01 / i am giving away a custom blog design ( $100 value!!) over at the Secret Life of Bee!
                   + CLICK TO ENTER!

02 / win a $1000 shopping spree to Anthropologie, Etsy, Starbucks, Pier 1 Imports and Target!

                   + this giveaway ends this sunday - only a few days left to enter!
                   + CLICK TO ENTER!

today is my husband's birthday! i asked him what his favorite dessert is and he said key lime pie. so i gathered the ingredients and made a key lime pie for the first time yesterday. last year when we were dating, i made him an oreo cheesecake for his birthday and that was super delicious. let's hope this year's pie is a success!

i don't think i've ever been more excited for spring. winter semester at school will end in a couple weeks and we'll be packing everything up and heading to california. moving to a new place is so thrilling to me, especially since wherever i go, my husband is always by my side. i'm thankful for my loving husband every day and feel so blessed to have him in my life.

yesterday we had family night together and went to the gym to play racquetball. i haven't played in so long! even though most of the time i was the one running back and forth trying to hit the ball, we had some good rallies. the funny thing was that we've never played a sport together (!!!) crazy i know. but i loved that we tried something new together and we had so much fun. it's so important in a marriage to bond with each other through activities. i just wish we would have gone and played racquetball earlier in the semester! 

"it's a beautiful day and i can't stop myself from smiling..." michael buble knows exactly how i'm feeling today! after a few days of rain and snow and the cold again, i woke up this morning to a beautiful sunny day! i even heard the birds chirping...
 
happy weekend everyone!

+ remember that awesome giveaway to win a $1000 shopping spree? you can still enter if you haven't already! :)

as you have all read, google reader will soon to not exist so everyone is switching to bloglovin! i hadn't used bloglovin very often until now and i really like it! especially because of the app which makes it so much easier to read the blogs i love to stay updated on. did you know you can also import all your google reader blogs to bloglovin? how convenient!

if you don't already, you can follow this blog over at bloglovin! i'll see you over there :)

there's no place like seattle. seriously guys. especially when the sun is out (summertime is the best time to visit!) and you can see beautiful mt rainier in the distance. i truly miss this place and cannot wait to visit next month! 

images taken summer 2011 © Andrea Brionne Photography

when husband suggests ice cream, i am right there cheering him on. i love ice cream. so we went and got ice cream at this adorable family-owned shop where they have delicious ice cream. this time i tried a new flavor (which frankly doesn't happen that often). when i asked to taste test the black tie cheesecake ice cream, the girl handed it to me saying "are you ready to be addicted?" naturally, i said "ohh yes." basically anything with chocolate i am addicted to and she was totally right. now it's my favorite flavor. 

so it was the first day of spring? we were greeted with lots of rain, snow/slush and more rain. i guess it's a good sign that it's starting to warm up if it's raining, right?? :)

we love making these homemade P.F. Changs lettuce wraps. especially kevin. it's one of his favorites now!  so on this beautiful and productive day, we made them for lunch. (p.s. we use lean ground turkey instead of chicken. yummy alternative!)

the past couple weeks have been stressful and filled with school work for the both of us. we didn't really have time to spend quality time together, which is a big deal. have you ever taken the love languages test? well quality time was one of the top ones for kevin and i. so today we were productive: cleaned the apartment, ran errands and checked off all of my to-do list boxes we've been needing to accomplish. in doing all of this, we spent that quality time together. now that's love.

hey friends!! i'm so excited to be a part of this HUGE giveaway with all of these lovely bloggers! all you have to do to win $1000 is to enter below! it's super easy and i'm crossing my fingers for you!!

Thriftary | Two Hoots & a Holler | Style Elixer | Because of Jackie | Simply Just Lovely | Moorea Seal | Jenny Highsmith | The Charming | of Corgis and Cocktails | Maiedae | The Serena Saga | High Walls | Pillow Thought | Him + Her | White Lights on Wednesday a Rafflecopter giveaway

and no, i'm not pregnant...
I've launched my new branding + website/blog for my photography business!


for a long time, it was really bothering me not having a website. i felt like i wasn't a complete business without it. now it's finally complete and launched and i couldn't be happier and more excited!

 
i'd love your support in liking my photography fb page.  thanks friends! ♥

okay embarrassing, but i just tried out the sock bun and i'm seriously blown away. it's SO easy and looks dang cute. in the words of kevin, "the higher up the better!" if he likes the bun and i like the bun, we have a match. i think i'll be doing my hair like this allll summerr longgg in the california heat. 1298th reason why i'm not a fashion blogger is because i don't have a million cute clothes to take photos of every day, nor the time. but i do feel like i don't post many photos of myself on here, so i thought i would debut my new do. also i must admit that i rarely ever wear my hair all the way up with no bangs. i'm a bangs kind of girl but when you go to bed with your hair wet and wake up with crazy bed head, it all goes up.

images taken with my iphone using the timer app and edited with vsco camera app. 

i chose this picture while browsing through past photos for my new photography website (coming soon) and i love how it just shouts "SPRING!" all i can think about is spring and the warm sunshine...

anyways, i'd love to help you gain more followers and traffic to your blog! all transactions are done through PassionFruit Ads to make advertising quick and easy. Spaces are first come first serve and they are limited. So get them while you can!

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this past weekend we went to a cabin at Bear Lake, UT. kevin is the sales team leader for this summer so he planned a weekend team retreat and found this awesome cabin for us to stay in. there were 22 of us, so it was definitely a full house cabin! we stayed up late every night playing mafia, cards, kinnect dancing, eating and talking. it was so fun getting to know everyone better and bonding with them. it made us all more excited about being together this summer in sacramento! so many fun things to look forward to.

i can't imagine life without my husband. he is my better half, my best friend and eternal companion. after dating for 6 months and being engaged for 4 months, i was very confident that i was making the right choice when i decided to become his wife.

one piece of advice i always paid attention to while in the dating scene was this, "how he treats you when you're dating is how he'll treat you when you're married." from day one, kevin has been incredibly thoughtful and always forgiving, along with many other qualities i love about him. neither of those have altered since we've been married. our relationship while dating and now has been healthy and full of respect for each other.


01 Pray together- we are always trying to build our relationship with God to make our marriage stronger

02 Spend quality time/date each other- we try to go on a date every week. need good date ideas? check out our abc dates!

03 Find a hobby we can do as a couple- our recent one was building our coffee table
 
04 Communicate!- this is crucial in building a healthy relationship

05 Never say bad things about your spouse to others- i can't express enough how important this is. whomever you talk to will only remember the bad things about your spouse, not the good things. you wouldn't want your spouse to be saying negative things about you to others.