw and her husband. It's so fun spending time with them! We went shooting out by Utah lake. It was a GORGEOUS day out. And it was fun to just kind of drive out and be able to work on our shooting skills. I don't know a TON about guns, but my MR. loves going shooting and he was pretty stoked. Some of the guns we shot were pretty big (to me anyway), we shot everything from an AR15 rifle to a Shield 9 mm and a Revolver.

Before we headed out to the shooting site we made a pit stop at the infamous Scheels. It was awesome. And of course we rode the ferris wheel. It just so happens to be on our bucket list after all!

This seriously boggles my mind that this is inside this huge outdoor store. And I thought Bass Pro shop was cool....

Yay for crossing one off the Bucket list!

Utah Lake is so pretty and I loved getting to spend time outdoors. Utah is a perfect place to do that! We had our own little firing range set up on the side of the mountain. We were aiming at mostly stationary targets but the guys had some moving targets too, I just aimed for the little red guy. I even hit him a few times. YAY!

Watchout! We are locked and loaded! Utah was so fun and I am so glad we stopped out here along the way to catch up with the Mr.'s Sisters and our friends. On to Hawaii!!

XOXO

The Mrs.

J'adore...

We all know that I LOVE the South. My roots are Southern and that is where my heart lies. But I have a confession to make, I love somewhere else too. 

Alpine, Utah holds a most special place in my heart. I learned, lived, and loved in this beautiful mountain town. I had so much personal growth while I was here and met one of my lifelong friends, the wonderful Miss. Gentri Lee!!

Anytime I pass through Utah we try to hang out and this time was no exception. And luckily happened to be right before both of our birthdays. So we had a amazing girls day exploring the hidden treasures of the Salt Lake Valley! We always have the best adventures! 

 My favorite view of Utah Valley is from Gentri's house. It's even prettier at night with all the lights dancing under the summer heat. Majestic is the best word to describe it.

(Shirt - Nordstrom, Jeans - Miss Me.) (photo credit: Gentri Lee)

Well as most fashionable girls in Utah do we headed to City Creek and Gentri showed me around her blogging territory. This girl is fierce! I loved hearing all about her styling and photo shoots. Watch out fashion world, Gentri is seriously talented!

I loved this painting at Anthropologie. It was made out of crushed dishes. So clever and crafty.... Oh Anthro you never disappoint!

After we stomped all up and down the GORGEOUS City Creek Mall we headed to the Grand American. WOW. The whole hotel just screams luxury. Gentri and I both have an eye for and appreciate the finer things in life so we felt right at home! We'll take the penthouse Jeeves!

This hotel is a beautiful mix of old world luxury and European refinement. Its exquisite. Even if you can't afford to stay it is a must see if you're in the SLC area.

Inside the Grand America Gentri took me to this adorable French Bakery called La Bonne Vie. If you are craving a delectable sweet treat that is positively sinful I suggest you try the macaroons.

Also inside the Grand America is the most adorable French Toy Store called Jou Jou! This toy store had everything a little kid could possibly want in their play room. It was adorable! All of the toys were so unique. They had couture fairy dolls and little mice sleeping in cigar boxes. They had an adorable monster display that was interactive for kids to play with and in the back they had all sorts of books to read and a giant musical candy organ. I just turned 26 and I was in heaven. I can only imagine a 5 year olds reaction.

(photo credit: Gentri Lee)

Name tag placemats. How precious are these?

J ' adore Jou Jou!
Everytime you stepped on the lighted path it blasted out some sort of Jazzy tune. Needless to say we kept stepping on it till we heard them all...

I'm pretty sure this is the stuff little kids dreams are made of.

(photo credit: Gentri Lee)

After we had our fill of Jou Jou we adjourned to the gardens for some late afternoon air. If we had been in the 1800's we would of been taking tea in the garden. We were so born on the wrong continent and in the wrong time period...

(photo credit: Gentri Lee)

Seriously you guys really need to try the Macaroons...

 The gardens were beautiful and filled with gorgeous flowers and fountains and sculptures. Everything was so ornate and intricate about the whole hotel it was great! We loved these doors too. So very Gatsby don't you think?

After we had our fill of luxury we headed further downtown for Dinner. The initial place we were going to go was closed, so we instead found this little gem. Lamb's Bar and Grill. Turns out it is the longest consecutively running restaurant in the Salt Lake Valley. We always find the coolest places when we are together It's one of the things I love most about our friendship!

It was like walking into a picture from the 1920's. I loved this place, it had so much character and was so simply gorgeous in that art deco way. The long coffee bar, the private booths in the back, it was epic! We both enjoyed a delicious meal as well. We got this sandwich that was roasted turkey, cranberry relish and stuffing on cibatta. Thanksgiving sandwich? It was a perfect way to wrap up our day of adventure!

(Photo credit: GentriLee) 

 (photo credit: Gentri Lee)

Until our next adventure...

XOXO
 The Mrs.

P.S. My Hawaii posts will be coming soon. Stay tuned for my Gifts from Hawaii Giveaway. It's my first giveaway and I am so excited. I found so much cool stuff while  I was in the Hawaiian Islands that I can't wait to share with a few lucky readers!