Kate Middleton

To be honest, I really didn't care about the "Royal Wedding" and I didn't watch it, but I loved these pictures of her. I thought her dress was really pretty.

image via bippity

don't wanna work anymore

Hmm...I wonder if this excuse would work if I text it to my boss tomorrow...

image via pinterest

one man

"You only need one man to love you. But him to love you free like a wildfire, crazy like the moon, always like tomorrow, sudden like an inhale and overcoming like the tides. Only one man and all of this."

— C. JOYBELL C

Wrap Around

Yes, another awesome staircase. Obsessing...

I'm going to have one in my house one day.

blazer and shorts

Love this outfit.

I've been obsessed with blazers lately. I think this looks so cute with the t-shirt under it. So casual and fun. I'd totally wear this.

Training

So I'm supposed to be training for a triathlon at the end of May. I'm hoping that I look like this when I'm done.

Haha, jk. 1. That's not enough time. 2. My body would just never look like that. 3. That's almost just too buff for me.

I think I'll try more for this...

Haha again...I wish. At least it's a goal :)

Anyway, so I'm going to do a triathlon at the end of May. (that's the plan as of right now anyway). I think I'm also going to do the mud run at the beginning of June too. I'm really excited and glad that I have something to push me to work out more. Hopefully I'll look like I'm more in shape too.

birthday suit

get it? :)

image via pinterest

long hair

this makes me never want to cut my hair

Mountain Biking

So...I recently went mountain biking in Moab. It was basically the first time I have REALLY been mountain biking and the first time I had been to Moab. I will get to my biking experience in a minute...but first off let me just say that Moab is beautiful. It is was so fun, other than the weather. (It was mostly cloudy and cold, and the second day was pouring rain, but you make the best of it right?) The picture below is just one I found online (I will post some later, I need to get some from my friend), but you can see the redrock and get an idea of what it looks like. There are tons of trails to hike on or bike, there are caves to explore, you can go rock climbing/repelling, etc. The weekend we went was "Jeep Safari" Weekend, so we went and watched all the crazy people with their huge jeeps and crawlers, and watched them do their rock crawling. My friend, Chad, also took us up in his Jeep and did a little bit ourselves. It was pretty fun and totally scary! Haha.

So onto my mountain biking story...We all decided to rent bikes and go for a ride. At first they all wanted to go out to "Slick Rock" which is really hard and I was like ummm I might die...and the fact that I haven't ever really gone before combined with the lady at the bike store telling me that they commonly call that trail the "Breakup Trail" because guys try to take their girlfriends or wives on it and it's way too hard, and telling me about all of the elements of the trail that I would have no idea how to handle was pretty much making me want to pee my pants...SO finally we decided not to do that one. Thank Goodness! We went to another one, which actually wasn't too bad and I thought was really fun. We all went on the first trail and then split off so the guys could do a harder trail. Chad was a sweetheart and took Brit, Kami, and I on an easier one so that we wouldn't seriously injure ourselves, but I still ate it about 3 pretty good times. Needless to say I have a huge scrape on my thigh, with a matching bruise, pedal marks on each leg, a gouge from a cactus needle in my leg, a bruise and scrape down my arm, a couple of bruises on my knees, etc etc. You get it. Also, I don't think any of us could move the next day. So sore! Haha, we had about a ten mile ride back in, which wouldn't be too bad (since I'm used to road biking), but I wish I had the padded butt pants!

I could have given up after the first trail and headed back with one of the guys who decided to go back on the main road, but I decided to stick with it and go on the second trail. I had a lot of fun, and I'm really glad that I tried something new. I think from now on whenever I have a new experience present itself to me, I will do my best to take the opportunity and try something new. Even though I found out that mountain biking is not exactly something I'm super good at and maybe not my very favorite thing to do at least I tried and I got out and did something new. I had a ton of fun with my friends, and I would have been so mad if I had just headed back or sat in the motorhome because it was not very good weather. Also, I love Moab. I really hope I get to go back when it's better weather so that I can try more new things there!

Olivia Wilde's Confidence Manifesto

From Cosmopolitan Magazine

April 2011

This was an interview with Olivia Wilde, but she wrote this part herself and I really liked it so I just decided to repost it. So if you ever have a boyfriend or husband who complains about why you buy shoes or spend so much time getting ready tell him to read this! Haha, but I actually really like that she says, it doesn't matter about the shoes, etc, because you are the same with or without them, but if they help remind you to be the best version of yourself then use them! I hope you guys all enjoy this! I can totally relate.

"On a recent glorious day in New York City, I was standing outside my apartment building feeling pretty fantastic when a 75-year-old lady with purple bifocals, a matching muumuu, Einstein's perm, and sensible white sneakers stopped me, grabbed my hand, and said in a Brooklyn accent only Gilda Radner could mimic perfectly, "Oh! Those heels! Your feet must be dying! Who are you wearing them for? Dress for you. don't worry about what anyone else thinks."

I guffawed like she was just the most adorable and hilarious stranger to ever offer advice. My 3-inch Sergio Rossi ankle booties are an undeniable win. But really, who was I wearing them for? I suppose I wear them because I believe myself incomplete, disproportionate, and squat with them. I've always been convinced that my legs were stunted somehow (my sister is 6 feet 2), and on a day when I need to feel my best, a few inches' boost from a pair of deadly stilettos is my way of correcting nature and fixing the injustice of my torso-to-femur ratio. But now I wondered if this attachment to the physical was somehow terribly unenlightened of me. Was I yanking the evolution of female sexual empowerment back to the age of foot binding?

I gave it some thought and replied to the woman, "They make me feel powerful."

We are at our sexiest when we feel the most confident. We are at our least attractive when we are sure of our inadequacies and practically cave in on ourself to conceal them. No matter how incredible your lover swears you look, there is no way you're getting hot and bothered when you feel fatter than the manatee they found in the Hudson River. We all handicap ourselves with insecurity, and it's up to us to reset the self-worth scale and alter the message we send out into the world.

Hollywood. There's nothing like the spotlight to bring out the quivering little insecure self you thought you ditched in high school. But you don't have to be an actress to endure negative attention. Thanks to the Internet, there now exist forums for the public to declare their locker-room judgements without the risk of getting busted. I've been declared too fat and too skinny on the same day from the same photo. "Ew. She is disgusting and fat. Can anyone say thunder thighs?!" And the next post: "Eat something, Skeletor. You're gross!"

It is pathetic to even have to read these things, but before you learn the hard way, it is nearly impossible not to check out what's scrawled about you on the bathroom walls. But if I let this nonsense creep into my psyche, I'll be ruined by it and therefor about as sexually empowered as a deflated blow-up doll.

So how do we remind ourselves of our fabulousness without letting our self-doubt or the criticism of other drag us down? Triggers. We wear heels. We get waxed. We do thing that make us attractive to ourself and, therefore, able to allow other to do the same. And they work- the girl who suggests skinny dipping after dinner is usually the one with the fresh bikini wax. Confidence is a state of mind, but sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to realize it.

Of course, the goal is to go beyond the physical, to find a way to make peace with out own inner high school mean girl for good. But on some days we need a little magic.

Laughing makes us happy. It's possible that the same fake-it-til-you-make-it philosophy goes for conjuring up confidence. There is nothing wrong with embracing the tools that allow us to get there - heels, bikini waxes, whatever - as long as we're aware of the fact that we are worth the same with or without these tools.

I think that woman on the street was an apparition, a projection of my subconscious, warning me of the danger of superficiality: She was right to make me question my masochist footwear, as they were painful enough for my to promptly kick them aside upon entering my apartment, but she missed the mark on my motive. I was wearing them for me. They were my confidence trigger as I left the house and headed out into the world, and if that's what it takes to remind myself to put the sass back in my strut and be the best version of me, then so be it.

- Olivia Wilde

hanging bed

How cool is this? I would be a little afraid I would fall out of it though.

pinterest

"underwear party"

So my friend Brooke got married two weeks ago, and is having her reception in Utah this weekend. She is having a bridal shower with her sister-in-laws this weekend also, but they informed her that they just don't do "those kind of parties"...meaning where you get underwear and etc as gifts...SO...we decided to have our own little shower and go to dinner at Art City Trolley in Springville. And WE DO do those kinds of parties. :)

Congrats Brookie!

bicycle

I want one of these this summer!

(I also wouldn't mind if I had her legs either! )

strongest

"You have to get hurt. That's how you learn. The strongest people out there, the ones who laugh the hardest with a genuine smile, those are the people who have fought the toughest battles. Because they've decided that they're not going to let anything hold them down..."

- Unknown

Janell and Burk's Wedding

This weekend I went to the wedding of two of my friends, Janell and Burk. It was at Pierpont Place in Salt Lake City. It was so fun and really pretty. Here are a bunch of pictures so you can see for yourself!

Jake and I

Taylor, Brit, me, and Shari grabbing food before the reception.

All the girls with the bride.

From left - Katie, Rachel (who is prego with twins! yay!), Kristi, me, Janell, Shari, Brit, Megan, and Nicole

dancing :)

college girlfriends

I met all these girls in the dorms my freshman year of college (except for Janelle who I have known since elementary school and Jess who I randomly met at an EFY and then re-met in the dorms). We have all graduated and have been doing our own thing for a while so it's hard for us to get together, but we finally got most of us together for dinner a couple weeks ago. We went to Vinto for dinner in Salt Lake (so yummy) and then up to Heather's parents to hang out. Of course we took some fun pictures and just talked about life forever. I miss them so much! I hope we try and get together more.

Love you girls!

from left - Jessica, me, Margaret, Heather, Janelle

wish upon a star

image via pinterest

beach boho

i wish my hair looked like this.

i love this whole look.

just one more

*good thing to remember*

**I need some motivation**

We go together like...

image via pinterest

Carrie and Big in Vogue

I love this editorial from Vogue of Carrie and Big. It came out right before the first Sex and the City movie. I just think they look so great together and I usually don't like Big. I love Carrie's outfits and the settings. Plus I'm still just in love with New York City.

Ridiculous Love

I went to my friend's bridal shower tonight and have a few weddings to go to over the next few weeks. It's wedding season after all. But it made me think. I'm so happy for my friends. They are so in love and happy to be getting married. None of this nervous business or flakiness, etc. The guy almost seems more excited than her even, which is just so refreshing to see. It just makes me smile. It's nice to see that. Makes me still have hope that it will happen for me and that I'll find someone that loves me more than anything :)

I'm looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love.

- Carrie Bradshaw, Sex in the City

something blue

One designer's take on something blue...sorry I couldn't find who the designer was.

I love this idea though. So pretty and fun.

Comfortable

"Come, let's be a comfortable couple and take care of each other! How glad we shall be, that we have somebody we are fond of always, to talk to and sit with."

- Charles Dickens

Phantogram - Mouthful Of Diamonds

loving this song right now...so different

You've got a mouthful of diamonds

and a pocketful of secrets

I know you're never telling anyone

Because the patterns they control your mind

Those patterns they take away my time

Hello, goodbye

And if it isn't me

Then pack your bags and leave

Braids

I love braids.

I think they make hair so much more fun and look so cute. Take a look at some of my favorite hair braids.

I also love the color of Isla's hair...makes me want to do my hair this color.

I do not know how to do this, but I would really like to learn.

image via pinterest

I do not have this much hair so I probably can't do this, but I'm obsessed with this one.

image via pinterest