annual easter vacations.

For the past 4 years we’ve spent Easter on vacation. With the weather in Wisconsin unpredictable in March/April and a holiday at work for Good Friday it has always seemed like the perfect time to getaway. We were late to the planning party this year in that we didn’t solidify any plans until about 10 days before leaving. Spontaneity at it’s finest, eh? I had been trying so hard to make a trip to the Caribbean work- particularly St. John or St. Thomas in the USVI but it just was not meant to be. Maybe next year…?

We had very few options as I had already omitted anywhere on the east coast and we were cashing in air miles. That narrowed the search down to Austin, Las Vegas, Los Angeles or San Diego. We’ve both been to Vegas and LA multiple times so that seemed nonsensical and while I desperately want to visit Austin I figured it’d be easier to learn more about San Diego in 10 short days.

So with very little preparation we booked a $5 flight to San Diego.

The Easter vacations have always been good to us and this one was no exception. The vacations do seem to be getting quite a bit less exotic I’m noticing, but that’s okay. We are turning this into somewhat of a tradition and I really love looking forward to it…

April 2013 | San Diego, CA

Spent every second of the 4.5 days wishing I lived in this city. It offers everything anyone could possibly want and is only 1.5 hours away from Disneyland… if that doesn’t win you over, what will?

Stay: Westin Gaslamp San Diego

April 2012 | Seattle, WA

Five days spent visiting iconic landmarks like the Space Needle, Pike Place Market and Kerry Park. This is a little big city… we walked everywhere and wished hard that we could someday call this state our home. My heart belongs to Washington.

Stay: The Maxwell Hotel

April 2011 | La Fortuna, Costa Rica

Quite possibly my most favorite vacation to date; we spent 8 days exploring the Arenal area of Costa Rica. With picture perfect views of the active volcano and adventures galore (like waterfall rapelling, zip lining, and white water rafting) every minute was memorable.

Stay: Nayara Resort & Spa

April 2010 | Soufriere, St. Lucia

The most lavish place we will ever stay in our ENTIRE lives. Spent 8 lazy days doing nothing but pinching myself. The Jalousie has been recently renamed to Sugar Beach and attracts the likes of The Bachelor and Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. We lounged on the beach, hiked the Gros Piton, ate like it was going out of style and dipped in our private plunge pool.

Stay: Jalousie Plantation [now Sugar Beach]

It’s always fun to take a trip down vacation memory lane… especially when this week has been sprinkled with ice storms and snow!

2013 project life: week 11

Week 11 came together in a flash… from start to finish it took me 25 minutes to complete. It was another simple week doing much of the same. I’m ready for spring to get here! I feel like it’s been such a long time since I’ve had any variety mixed into my week, the change of seasons will definitely get me out of my funk. It really has been the most miserable winter here in central Wisconsin.

My favorite photos this week are obviously the two of my dog. The sheets on our guest bed were in the process of being washed which evidently meant he thought it was okay for him to be lying on the bed. I found him this way as I getting ready to go to the Y and just threw my pajama shorts his direction and they wound up as a necklace somehow. I have no idea… so don’t even ask!

I’m escaping tomorrow to go to San Diego for 5 days so I’ll attempt to post week 12 in the morning before our flight leaves or later next week. And on the note of San Diego… I can barely wait to start filling up some extra inserts when I get back

2013 project life: week 10

Week 10. It was the week of my 29th birthday, the week of my mom’s 57th birthday, and the week when we traveled to Madison to watch my brother play in the State tournament.

I dedicated nearly my entire spread to our trip to Madison on Friday night. I had already planned to use an insert to cover my birthday (March 5) because I wanted to use the 8.5×11 layered template that Catherine Davis designed for Studio Calico’s March kit (no longer available).

I did feel a bit restrained this week; there are a few things that I ended up leaving out because I ran out of pockets. I might re-visit this and add an additional horizontal 5×7 pocket but I haven’t decided yet.

The layered template was the most fun to make. This is the 3rd time I’ve used one of Catherine’s templates; I used her other 8.5×11 option last year after a vacation to Seattle and a vacation to Greece. This was the first time, however, that I took a hybrid approach with the template.

I basically lifted the layout that Catherine created for Studio Calico. I loved using little embellishment bits that I could work in here and there. I added a small shipping tag in the bottom left-hand corner with details of my birthday- it printed totally off center but I’m dealing with the imperfection

You’ll be seeing me use this template again soon

Here is the full visual of week 10:

I’ll be back once more tomorrow to share week 11. Whew… this blogging catch-up is tough business!

2013 project life: week 9

Week 9 is my favorite so far. I had the most content to work with which meant I got to incorporate some extra inserts. I haven’t admitted this yet, but I love inserts- they definitely allow for some added creativity. Just when I think every week is beginning to resemble one another, I throw in an insert to change things up a bit.

I worked with the backside of Design H and also added in a 6×12 insert which holds my ‘Day in the Life‘ for February.

The majority of both week 8 and 9 (in addition to week 10) seemed to revolve around my brother’s basketball games. He’s a senior in high school so I made to sure to attend every game during the regional and sectional rounds. They made it to the State tournament last year when he was a junior so I was really hoping he’d get to go back as a senior. They made their road to State this year look fairly easy as they won the sectional final on Saturday 81-48.

Since Alex and I are more than 10 years apart it is difficult for us to connect at times. He is very close with my husband (naturally, because everyone is!) but I often just let them do their thing. A couple of my favorite moments of the entire year happened in this week and they were both involving Alex. One of the moments was during halftime of the sectional game on Saturday- I was standing in line at the concession stand to buy popcorn and I overheard two high schoolers talking about how awesome Alex is and how he is their favorite player. They were talking about him during my entire wait in line. Overhearing that conversation made my day. I am so thankful that Project Life gives a home to stories like this.

The other main story of week 9 was the crazy amount of time I spent watching The Vampire Diaries; I made sure to allow space to document this story since the majority of my time was attributed towards watching the show. TVD has been a favorite show of mine for years but at the start of 2012 I gave up nearly all of the TV shows I watched- not purposefully, but I traded TV time for exercise. Exercise has become a large part of my daily routine (1-2 hours, 7 days a week). I had to make time somewhere and most of my shows went to the wayside. Because of that I wound up falling 28 episodes behind on TVD. They were all on my DVR until it got too full that I had no choice but to take the time and catch-up. It took me nearly 3 weeks glued to my TV but I did it!

Thank you for stopping by today! I will be back again tomorrow to share week 10!

2013 project life: “day in the life” february edition

This year Ali Edwards started a new trend with her ‘Day in the Life‘ series. Rather than documenting just 1 of the 365 days she is documenting 12 of them. I decided to jump on her bandwagon and record the last day of every month just as she is doing.

Ali has put together her own set of layered templates for this project; however, ‘Day in the Life’ can be whatever you want it to be. Since I didn’t want the burden of the detailed note-taking I morphed it into something that would work for me. My iPhone is with me the majority of the time so I knew that an Instagram collage would be the way to go. I created my own 6×12 template in Photoshop; on typical days I’ll most likely only fill up one side and on busier days I’ll need both sides.

A couple of things to note:

– my day in January vs. my day in February was very much the same (and both were Thursdays)
– I am making a conscious effort to take photos around the same times of day so I cam compare how the days were different
– I like to include a little snippet of where I went, what I ate, my exercise, what time I woke-up/went to bed as another comparison

To see more of my ‘Day in the Life’ click below:

– January edition

Thank you for stopping by! I will be back tomorrow to share how this insert fits into my week 9!

2013 project life: week 8

Hello! Thought I’d pop in to share week 8 of Project Life today.

As we head into April, I have yet to stretch one week into a double-page spread. I am still loving working with one side for one week as opposed to two. It helps keep me on track as I don’t feel as pressured to fill up two pages. Additionally, I would like to keep Project Life contained to 2 albums and having multiple weeks share a spread will help with that.

Since I’ve been taking more photos over the course of the last few weeks I’ve been using a few different inserts to get me by. I introduced Design H in week 8 which is a perfect addition for me.

I swiped this photo of my brother from my mom who is a professional photographer. The iPhone photos I take at his games just don’t live up…

I love including subtle embellishments here and there. My go-to items are flair (usually from Marcy’s Hello Forever shop), Studio Calico wood veneer, doilies and paper clips (if they count!).

And I am trying to embrace the ‘pancake’ typo

Thanks for stopping by today! I will be back tomorrow with another Project Life post.

march instagrams.

The best thing happened the other day… Totally Rad finally released their iPhone app, PicTapGo. I am sure this is not ‘new’ news to any of you, but in case it is, this news is so rad that it deserved its own post. To this day, I will say that their RadLab product is the best purchase I have ever made. It changed my life.

So their new iPhone app really is that cool and has most of the same RadLab filters (even my 2 faves with ‘Lux’ and ‘Grandma’s Tap Shoes’ [which has been shortened to just 'Mama's Tap Shoes']).

So here are just a few photos through my iPhone lens. Food, snow and Madison.

* I hope to be back soon with my Project Life posts. I am mostly current, but just have last week (week 10) to finish. That puts me 3 weeks behind with blogging the spreads. My plan is to post them all next week. Stay tuned! *