...................................................................................

 

I have decided to lay this blog to rest for the time being...maybe someday I will come back to it but maybe not. I love blogging and will still be doing it but I no longer feel that this personal blog is benefiting me and I don't have a desire to update it. I have imported most of its contents over to Happiness and Lace, which I will be doing all personal posts on for the next while. I think this post, written by Erin Loechner from the blog Design for Mankind totally captures the way blogging can mean different things for someone at different times in their life. Maybe, to the average person, blogs don't mean anything at all. For me it always has. When I first started blogging in 2007 I was basically just looking for something to keep me busy while I was working a desk job, write down all of my weird thoughts and share  things I thought were funny. It was something of a journal, and I didn't want anyone but my very close family and friends to know about it. Over the years I had more of a desire to blog not simply keep in touch with friends and share pictures of fun things I did as kind of a journal for myself, but as a way to express my passions and things I found inspiring. On this blog I shared less and less personal stuff and started to feel guarded. I was somehow self-conscious. I still wanted to blog, and I tried to get H&L going on different topics, but I couldn't decide on one topic I felt truly passionate about or good at and it was an overwhelming idea to start fresh with a new blog. Even though that's really what I wanted to do, I didn't know how. I didn't have time.

Then last year in January, Jess told me she wanted to start a blog about saving money and she needed me to do it with her. She had mentioned that I should do one in the past, that I could be good at it, but the idea was too scary for me. When she asked me to do it with her though, that sounded so much less overwhelming. That was perfect, exciting. That is a subject I am passionate about. I had so many ideas and even though I truly did not have the time, I was obsessed. So we did it and we have been so blessed throughout the past 8 months with Pretty Providence and are so excited for what lies ahead for us in the blogging department. I am grateful to have a dear friend of almost 20 years who helped me to get out of the rut I was in and get me going on something I love so much! We have found a sense of community there with others who share our value of frugality and are amazed by the new opportunities it brings to us every day. 

Since I began blogging there almost daily though, I started to get the itch that I wanted to still blog about personal things, or things that just aren't relevant to PP and aren't relevant here. Three blogs though? That's just too much to maintain. It's too much for anyone to want to keep up with for only one person. So, I'm combining. Happiness and Lace is going to be my place for whatever. It's my place for pretty photos, it's my place for personal musings on whatever I feel like expressing that day, my place to talk about relationships do's and don'ts, it's my place to share things I think are funny, and my place to rave about music, movies or TV shows that I love. I have been and will be blogging there whether anyone reads it or not. If you want to keep up with me there, I would love it. If not, that's okay. We can still be real life friends, instagram friends, facebook friends and twitter friends, or whatever.

Bernie.

So we saw a great movie this weekend. It was called Bernie, and it's about a funeral director who is very lovable but gets accused of a serious crime. I really liked it. At the end I was shocked when they started showing pictures of the real people portrayed in the movie because I had no idea it was a true story. It seemed like fiction! It was very Christopher Guest-ish. I highly recommend it to all of you because it was so entertaining! A little morbid at parts, but mostly just awesome. Jack Black kills me.

Alt Channel!

Oh boy. You guys have heard of Alt Summit right? It's a blogger conference that takes place each year. Then last year they decided to make Alt Summit go all year round through the Alt Channel online. You can sign up for classes and watch them live on the internet. It's all about becoming a better blogger, designer, person or whatever you are. I am SO excited in particular to take classes from Melanie Blodgett of You Are My Fave.   I have been reading her blog daily for over a year and it is my first go-to daily read. I even had the opportunity to meet her a little while ago at my girl Katie's wedding.  Bing is offering people the opportunity to take these classes for FREE in July! YAY! Anyway I can't wait to see what kind of insights she will share with us. It's going to be great! #thanksbing

Family Cruise Party 2012

Well, we just got back from an amazing vacation. My grandpa treated the entire family, 37 of us, to a seven day cruise in the Caribbean! It was dope. We had so much fun hanging out with the family and enjoying the cruise ship and the islands in all their delicious, warm, humid glory. I never wanted it to end. I definitely want to do it again sometime!

 Jacob met the man who created Yoda! He has a little Star Wars Memorabilia museum in St. Maarten. Freaking awesome right?

The beach at St. Maarten was absolutely phenomenal. I literally never wanted to leave. I want to live under that beach. Under an umbrella. For the rest of my life!

We had fun playing dress up for the formal nights. I got to wear my favorite dress, the one I got for Senior Dinner Dance and am still in love with to this day. The dinners we had in the dining room at night were INCREDIBLE. I have never had such good food, for so many consecutive days in my life. Yum!

And for one of the nights the Cam, Kumi, Jacob and I decided to go retro. We thought 80's formal seemed appropriate and I finally had somewhere to wear my mom's sweet party dress to. Kumi's grandma apparently has a whole collection of "cruise dresses." Hers is rad, don't you think?

The ship had so many fun things for us to do, we couldn't even do all of it in a week! Okay, we could have, but we like naps. Jacob did spend a good amount of time on the Flowrider though and he climbed the rock wall they had.

We also did some ice skating and mini golf! We got to see Madagascar 3D in the big theater on the ship (so funny.) And of course there were many swimming pools and unlimited soft serve ice cream machines.

The day we left, we had like eight hours to kill in between getting off the ship and flying home so we went on an airboat tour in the swamps of Christmas, Florida. It was SO cool! We saw some huge gators and other fun swampy wildlife, and then after they gave us the option of holding a baby one. I was like... I'll just hold this soft cuddly one. 

 

Last but not least, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! We did this first, the day before we got on the ship. I don't have a ton of good pictures because there were so many people in them that I just felt like they didn't capture the essence of the place but let me tell you. It. Was. Amazing!!!! Hogwart's especially. That castle, and the ride at the end, was unreal. I seriously was dying at how cool it was. Everything was just like the movies! Then we ate at the Three Broomsticks and got Butterbeer and geez. The food was so good. We all loved it. Then just wandering around Hogsmeade was awesome too they had all the little shops like Ollivanders, Honeydukes and Zonko's. I highly recommend going!

 

La Fiesta De Mis Sueños!

One lovely Saturday Jacob and I decided to go to the drive-in movies. Since it was almost my birthday, I also wanted to go use my free $15 to Happy Sumo. We went to dinner and then needed to stop by Jacob's brother Peter's house to pick up our Jeep, because he had been borrowing it for the last year.

Little did I know what I would walk in to see...

 

 I was quite surprised.

The party was amazing. Jacob had sent like five e-mails to all my friends and family in the past weeks planning everything out to a T. I can't believe he hid it from me so well. I had absolutely no clue.  He did make up some elaborate lies. When I asked him why he put a lock on his phone he told me it was because then he wouldn't have to re-enter his wi-fi password every time he switched buildings at school.

 I love balloons and he rented a helium tank so he could fill the whole room with a billion balloons. Rad!

 

Just pushing my niece away from MY piñata candy. (Jk, geez)

Some of the ladies who came to celebrate.
Brag-fest 2012:

Everyone kept telling me how awesome Jacob is. And the guys kept telling him he sucked for setting the bar so high for them! Bahaha.

 

 The awesome sombrero cake my mom made! 

Cam pinning the tail on the baby donkey. 

The only time I have ever seen my dad wear a fake mustache and tiny sombrero, or any costume for that matter. I feel loved.

Freaking awesome. Best birthday ever!!! I couldn't have asked for more. I am super grateful to Jacob as well as our padres for helping him with the decor and food, Peter and Linda for letting him cover every inch of their house with fiesta fare, and all my friends and loved ones who drove distances to be there! Love you all! 

THE ANNOUNCEMENT: PRETTY PROVIDENCE

I am so very excited to announce to all you lovely friends of mine that I have a new baby... but it's not a human baby. It is a blog. I have wanted an outlet for a long time where I could share all of the things I do on a daily basis that help me save money, or help me to do other things I like to do while not spending a lot! It has happened. My friend Jessica and I have decided to blog daily about our efforts, and we are really excited about it. If you could please, please check it out and if you are feeling super supportive follow us, and share our button on your blog? We will love you forever! Just click on the image above to visit and we hope you enjoy!

A quick update.

1. I will be making a big announcement soon and can't wait. I'm bursting. And no, by that I do not mean that I am pregnant. So, for good measure, i'm not pregnant.

2. We conformed and got Iphones. We are addicted to Words With Friends and we gave ourselves 1 week to play as much as we want, which is up today, and now we are going to try scaling back our time playing when we are together or with family/friends. (It's kosher if we play each other, right?)

3. We made tamales a few weeks ago with a friend from work, Lorenza. She is from Chihuahua, Mexico... best. tamales. ever. My freezer is still full to the brim and my tummy is too.

Love you all. Bye.