2016 Year In Review

Long time no blog! I haven't posted in what seems like forever! The second half of this year was crazy and unfortunately I let my blog take the back burner :( hopefully this year will be better! This morning I was going through so pictures and rememebered that last year I put together a blog post of my 2015 Highlights and I wanted to do the same for this year. Although Austin and I didn't do as much traveling as we did in 2015, this year was definitely an exciting one! 

January:
As in 2015, January is pretty uneventful but this year was the first year I got to celebrate Austin's birthday with him for his 21st!

February:
We started the month off with taking a trip to Wisconsin Dells for a little get away for Austin's birthday. Our hotel stay came with lift tickets so we decided to give skiing a shot....didn't go to well for me but we still had a great time!
At the end of February we celebrated our first anniversary in Champaign apartment hunting!

March:
The month of March consisted of a trip to visit Mama Sue and Jim up in Wisconsin and a lot of antiquing!

April:
Looking through my photos of April I really don't have any besides these two. Spring time was such a pretty time out at John's farm with all of his flowers starting to bloom. These pictures are from my last full month out on the Nolan Farm and the last picture I ever took with John. Bittersweet but that day forever sticks in my head because he loved being outside and after being sick all winter he finally got to go enjoy the sunshine!

May:
May marked the end of my journey at Waubonsee Community College. Going to Waubonsee was one of the best choices I made and I don't think I'll ever regret going there. I met great people, had awesome professors and just an overall good experience at that school. May was also a sad month because I had to say goodbye to the cutest, sweetest man I've ever known.

 

June:
June was a busy, exciting month!
Started off with one of my childhood best friends getting married, the next week Austin and I moved into our first apartment together and my mom opened her skincare studio!

 July:
The one and only photo I have from July is from the 4th. Austin and I went and watched the fireworks with his sister, Emily, her boyfriend Josh and their daughter Ella.

August:
One of my favorite months of this year. We went to Florida not once but twice! My family always goes the first week of the month then we went for Hannah and John's bachelor/bachelorette party!
My family trip is always so fun especailly this year because Brianna and Joe came along! And we had a blast on the bachelor/bachelorette trip! I could post so many photos from this month but I'll keep it short ;) I have a separate post from my family vacation with more photos, I also have a video from the trip up on my youtube channel! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUEjWH8R3oE

September:
lol september was the least exciting of the year....no photos

October:
MY BESTFRIEND GOT MARRIED! Hannah and John had such an amazing wedding, so glad that I got to be apart of their special day. I also made a trip down to Missouri to spend a weekend with Ash :)

November:
This month was definitely exciting but more in words than photos. Austin and I really started house hunting this month and found a perfect house for us. We both wanted to be closer to work and closer to both of our families. We found a first house that we thought at the time we loved, it had a huge backyard and deck that would have been so much fun in the summertime, however the layout of the house was super weird and we knew that we were not going to be able to sell it very easily when the time came, so we kept looking. Then we found a house in a great neighborhood, less than a 10 minute drive to work for the both of us, a little closer to my family and still close to Austin's, and plenty of space for us :) so we decided to put in an offer.

December:
WE CLOSED ON OUR HOUSE AND MOVED IN!
We closed on the 14th of December and that afternoon started making it our own. Took out all of the flooring, repainted everything and got new carpet. It's starting to look so cute on the inside :) can't wait to share more photos of the inside of our home as things come together! I will also be creating some videos that will be posted on my YouTube channel!

I cannot wait to see what 2017 has in store for myself and for Austin and  I together. We're working so hard on our house and we are planning on traveling more this year! I am hopefully getting into nursing school for the fall. I also hope to post on my blog more frequently than I did last year.
I hope everyone has the best 2017!

Panama City Beach, FL 2016

Hi everyone! We have had a crazy month already between being in Florida twice in two weeks and me getting adjusted to my new job and getting ready for school to start that I am just now having time to finally get this post up!

I did something new with this trip though, I made a video blog (vlog) of the trip! I will link it below! I had so much fun making the video and will definitely be making more of them :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUEjWH8R3oE

Anyway, this year we stayed at the same condo as last year except this time we had 8 people instead of 6. My sister and her husband came along, my parents, Alec and his girlfriend Kati, and myself and Austin! It's the first trip in a long time that my sister came which was fun! 

We spent a lot more time relaxing on the beach this year and except one day we rented a pontoon boat to go out to Shell Island! We rented our boat from Aquatic Adventures ( http://www.pcbeachadventures.com/) we already plan on doing it again next year! We were able to anchor on the island, grill out, swim and snorkel!

Another day we also rented tubes again, as we did last year, to float down a near by river! We rented from the same place as last year and would recommend it to anyone! The man who brings your tubes and picks you up is so nice and friendly. Also leaving the link to their website, they have a bunch of different rental options!   http://www.chipolariveroutfitters.com/

Of course we went down to Pier Park a couple of times over the week to get ice cream and shop.

Lucky for us it only really rained one day and that still didn't stop us from enjoying the day!

Below I am going to insert some more pictures from our trip and a video tour of our condo! :)

Our condo, Aquavista!

What Your Mom Didn't Tell You About Waxing....But Mine Did

Hello everyone! Welcome back! Today I'm jumping a little into the beauty side of my blog and am going to be talking about body waxing. I thought this would be a good topic with the summer being right around the corner! As some of you know my mom has been a licensed esthetician for about two years now, so lucky me I get free waxing services right at home! When my mom was in school I was her guinea pig at times resulting in having just about every wax you could wonder about. In this post I'm just going to share some tips and tricks that I have learned over the last few years when it comes to waxing!

1. Don't get waxed a few days before your period, on your period or the first couple days afterward. And this isn't for the reasons you may be thinking..it's actually because your skin is more sensitive and is more prone to lifting (skin sorta tearing off, nothing major just hurts a bit!). This doesn't just come into play when getting a bikini wax or Brazilian, the skin on your face will be more sensitive too!

2. They do make numbing spray and yes it does make a difference, below is a link to the one I love and use :)

• http://www.amazon.com/Gigi-Anesthetic-Numbing-Spray- Ounce/dp/B0030ZRSDY/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1462592289&sr=8-1&keywords=gigi+anesthetic+numbing+spray

3. Bikini vs. Brazilian...if you ask for a bikini wax, you will just be getting your bikini line hair removed. You can always ask to get a little more just to make sure your comfortable with how much your swimsuit will cover. If you ask for a Brazilian...be prepared to get ALL of your hair removed. You can always tell your esthetician before hand that you want to start with a bikini and work your way toward a Brazilian. The pain level is totally bearable and with every time it will get better, promise.

4. Before any waxing, let the hair grow to about the length of a grain of rice (it has to be long enough for the wax to attach to)

5. If you have sensitive skin, ask if there is a soy wax available. It is much softer and sticks to the hair and not the skin (similar to hard wax), so it results in less irritation.

6. DO NOT GET WAXED AT A TYPICAL NAIL SALON. I can't tell you how many times I have gone to the nail salon here in town and the woman who did my nails offers to wax my eyebrows...most people there are not licensed to do waxing. Go to a salon and spa that offers waxing services professionally, or a beauty school (where the teacher is licensed) or go to a licensed esthetician who has an at home studio

Waxing is so much better for your skin than shaving and it lasts a lot longer than a shave does too! 

If you have any questions about waxing feel free to comment and if I don't know the answer I will go to the expert..aka my mom Bridget :)