falaises d'etretat

i finally made it to etretat, france. it's such a cute little town on the west coast of france. while there, we hiked up the cliffs and ventured all around. before leaving, we ate crepes. the only french food i think i like.

yeah, i made it to the top. it's something to be proud of at eight months pregnant. bobby kept pulling me back from the edge of the cliffs. do it for the picture though. am i right?

we spent the night in bayeux, france. it was closer to normandy so we didn't have to wake up too early for our tour the next day. literally ten minutes before the tour, i broke my foot. i was just walking down steps and it cracked. hubby didn't believe it was broken. he told me to stop being dramatic and had me go on the tour anyway.

thanks, babe.

all my love,
E

tying the knot in copenhagen

i'm officially married! everything is happening so fast but i wouldn't have it any other way. i love this guy so much and now i get to call him my husband. how crazy is that? husband. it feels so weird to say. but i love it.

we started our trip on friday. we got to copenhagen early enough to have a good afternoon in the city..and at the hard rock cafe. because it's my favorite. saturday was spent touring the whole city. whoooole city. on foot. bobby made sure to stop every two hours to make sure i got a snack because the hangriness is real these days. copenhagen is beautiful. even in the rain.

my mom flew in the next day and we took her to all of our favorite places we found the day before. we had fish and chips by the water for lunch and hard rock cafe for dinner again.

the next morning was the wedding day. the inside of the city hall was insane. after waiting a bit, we got to go in and listen to a danish man give us a lecture on love, exchange rings, kiss and bam. we're official. how easy was that? denmark is the vegas of europe.

look at our cute little brace faces. true love right thurr.

all my love,
E

be ready

you're the girl that walks around ignoring all the faces around you. you're the girl who clams up to anyone trying to get to know you because you haven't seen the point in opening up to anyone. you don't believe people stay. you don't believe in these magical happy endings. you're far from a believer in soul mates or that one true love.

people tell you you'll someday change your mind.

and you will. 

because someday someone is going to walk into your life and tell you stories of his own, begging to hear yours. someone is going to bombard your phone with texts and calls just to say hello and see how you are doing. he's going to make you laugh and roll your eyes at his cheesy lines. you'll find a new appreciation for those catchy love songs on the radio and for those sweet lines in romantic movies. you'll be excited to have someone that actually cares about your nonsensical late-night thoughts. they'll push you to do your best at work and encourage you to continue on with your dreams even if they're far different from their own. you're going to believe every word they say because you can see in their eyes that they mean them. & you'll start to fall. hard.

time will pass and you will realize you don't want to lose this person. you want them to stay. and, better yet, they want to stay. you no longer have to worry about rejections because all you will receive is acceptance. 

they'll change turn everything you thought you knew upside down. they'll teach you so much about love, life & happiness. be ready.

it's perfect.

all my love,
E

paragliding in interlaken

over labor day weekend, i put my life in the hands of an oversized kite and a handsome french man. it was quite possibly the most exhilarating moment ever.

ingrid was first to take off, then it was my turn, and then i'm not sure what the order was after that. i do know that bryan was the first to land and i was the last. bryan accidentally threw his head back and knocked his pilot the face. though, i'm not surprised. if any of us were to injure our pilot, it would be bryan. he even dubbed himself "bad luck bryan." to top it off, he crash landed. it's all on camera. thankfully.

my paragliding experience was much better. we barely had to run down the mountain at all before the wind took us up. once in the air, the view was beautiful. interlaken is a gorgeous city. you could see both lakes and the jungfrau. the pilot, patrick, even let me steer for a while. it's such a crazy feeling flying through the air like that. i lucked out with an amazing pilot. he had such a great sense of humor. after hearing that i chickened out on a rodelbahn earlier in the day, he flew past it and said, "this is where you were scared earlier...now you're flying high above it!"

we flew around for about 20 minutes but it felt like a lot less. y'all should definitely give it a shot. just hope there's no "turbulence" because that could easily make you wet your pants. no joke.

all my love,
E

bloglovin'

check out bloglovin'!

it's an easy way to keep up with your favorite blogs and it's super addictive.

<a href="https://www.bloglovin.com/blog/14615591/?claim=jm72ttqpj2s">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

all my love,

E

the new york institute of photography

i've been working with the new york institute of photography off and on for about a year now. i highly recommend their courses to anyone interested in improving their camera usage skills or their editing skills. nyip has professionals that are available to you everyday to answer any questions. also, there are forums where you can talk with other students and discuss editing techniques and the like. when you sign up, you're assigned a mentor that is a professional photographer. mine is alina oswald and i love her to death. she's so sweet and helpful. and brutally honest, but you need that.

i have no regrets in enrolling into nyip and i encourage aspiring photographers to jump in on the opportunity to do so as well. i posted a before shot, which is obviously not a great photo (a quick snap at the beach), and i posted an after shot, which the course taught me to produce. i'm pretty sure anything that can turn that first photo into this second one is a good deal, yeah? yeah. think about it.

i'll post a link just in case! 

https://www.nyip.edu/

all my love, 

E

amsterdam

a few weeks ago, we were able to take half a day and explore amsterdam. if you ever go, take a weekend to explore it. one day wasn't enough.

my main goal in amsterdam was to visit the anne frank house. i had heard horror stories where the line to get in was nearly three hours long. my group ended up waiting for 45 minutes, which compared to that three hours, was a good deal. also, they have free wifi in the area that you wait in. the tour was done well. you walk from room to room while watching videos and reading passages on the walls. definitely a great experience especially if you've read anne frank's diary.

we also did a canal tour. for the most part, it was pretty great. i did fall asleep for about fifteen minutes though. i was going on two hours of sleep and the ride was really relaxing. around three o'clock, the canals get jammed with boats. it's kind of funny, actually. you have tourists in smaller boats trying to steer clear of the larger tour boats and locals. it's comical. if you go and have fifteen minutes to spare, just sit at the edge of a canal and watch.

and finally, we took a walk through the red light district because how could we not. not gonna lie, probably the best part of the trip. just something you need to experience for yourself.

all my love,
E