Happy Holidays From Africa!

I'm so happy I could cry! Just a few more hours until I am officially on vacation! We got the keys to our new home last night and celebrated with a bottle of champagne. Lots more celebrating to follow in the next couple of weeks.


{photo by me, santa hats from flickr}

I want to wish you and your families a very happy, healthy holiday season. I would love to blog while I'm over there but don't want to make any promises I can't keep so I'll sign off and say see you next year!

XOXO

P.S. This will have to serve as our Christmas card since I didn't get around to doing them this year. Oops!

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Reason # 3,157,597 why I love my iPhone

Playing dress up with it! Seriously. How cool are these?

{The bikini by Incipio}

{Cork covers from Amazon}

{Wood case from Urban Outfitters}

{Griffin Elan Form Chilewich Case}

{iPhone hoodie from Urban Outfitters}

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If I had $228

I'm really a lot in love with these criss cross platform heels from J.Crew.

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ThisClose

{image via ffffound}

We're signing loan docs today and we should get the keys in ONE WEEK! I can taste it. I can't promise many more posts in the next coming weeks as things are just way too crazy round here. But tell me one thing....can I twitter from South Africa? I mean without it costing me a bazillion dollars? I would love to keep in touch with all of you while away via tweets as blog posting may get tricky.

Happy half way through the work week to all of you! XOXO

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The Countdown Begins....

14 days til we leave for South Africa!! I NEED a vacation like I've never needed one before. Don't you love this Elephant necklace? A sweet little email reminder from Anthro that my vacation is near and soon I will be frolicking {from a great distance, hopefully} among these amazing creatures.



I would also like to wish a very Happy {30th!} Birthday to my girl Lynne. Love you to pieces.
XOXO and a happy weekend to all!

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Whoa

To say things have been crazy would be a bit of an understatement. I can't believe I'm still functioning right now. I think I have 3 full time jobs.

1. My "real" job - which is changing {in a good way - I think}
2. Our photography business - which is going well but is extremely time consuming given that I can only focus on it during nights and weekends. But I love it so I won't stop.
3. Buying a house. Going through escrow is incredible exciting and incredibly overwhelming at the same time. Not to mention that between calling our agent, signing my name a million times a day and faxing my bank statements to everyone and their dog - it's a full time job.

Throw in planning a trip to Africa in less than 3 weeks, packing the house, trying to hit the gym after work and then come home to make a decent meal...WHOA.

So those are my excuses for neglecting this little blog. I'm very sorry. I'll do my best to get back on track.

Starting with thanking all of you for the lovely comments about our Trash The Dress shoot.
Thank you :) and then asking you all if you had a nice Thanksgiving. Did you? Ours was lovely. It was really great to spend time with our families and just relax for a bit. I have a few photos to share with you. Coming soon....

I'll end this post with some photos of masks I made for a recent birthday party. Super easy to make and a fun craft night project. Just add wine. If you'd like to know how I made them leave a comment or shoot me an email. Cheers!

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To Trash Or Not To Trash?

I have a few friends who are VERY anti-trash the dress, they think the idea of ruining your wedding dress in anyway is incomprehensible. I, however, would jump at the chance to throw my dress back on one last time to capture some fun, crazy moments that we would not have been able to get on the wedding day. So that's exactly what I did. This is just one of my faves from our shoot in downtown San Diego with our awesome wedding photog Natalie Moser.

So what do you think? Would you "trash" your wedding dress? How far would you go with it? Or is your dress perfectly preserved up in a closet somewhere?

To see the rest of the photos from our shoot click here!

P.S. I'm not really a lush like these photos would leave you to believe.

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Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing everyone a very happy, cozy, yummy Thanksgiving weekend.



I'm thankful for:

- All the amazing people in my life - I am a lucky girl!

- Spending the holiday with both my family and my in-laws - at the same table - we all love each other and get along so well I couldn't be more grateful for that.

- Being thisclose to calling myself a homeowner.

- Having the cutest, funniest, softest most loving dog in the whole world.

- My grande pumpkin spice latte this morning

- My job job {though I may complain about it - I'm lucky to have it}

- 22 days til South Africa!!

- Warm weather in the middle of November

- Text messages from my hubby

- THREE potato dishes at Thanksgiving this year

- All of you! It means the world to me that you actually stop by to see what I'm up to and leave me nice notes from time to time.

XOXO

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Etsy Home Decor

I'm really trying not to buy anything "new" for the new house but I think the exception may be "homemade." Why look any further than Etsy for unique homemade items or fabulous vintage finds. Just some lovelies I found while window shopping...

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Happy Short Week XOXO

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Out to Sea

Sails & Sparkles

{Photo by me - San Diego Harbor}

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Get Baking!

I adore everything Alicia {and Clive} do over at The Red Deer.

But I think this time they've outdone themselves. Cupcake lover? Enjoy a cupcake for every letter in the alphabet.

Yep! Her readers voted and Alicia baked. A cupcake to go with every letter in the alphabet. 26 different kinds of cupcakes {and she rated them all too!}

Some of my favorites?

B is for Baileys - Baileys cake topped with Baileys swiss meringue buttercream and drizzled with chocolate ganache.






F is for Ferrero Rocher - Chocolate cake filled with Nutella and a roasted hazelnut, topped with Nutella swiss meringue buttercream and chopped hazelnuts, drizzled with chocolate and finished off with half a Ferrero Rocher.




P is for Peanuts - Chocolate cake with half a peanut butter cup inside, topped with peanut butter swiss meringue buttercream and half a peanut butter cup.





Pretty impressive. huh? For the rest of em - click here!

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This makes me happy

You have to be a Coug to understand :)

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Just Because

I'm being lazy, watching football and waiting for R to get back from surfing so we can make a big ol brunch. I'm also going back through photos I've pulled from design blogs to use as inspiration for our future home. This one is from Desire to Inspire. We just so happen to have a wall/space just like this in the new home. The perfect location for a table to display some pretty.

One thing I'm looking forward to the most is browsing consignment and thrift stores for new {well new to us} pieces of furniture. The goal is to not buy anything new {except for the couch} Hold me to it.
Happy Sunday!

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Photo { + } Quote

A photo from our maternity shoot with Kelly & Craig - see the rest of this gorgeous couple here.

And have a happy, happy weekend!

{quote by Melba Colgrove}

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