Category: Celebrating the Everyday

Baltimore Ravens Superbowl Champs Celebration and Life Lessons

Ravens Win the Superbowl, A Crazy Morning, and Lots of Life Lessons

Celebrating the Everyday, Travel  //  

So, after that CRAZY, AWESOME, WAY TOO CLOSE, Ravens win last night, Ryan and I decided we would celebrate today on the blog with a special Raven’s post and delay our Amazing Life Manifesto post till tomorrow…

… However, this post has quickly become something a bit different! ;) Still a celebration, but the celebration has exploded a bit! Lol.

This morning started off a little bit like Home Alone. You know, when you wake up to your husband yelling words that we choose not to post on our blog and jumping out of bed faster than I have ever seen him move! “Liz, its 7:15! Hurry we are going to miss our flight.” Feeling the sense of urgency and actually waking up feeling pretty darn good because of the extra hours of sleep, I quickly respond, “Ryan, our flight left at 7:15 a.m.” Yes, that was the start of our morning. We were supposed to be on a 7:15 a.m. flight to Punta Cana to attend the What If Conference. Even though we knew in our minds that the flight we were supposed to be on was probably the last flight getting into Punta Cana today, we still got ready faster than we ever have before and literally within 5 minutes we were out the door and in the car to the airport. Ryan was driving safely, but fast… and I was searching my phone for other options! We had a layover in Atlanta so if we could get to Atlanta and still catch our flight- that would be AMAZING. Unfortunately, there were no flights into Atlanta early enough. So instead of freaking out and yelling at each other, we offered suggestions. We were on adrenaline and determined to make it to Punta Cana for the start of the conference!!

Somehow I came across a Punta Cana flight from Delta that could work. I called and with the help of a super sweet (Ravens fan at that!) lady we were booked on a new flight to get into Punta Cana today!!! Thank you God!

But wait- it get’s better!! Ryan dropped me off at the airport while he parked so that I could finish reserving the flight and get our bag checked. (The flight was scheduled to leave in less than 1 hour). As I am juggling my phone and two bags while looking for a pen to write down our confirmation number, I dropped my passport. I knew I dropped something, so I bent down and picked up what I thought I had dropped. I made my way to the check-in desk and all of a sudden, I could not find my passport! Somehow, in a matter of about 5 minutes and 20 feet, I lost my passport. I thought I was losing it. I thought it was one of those moments when I couldn’t find my belt but my belt was on! Lol. I asked the attendant if it was hanging off of me somewhere… and she didn’t see it either. She suggested that I ask the information desk to see if anyone turned it in. The nice gentleman at the desk said no one had turned anything in to him… but I could check the lost and found office that opened at 9:00 a.m. (9:00 AM… are you kidding me?! ;) My flight would have been half way to Atlanta by then!). By this point, we were coming close to the time where we wouldn’t be able to check any bags because it was getting to be too close to flight time. As soon as I started to panic, Ryan walked through the doors. I told him what was going on and he kind of smirked at me like I was crazy, but he knew it would work out. I gave him the bag so that he could check it and get our tickets. Meanwhile, a super sweet lady was sitting on the bench nearby watching this all go down. (Everything- from the very moment I walked in and had way too many things going on! Lol). She, so sweetly, said, “Ma’am, did you drop your passport? I saw a gentleman pick one up right here and he walked that way.” Ohh my goodness… at least I didn’t think I was losing my mind anymore. I knew someone in the airport had my passport- I just had to find them. (Keep in mind, this is around 7:30 a.m. and there weren’t many people in the airport at this time!) So I made my way back down to my new friend at the information desk. I was about to ask him to get on the intercom system and report a missing passport (In my head it would have been like a missing child report where everyone would stop what they were doing and someone would find that they had picked mine up by accident). Before I could even open my mouth to ask, he pointed to an older gentleman walking about 30 feet away from me with a passport in his hand. I took off running… seriously… lol. And I caught up to the gentleman. I said, is that a missing Passport… and with a huge smile on his face he said YES! He said he had picked it up and didn’t know what to do with it- so he was taking it back to where he found it! AHHHH! Once again, Thank You God!

Wow… so basically, this morning was CRAZY. But we are so thankful to say that we are now on a flight and will soon be joining our new friends in Punta Cana for what we are sure to be a week full of learning and growth! We are already well on our way… with many AMAZING life lessons that we will take away from this trip. #1 Always set two alarms… lol. No, but seriously, Never Panic and know that God will take care of you. #2 Be observant and never be afraid to speak up. #3 Be grateful for those incredible people that you unexpectedly meet along your journey through life who have a special way of turning your rough days into AMAZING ones! #4 And finally, no matter how bad something may seem, never ever give up!

With grateful hearts… we hope your day is pretty AMAZING! And for all of you Ravens fans… WAHOOOO! We are wearing our Raven’s pride extra proudly today!! Here is a glimpse of the scene in our neighborhood last night! Baltimore is happy!! ;)

Baltimore Ravens Superbowl Champs Celebration and Life Lessons

Make Today AMAZING - 10 quick ideas for a more fulfilling day

Make today AMAZING

Celebrating the Everyday  //  

Make Today AMAZING - 10 quick ideas for a more fulfilling day

 

Make today AMAZING: 10 simple ideas for a more fulfilling day

10. Write a letter and mail it to someone you haven’t seen in a few years

9. Greet people with a hug

8. Tell your spouse/significant other, 5 things you love about them

7. Turn off all electronic gadgets and read a real book

6. Have an afternoon tea, and make/buy a second for a coworker/friend

5. Open a door for a stranger

4. Order takeout, light candles, and have a spontaneous date night

3. When your day is the most busy, find a quiet place, close your eyes, and be still for 5 minutes

2. Treat yourself to something you wouldn’t normally buy (to dessert, a movie, dinner with friends, those Kate Spade shoes you’ve been drooling over)

1. Bring home flowers

 

AMAZING Travel Adventures - Scenes from the Road

AMAZING Travel Adventures: What’s Next Tour Scenes from the Road

Celebrating the Everyday, Travel  //  

Hello Everyone!  We are now one week into Justin & Mary’s What’s Next Tour and we have already travelled all the way across the US from Los Angeles, CA to Orlando, FL and up to Charlotte, NC.  Life on the road is CRAZY!  One of the strangest things is waking up each day in a different time zone.  We have been taking a ton of pictures and sharing lots on Instagram.  Today we wanted to share a few of our favorites so far.  Enjoy!

AMAZING Travel Adventures - Scenes from the RoadYes, that is a man playing the violin with a scary wolf mask in the middle picture!  NOLA was crazy! 

Be sure to follow along on Instagram @Liz_and_Ryan and checkout hash tags #whatsnexttour #whatsnextcrew.  Have an AMAZING wednesday!

 

Make your next road trip more AMAZING - Create a travel box of fun (2)

How to make your next road trip more AMAZING

Celebrating the Everyday, Travel  //  

Hey everyone! It’s Day 2 of our CRAZY adventure with Justin & Mary for their What’s Next Tour.  Today is the first day workshop day of the tour and then we pack up and head off to Phoenix! (We are finishing this post up will Mary is speaking and let us just say that she is definitely ROCKIN’ IT!)  Since we will be traveling quite a bit over the next few weeks and and we knew we would most likely start missing some of our favorite things from home, we decided to create a fun little travel box to make our adventure just a little bit more AMAZING.  Here a few of the things we’ve included:

Make your next road trip more AMAZING - Create a travel box of fun (2)

Sour patch kids! These are probably Ryan’s all time favorite candy (not consisting of chocolate and peanut butter).

Hairbro Gummy Bears! In addition to sharing the bus with J&M, we are also sharing it with our good friends Ashley and Jeremy.  A while back Jeremy had posted that hairbro gummy bears were his favorite.  Say no more, we included these too!  Ok, I promise, our box of travel amazingess doesn’t just include candy!

Make your next road trip more AMAZING - Create a travel box of fun (3)

Air Freshners! We LOVE to burn candles at home.  The smell of fresh linen, cupcakes, spiced pumpkin, and cinnamon are some of our favorites!  Although burning candles while driving might not technically be illegal (if anyone knows for sure we’d love to know!) it isn’t exactly the safest thing.  Hit one pothole and all of a sudden you have a flaming projectile flying through the air!  So instead, we picked up these AMAZING air freshners from Yankee Candle.  Now the bus will still smell like spiced pumpkin and cinnamon and we won’t have to worry about testing out the smoke detectors.

Vitamin C Energizing Face Spritz! The tour, although a super incredible once in a lifetime AMAZING fun time, is still going to be a lot of hardwork!  Last night already consisted of set design at midnight while using head lamps!  Yes head lamps!  Like the kind you would use while spelunking! So to fight off the urge to curl up in a ball and rest like a baby, we picked up energizing face spritz from The Body Shop!  One quick sprtiz is an instant pick me up of citrus AMAZINGNESS!

Make your next road trip more AMAZING - Create a travel box of fun (1)

To round our the rest of our box we included Ghiradelli Chocolate, Cheez-its, gold stars, and Rolos.

Make your next road trip more AMAZING - Create a travel box of fun (4)

Ok, so this wouldn’t be a “how to” post unless we shared a few tips on how you can create your very own travel box of goodness to make your next road trip more AMAZING. Below are a few ideas to help inspire you!

Find a fun box to store everything in! A boring old plastic bag or cardboard box just won’t do!  The goal is to make your trip more AMAZING and that includes the box.  We picked up a fun little rustic box at Homegoods then stuffed it with all of our goodies.

Include a few of your favorite indulgences!  Traveling and roadtrips are meant to be a break from your everyday lives so spice it up with your favorite chocolates and candies.  As we mentioned above, we included sour patch kids, gummy bears, Ghiradelli chocolate and Rolos.  Before your next road trip, head to the grocery store and spend a few extra minutes in the candy aisle picking out your favorite sweet treat!

Think therapeutic spa! Whether you are going on a road trip or traveling for business, travel can be rough on the body. Help rejuvenate your body and mind with fun things you world normally only find at a spa.  Pack your favorite body lotion, air fresheners, bath soap, and in our case, Vitamin C Spritz.  These little extra touches will make your trip that much more relaxing.

In addition to your box of fun, don’t forget to pack the essentials you simply can’t live without. Yesterday we asked on Facebook “What is the one thing you can’t go without while traveling?”  Thanks so much to everyone that responded!  We received a ton of AMAZING answers and we wanted to share a few of our favorites today.

Brad Slater –  A travel partner! Makes it so much more fun. Otherwise, my rollerboard suitcase. It’s been all over and makes navigating airports so much easier.

Natalie Franke – New music / a playlist for the trip!

Abby Field – fresh socks!

Have an AMAZING week and safe travels on your next trip!

Play in the Snow: Advent Calendar Day 23

Celebrating the Everyday  //  

The past few days have definitely felt a lot like winter.  Mother nature apparently realized that it’s not really supposed to be 60 degrees and sunny everyday in December.  Well, at least not for those of us in the Northeast and Midatlantic. Although we don’t really like the cold all that much, we LOVE LOVE LOVE the snow!  I have probably been signing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” for the past week now.  Fortunately you don’t have to be subjected to my extremely off pitch tone.  I definitely won’t be signing up for The Voice anytime soon! :)

As we were wrapping up all our Christmas gifts, we took a glance at the weather and to our pleasant surprise, the weatherman was forecasting 1-3 inches of snow on Christmas Eve!!!!  We might finally get a white Christmas after all!!  Once the first snowflakes begin to fall you can guarantee that Liz and I will be the first ones outside making a snowman!  So for Day 23 of our AMAZING Life Holiday Advent Calendar (and for the rest of winter) go play in the snow! Playing in the snow brings out the child in us.  Whether I am picking up Liz and running outside while she doesn’t have shoes on like I did in this picture from high school, or if we are sled riding, making snow angels, or snowmen, playing in the snow just makes us laugh and giggle with joy.  And that is definitely what life is all about.  Laugh out loud, roll around in the snow, and have fun.   And for all of you that are lucky enough to have a white Christmas, be sure to take a picture and share it on Facebook or Instagram with us!  We’d love to see your smiling faces!

Have a Very Merry White Christmas! :)

Side note, I really wanted this post to be about sending a snowball to someone that doesn’t get snow.  Unfortunately we haven’t had any snow as of yet to make a snowball, and although I think my plan of buying 5 lbs of dry ice and a giant Styrofoam cooler are flawless, I let Liz talk me out of it this time.  Although if you live in Florida, don’t be surprised if a giant snowball shows up in the mail this February! :)