SALTY

sometimes, i can't get over utah. there's always something new that totally excites me & blows my mind. this time, it was the salt flats. i have seen photos & heard about the salt flats. i even drove by them once on our way to san francisco, but as fate would have it, i was asleep & completely missed them. so when tayler came up with the idea to take photos with colored smoke bombs (more on that later) at the salt flats, i was in. & i was so excited to go.

the days leading up to going to the salt flats were super rainy, so i was worried we wouldn't be able to go. luckily for us though, last wednesday was bright & sunny. we drove an hour & a half out there to discover a huge gray cloud inching towards the salt flats & a ton of wind (we hadn't really thought about checking out the wind). so we hurried out onto the salt flats to get some pictures & gave the colored smoke bombs a shot. the wind kind made the smoke bombs a little difficult, understandably, but we still got a whole lot of pretty cool pictures out of the whole experience.

i just cannot believe that the salt flats are only an hour & a half away, or that the exist at all. it's crazy. they are a huge area of just pure, white, salty ground. they are seriously so cool, if you have never been & have the opportunity, you should definitely go. it's pretty much heaven for a salt lover like me. & yes, i did lick the salt, just for good measure.

INTO THE UINTAS

over the weekend we ventured into the uintas with our friend blake, for some good old fashioned adventuring. we wanted to wander around, possibly find a spot to fish & i was hoping to get some good pictures. all was a success until we got there & i realized i didn't have my memory card in my camera! ultimate fail on my part... but thank goodness for iphones. 
the boys tried to catch some fish, cedar & i played with the rocks, dirt & flowers & we found a beaver dam, which was so cool! blake & i had never seen one before, so we ere pretty excited about it. it was a really perfect was to spend the day.

cedar-isms

in my opinion, cedar has been extremely adorable recently. i cannot get over it. he has the best little personality, he is the absolute best buddy to have by my side every day. a few things i'm especially loving about cedar right at this moment are 
1. his love for tiny spaces \\ cedar is constantly wedging himself into the smallest space he can find: between the couch & side table, little slots within a table, under dining room chairs, in buckets or the box diapers come in... anything. he wants to be inside it.
2. the way he pats my back when i pick him up & hug him. it. is. adorable.
3. the quick rummaging every morning for his blankets \\ every time i go & get him from his crib he moves SO quickly to grab anything in his crib, blankets, stuffed animal, pacifier.. anything, as if he's scared he will never see them again. so along with cedar, his blankets & stuffies also make it to breakfast.
4. the fact that he jumps nervously at the beginning of toy story every single time he watches it.
5. anytime he goes into the kitchen he goes "mmmm-mmm!" & points towards the fridge & where the bananas are kept. 
6. his love of tomatoes \\ anytime we check on the garden, cedar picks all of the red tomatoes he can reach. he always spits out his first bite. & then continues picking & eating one bite out of every tomato & leaving the leftovers in a pile.
7. the fact that he tries to tickle my feet & makes little tickle noises.
8. that he always sits on his rocking ship while watching a movie & goes wild rocking it.
9. how he picks up one of his blankets & pacifiers if he's sleepy.
10. the way he hyperventilates from excitement at the site of ducks, horses or dogs being anywhere near him. 

REAL TALK \\ a journal entry

sometimes it's easier for me to express myself with physical pen & paper. does that ever happen to you? i've been wanting to write about my thoughts & feelings about our upcoming move, but haven't been able to write what i wanted to say. i hit a road block. but the other night i was looking through my journal after writing some quotes down & found one i wrote not too long ago & thought i'd share it.
images: pinterest // tumblr

i've wanted to live in europe since i was 11. anywhere in europe, i would take it.
one of the first times austin & i hung out he told me he would love to live in spain, i thought about it for a nanosecond & told him i could be happy living there too. that was the night i also told him he had to marry me. i guess i was feeling really brave that night.

2.5 years later & we are moving to madrid, spain. our far off dream is now our upcoming reality.
i know it is going to be difficult & in all honesty, it scares me. i know i am in no way prepared for the isolation i am going to feel, but i also know that it is going to be one of the best years of our life.

the two questions people ask me the most: "are you ready?" & "are you excited?" no, i am not ready & i really don't think i ever could be. & i have so many emotions about our upcoming move. i am beyond excited, but i am slightly terrified, sometimes i'm really sad about it, as crazy as it sounds, & i'm still shocked that it is actually happening.

yes i want an adventure, crave an adventure. i always have. but this is not the typical adventure, it isn't like anything i have done before. i have never uprooted to a completely foreign place. i have never had to leave the things in which i find comfort in. i have never left everything familiar to me.

some days i want to cry at the thought of leaving, others i cannot get over the excitement to actually be there & live our life there. & i cannot help but look at all that we are leaving behind & sacrificing to have our dream, to live our adventure.

it's a complete tug-of-war on my emotions. i know that when we come back that we won't be coming back to the same place. the likelihood of us coming back to utah is extremely slim, & i know that life in general won't be the same when we're back. & that's ok, because that's life.

but to know i will never be in this moment, this place, makes me sad. i love where we are. i love all the time austin & i have to be together, to do whatever it is we want. i adore this stage of cedars life. he is so incredibly cute, happy & fun to spend our days with. we're never going to be here again & it breaks my heart.

i am in love with right now.

but as our departure creeps up on us i cannot wait to experience it.

as much as my heart breaks it is rebuilt with the thought of what lies ahead. i am eager to be removed, to have an opportunity just to be us. there is something slightly refreshing about the thought of being in an unknown place where you are also unknown. it's a brand new start to a brand new story.

WILD.

while we were in costa rica i read three books : Wild, The Language of Flowers, & #Girlboss.
they were all so, so good & i would definitely recommend them all. buuuut the one that really stuck with me was wild. i could not stop reading it.
WILD is a true story about a women in her mid 20's who after many life changing events goes soul/life searching while on the pacific crest trail (pct), a hike that starts in mexico & ends in canada. the book documents the events leading up to her decision to go on the hike & everything she encounters throughout the hike. the author used her journal entries from the time to write her story & it is so inspiring. the book was seriously a page turner for me, i couldn't stop reading it. plus, there's a movie about it, so check out the trailer HERE.

"until now, i hadn't truly understood the world's vastness--hadn't even understood how vast a mile could be-until each mile was beheld at walking speed. and yet there was also its opposite, the strange intimacy i'd come to have with the trail, the way the piñon pines and monkey flowers i passed that morning, the shallow streams i crossed, felt familiar and known, though i'd never passed them or crossed them before."

the book had so many quotes that i loved. i was constantly underlining different things.

LATELY.

we've been so busy lately busy.

 getting new passports, background checks, & last minute things for our upcoming visa appointment. // we had a belated birthday dinner. // i've been busy going through my closet, sadly, choosing what i can & cannot take to spain, & trying to sell some of what i'm not taking. // taking family photos with austins family. // going to the park. // having a classic slumber party with friends & baking cookies. // outdoor jazz music & dinner. // bbq's & splash pad time. 

it's been a good, busy week. which i'm pretty sure how the rest of our weeks prepping for spain are going to be.
hope you have a good weekend!



COSTA RICA pt. 2


last night we got back to utah from our california/costa rica vacation & it already feels like it was months ago that we were even there. the semi stressful situations that happen with traveling back, especially wish a baby, make me feel like i need another vacation already! with being nervous about not getting through security in costa rica or customs due to passport name & ticket name issues (one said my maiden name, the other my married name.. disaster), worrying we wouldn't make our connecting flight in houstan & trying to prevent cedar from screaming too loud for too long on our 3 hour flight to houston, then trying again on our flight from houston to salt lake... i could definitely go for another vacation or maybe a massage.. haha. but seeing as there isn't another vacation around the corner, i'll just have to use my pictures & videos from costa rica to relive the dream!

COSTA RICA pt. 1

(BABY robe. i loved cedar in it. he on the other hand, was less than impressed)
costa rica has been so much fun. we've been here for ten days & i feel like it flew by. a couple of years ago my now sister-in-law, kristen & i went to a "surf & spanish" school in costa rica (we were there for two weeks, i think we went surfing everyday & to spanish class maybe 3 times....there's a little more about that in this post (not really)) that was in a completely different part of costa rica & a totally different experience. i loved it then, & i love it now.
our hotel is in supposedly in the desert of costa rica, but it does not at all look like a desert to me. it's super lush & green all the way up to the shore, with a ton of wild life!
we have what are called howler monkeys right outside our patio! we can watch them jump around the trees from our room & hear them all day & night, which is pretty cool. one of our days here we went on a tour around a golf course checking out all of the wild life near us. we saw a SO many monkeys & tiny baby monkeys, which were adoooorable! & these animals that resemble a raccoon with a longer nose, who are also all over the hotel a lot, iguanas, geckos & white faced monkeys. it feels much more like a jungle than a desert.
the water is so clear & blue & warm. it's been amazing! the end of a vacation is always rather disappointing in my opinion. can't we just live here? 

25 FOR 25

today i am  t w e n t y  f i v e.

it sounds old. i've never had an issue growing up & getting older, but 25 just sounds old to me. like i'm supposed to be more mature than i am, but at the same time it is still so young. it's crazy to think that i am 25.

25 is the age i thought i would be getting married at. not already being married. & i definitely didn't think i would have a kid by now! so i guess in some ways i am slightly grown up, but i still feel like the same old me i was when i had just barley turned 18. it's a tricky thing growing a year older.
i remember being with my siblings & their friends when they were 25 & thinking how old they seemed.. they seemed much more adult to me when they were 25 and i was 16 or 14. granted it's a huge age difference, but i just really don't think of myself as an adult..? maybe thats a bad thing. but it's the truth.

i used to think adults were people that were married & had kids & a house & had graduated & all these different things, but i've done pretty much all of those.. without the house.. & i do not feel very adult. it's just a strange thing!

anyways, in honor of my birthday, i thought i'd share 25 things ((you may or may not know)) about me
1. my parents named me after the ring of kerry, in ireland.
2. my first pet was two cats that i got for my 6 birthday names mittens & cinder.
3. i studied painting for a two years before completely changing my major.
4. i chipped my right front tooth trying to pull a needle through a canvas.
5. when i was in 5th grade i was out of town so often that my teacher let me create something similar to a scrapbook for credit, & gave me all of my tests to take on my trips.
6. i am terrified of ferris wheels. there just is no way in my mind that they are safe & stable.
7. i hated to read until i was 8 & got my first mary-kate & ashley mystery book. i have loved to read ever since.
8. ever since i was little i've always said "i'm going to the bathroom" just incase someone wonders where i went, & it's a habit i really can't break.
9. i love filling our surveys on pretty much anything.
10. i've worn an evil eye every day for the last seven years.
11. when i can't sleep i think of different outfits i can make out of my clothes.
12. i have been to 24 countries.
13. i have had the exact same friends since i was born & they're still my best friends.
14. every year i re-watch my so-called life.
15. i played tennis at least three days a week from 4-10 years old.
16. i really want to own a mini horse.
17. the first concert i went to was was brittney spears.
18. it takes a lot of work for me to become hyper.
19. i'm a collector of quotes. i write down anything or tape things from whatever in my journals to always have them.
20. when i had braces i got one of the brackets stuck to my knee in a game of crack the egg on the trampoline. it was a bummer to pull off.
21. learning is one of my favorite things to do.
22. i've had one reoccurring nightmare since i was 10 years old.
23. sarcasm is the sense of humor of my choice.
24. i laugh in most situations i shouldn't: serious conversations, sad conversations, when people cry in front of me, when there's an awkward tension... really, i just laugh all the time.
25. i haven't had an oreo shake since i was ten years old.

CALIFORNIA \\ PT. 3

before i even start on costa rica, i figure i should finish out our time in california.
i feel seriously awkward anytime i use the gopro to film anything,
but then i make little home videos like this one
& am so happy that i did. enjoy!
song// matt & kim: good ol' fashion nightmare

BIRTHDAY GUIDE

we made it to costa rica friday night & since it has been nonstop sunshine, heat, swimming, beach & lounging. it's been perfect! today we went on a little tour of the area we're staying in to see all the different animals. near the end of the tour it started to rain & cedar needed a nap, so here i am sitting on the patio while the little guy naps away & i'm left to look at the pictures we have so far.

i kind of keep forgetting that my birthday is in two days! i'm not always positive what day it is now that we're here, which is the way it's supposed to be when you're on vacation if you ask me! but i realized that it was so soon & thought i'd put together a wishlist for my birthday! i probably should have done it earlier than 2 days before, but i kinda figure i'm not going to get presents in costa rica, so i still have some time to send out hints!
1. a hobo wallet, because mine broke after 4 years of use.
2. this jacket from free people. it just looks so incredibly comfortable & warm!
3. kiehl's cedarwood & vanilla perfume. it smells amazing!
4. saphire & diamond ring from sundance (in my dreams).
5. brixton hat. i love hats, i'm not quite sure i pull off hats besides beanies, but i like to try.
6. the mini transport bag from madewell, in black. it just looks so perfect for anything & everything.

AUGUST PLAYLIST