Trip to Michigan

Oh my. We went to Michigan last weekend and had the. best. time.

We left in the afternoon on Friday and were welcomed to Michigan with strawberry rhubarb pie (right out of the oven!) and hugs from our niece and nephew. We stayed up late chatting with Rachel and Rebecca about everything and nothing.

On Saturday, we picked strawberries in Becca's garden and got ready for the beach. I wasn't totally convinced about Michigan beaches until we got there on Saturday. It was beautiful! The sand was soft and it "squeaked" under our feet. Some of our group were even brave enough to climb the sand dunes. It looked like a lot of work so I supervised while reading a magazine.

On Sunday, we went to church with Rachel and heard a great message from a pastor in Egypt. It was inspiring to hear from him what the Lord is doing in Egypt and how we can pray with the Egyptians. After church, we had a cookout, game of hillbilly golf and mini photo shoot. How adorable are these kids?!


Being in Michigan was so special. It's rare that we get to spend hours and hours with just Ben's sisters and it was so good sharing what's on our hearts, planning the family reunion in August and just having fun together. We are so blessed to have fantastic sisters on BOTH sides of our family (although I sometimes think Ben is more grateful for the awesome brother-in-laws we have).

What I Wear on Road Trips

road trip summer 11 by sclift featuring wayfarer sunglasses

Victoria s Secret victoria secret legging
$18 - victoriassecret.com

Victoria s Secret victoria secret legging
$25 - victoriassecret.com

Rainbow shoes
$46 - tillys.com

Rayban wayfarer sunglasses
£123 - houseoffraser.co.uk

Wesc X Stash "Dark Shadow" Bongo Headphones
€80 - colette.fr



Today, BA and I are leaving for Michigan to see his sisters who live near Grand Rapids. Michigan, while not my favorite state, is well-liked by many people I love, including my BFF Dayna. So venturing north is okay every once in a while.

There are a few supplies that I always wear in the summer: comfortable vintage style sweatpants and soft shirts from Victoria's Secret, Raybans, my Rainbow flip flops.. and headphones to block out August Burns Red when BA really needs it in his life. I am a fan of traveling in anything that's comfortable (and warm) enough to sleep in, decent enough to get out and buy peach rings at a gas station and bright enough that you can see it coming a mile away. This outfit meets all of those criteria.

Have a lovely weekend, dear ones!

Your Netflix Instant Guide

Some (or all) of you may know of my attachment to my beloved Netflix. While I love opening the mailbox and seeing the bright red envelope, I am much more twitterpated with the instant queue. Here I have compiled the best times to watch some of my favorite genres/shows.

- Law & Order: All the time.

- Veronica Mars/Lost/30 Rock: These shows are long series that have some type of interest to men (or at least, my man). These series are a good compromise between "his" shows and "my" shows and are good for some late night TV together time.

- Hoarders: I watch this when I need motivation to clean. See also: Clean House or Dress My Nest.

- The Hills/The City/Jersey Shore: These MTV staples come into play when I am getting ready to go out. These shows are also good when I know I have to do something in twenty minutes because they're such short episodes. I have been known to rock some LC waves or some Snooki poof thanks to the inspiration from these shows.

- Jockeys/Wildfire: All animal-related shows help with my desire to quit my job and live on a giant farm with abused horses, unwanted dogs and neglected children - preferably by the dozens.

- Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: This show isn't available on instant yet. It should be. I would watch it in a party with my sister and parents every night. In the meantime, I make do with movies from my growing up (Meet Me in St. Louis and Notting Hill are on repeat).

- Comedy shows: These are perfect for listening to while making dinner. Second use: watch with large groups of friends.

- National Geographic/nature shows: I put these on when I have insomnia. Usually, it's instantly cured.

All movies are enhanced by a healthy dose of Oreos. Duhtown.

It's my birfday!!

For my birthday, I got lucky and Ben bought tickets for us to spend time with these little guys! They are African penguins and I was thrilled to spend some time with my favorite arctic animal.

Family picture! I wanted to take her home so bad. Her name was Paula, as in Simon, Paula and Randy.

They just gather around your feet and let you pet them as much as you want! All of them were hand raised, so their keepers said that they just think of us as big penguins. They are so, so soft, thanks to all of those feathers. The only exception is their wings. Those are more leathery, to help propel them through the water.

This little lady loved Ben. She kept coming up to him and just staring at him, trying to get him to pet her.

Here they are! I seriously could have taken one home with me.. until I learned that they go to the bathroom every twenty minutes. Gross. BUT only because they eat up to 40 big fish each day - pretty much their entire weight in fish. That's a lot of food! They are responsible for eating more food than any other group at the aquarium, including the sharks.

After we left the aquarium, we went over to Tom + Chee, a restaurant that specializes in only grilled cheese and tomato soup. It was incredible. I had the turkey and pesto grilled cheese, which I could totally go for right now.

We went by the Kenwood mall on the way home, where I picked up a couple of new MAC eye shadows, some supplies from the Container Store, and my birthday gift from Sephora. We came across this window decal in the parking lot and it's the perfect way to describe my driving.

It was the perfect birthday! We came home, ate lots of junk food and spent Sunday with some of our closest friends. I love birthday weekends.

Well hello there, Akron.

I'm spending the night at the Hampton Inn in Akron. I have a newfound appreciation for this city. It's easy to get to, there are horse farms and it's the home of one of my favorite friends/students who happens to be getting married TOMORROW.

I am excited to be coordinating the wedding and so blessed that Stacie and her family reserved a hotel room for me! It feels like a mini vacation, which is just what I need before I pull an all nighter to hop on a plane to San Diego bright and wicked early on Sunday morning. I LOVE hotels. I feel like a little kid again. I’ve already hit up the hot chocolate in the lobby and can’t wait for a good continental breakfast.

So what to do with myself? I did a light run - my legs are really tight tonight and my knees are starting to ache - and then took a bath with my LUSH bath bomb that I got in Cincinnati yesterday. It was Twilight, one of their bedtime bath bombs. It was so pretty that I almost didn’t want to use it!

See the stars? It smelled like lavender. DIVINE. Then I threw it in the tub and it started fizzing away.

My favorite thing about the bath bombs is the inside of them! I love seeing what color and scents they use for each one. This one had a bright blue stripe running through the center of it.

The bath bomb did its job! I'm all ready for a good night's sleep on one of the most comfortable mattresses in the world. Side note: did you know you can purchase Hampton Inn's bedding online? You can! Check it out. They even sell their remarkable mattresses.

And while you're at it, check out my friends at Lush as well. You'll be so glad that you did!

Happy (belated) Memorial Day!

Memorial Day weekend was a GREAT break from the norm around here. First of all, Ben & I got our first day off together in over 4 weeks - which is reason to celebrate enough! I feel bad when people we don't get a chance to see other people as much as we'd like...but we never get a chance to see us, either. When it comes around, we definitely take advantage of it!

We spent Saturday morning/afternoon with my beloved Kate McKallagat!! She was in town for an anniversary party and I was blessed with four whole hours with her and some of my other favorites - Kate Martin, Steph, and Jess!

Hands down, my favorite fast food is McDonald's. So I got a little bit of that action. But the BEST part - besides the chicken nuggets - was the old school box. Lovin' that! (Excuse the fuzzy photos - all of these were taken from my beloved phone. That winner above was from Kate, our resident professional photog.)

After McDonald's, we went over to Mike & Grace's house. Michael's mom just bought a new Pomeranian puppy. Oh. My. Word. So much flooferness happening in this picture. UPDATE: this little nugget has officially been named Pippa. You can imagine how much my Kate Middleton-lovin' self is thrilled about this!

Ben and I went down to Newport in Cincinnati. We had all the plans in the world to go to the aquarium, but showed up exactly 2 minutes late for the penguin show we wanted to see. And yes, I mean that's why we went. There's nothing wrong with driving an hour just to touch a penguin! We made an appointment with them to come back on my birthday in two weeks to play with the penguins again.

In the meantime, we found a candy store and loaded up on fudge and gummy sharks. Which explains the huge smiles in the pictures above. We walked around Newport for a while longer and then wandered up to the movie theater to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

On Sunday after church, Kelly, Jordan and I just laid by the pool until the sun set. Then we headed off to the Greene, where we had a not-so-great encounter with a bunch of women who couldn't mind their own business and grossly inept security guards. It made me sad that one of my favorite places had such poor customer service and bad staff.

Monday was breakfast with Ben's parents, thriting with Grace and a BBQ. Then we just hung around the house with the furbabies. I took a nap on the couch and wouldn't let Stella join me which led to this:

Babygirl was pouting and NOT happy about it. But a nap was the perfect way to end a busy weekend - one where I actually got to see Ben a little!