Columbus, OH Engagement Session

Posted in Wedding Planning by

You may remember a couple months ago I blogged about my dear friend Kelly and Steve’s (AKA Schmidtty) engagement. He asked her to marry him in Las Vegas. Soon after the couple relocated to Australia of all places for jobs.

Before they took off down under, they went back to Kelly’s hometown in Westerville, Ohio, outside of Columbus. I love their photos! The small downtown is such an adorable backdrop and it also helps that they are both super photogenic.

Aren’t they an adorable couple? And more important- don’t they both look SO deliriously happy?! :) Congrats Kelly & Schmidtty!

Their photographer was Lotz Studios – if you’re in Ohio, look them up!Don’t miss Kelly’s blog PeanutButterandKelly.com too.

City-Themed Stationary

Posted in Gift Ideas, Liz's Life by

This Thursday is my sister Amy’s birthday- she’s a St. Patrick’s baby! We’re not huge on presents in my family, but I wanted to get Amy something small to help celebrate her day.

In the age of texts, tweets and wall posts, I have been on a kick to bring back some elements of old-school communication. One of these is the hand-written note.

I love the personalization a note brings to a relationship. Plus you’re able to show off your personality with a design all your own or even your initials.

I went on Etsy and scrolled the thousands of handmade stationary they have available until I landed on these from Gooseberry Press shop. My sister lives in San Francisco and has friends all across the US, so I thought they were a great fit.

These cute cards are also available for Chicago, Washington DC, Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, Las Vegas and Napa. They cost $2.75 – $4.00 per card, so you can mix and match your favorite designs. You can browse all the stationary here.

Happy Birthday, Amy – Love you!

Photos From Around the World

Posted in Daily Musings, Liz's Life by

Some friends, Laura and Ryan from the blog “Round We Go”, recently completed an “around the world” trip, which they memorialized through the photo journey in the video below. It’s so breathtaking, I had to share it with you guys.

I am so happy our friends got to have this incredible experience and also grateful they are sharing it in such a beautiful way. Watching this reminds me of two things:

1. There is SO MUCH to see in this world. Must. Plan. More. Trips.

2. Our time on this beautiful earth is short, and I want to make sure I live every moment I’ve been blessed with to the fullest

What one place in Laura and Ryan’s travels would you most like to visit? And I must reccomend their blog http://roundwego.com/ they are both amazing writers.

A Perfect San Francisco Saturday

Posted in Daily Musings, Liz's Life by

This weekend we took a couple days off skiing to go to San Francisco to see my parents who were in town visiting my sister Amy and her husband Mike. Amy and Mike are one of those couples who rock at entertaining and hosting guests, so I wasn’t surprised when they had the perfect Saturday planned out for us.

We started the morning off with a trip to the farmer’s market in the Ferry Building. The sights, sounds and smells were a lovely way to start the day.

We grabbed a quick bite of “Mexican Breakfast” food, which consisted of sauce-drenched tortilla chips, eggs, beans and avocado.

After the Farmer’s Market in the Ferry Building, we headed into China Town for Dim Sum at City View Dim Sum. If you haven’t tried Dim Sum before, it’s a very unique dining experience.

Basically as soon as you sit down, waitresses will wheel around carts of various Chinese foods, like dumplings, chicken feet, sticky buns etc. You pick what you want and eat it Tapas style with your table.

It was a great way to sample a lot of different Chinese cuisine with everyone weighing in on what they liked and disliked as we went.

From there we walked through China Town and caught a bit of a parade taking place to help raise money for a local martial arts group.

We made our way through San Francisco’s China Town until we got to our next destination – tea tasting! Luke happens to be a big tea fan, so he was especially excited about this part of the day.

We were greeted by a boisterous man who asked that we call him “Uncle.” He led us through the tea-tasting experience all while touting the health benefits of tea. To prove his point, he asked us to guess how old he was. My dad guessed 60.

Turns out he’s 80!! Whoa- if tea drinking makes you look 20 years younger, then sign me up!

We tasted about eight teas in all and at the end felt like we had made a new friend – Luke especially.

Rounding out our day of “Asian appreciation” in San Francisco, we all headed to Suchada Thai Massage. This was our first experience with a Thai massage and I have to say it was the most unique and experiential massages I’ve ever gotten.

The massage itself is almost painful, but in a good way. Your masseuse literally walks on your back, uses their elbows to dig into knots and stretches you in ways you didn’t think you could stretch.

There were times I felt like I needed to tell them to stop because it was so uncomfortable, but right when I thought I hit my threshold, they moved on. In the end, I left feeling totally loose. I could tell they did a lot to help my back and neck.

On the way home we stopped for some pictures by the water.

Thanks for coming to visit mom and dad and thanks for showing us a great time in San Francisco Amy and Mike!