Jun 28, 2017

Feelin' dandy in Denmark


COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

Taking a break from the endless house hunting to write a little post about Denmark! But seriously, is anyone else trying to move to Davis County right now?? Do you feel my pain?!? Send good vibes our way please! And someone with a cute house will you please just sell it! ;) 

When we visited Europe this last month of the 4 countries we explored Denmark was the first and dare I say, my favorite!?!?!? Guys! It was soooo enchanting!!! Copenhagen was adorable and the country side was soooo pretty. It felt overall peaceful. There were hundreds of people zooming by on their bikes and making their daily commutes but even the city was soooo quiet! At one point I felt like I had to whisper as we were walking through town! haha I loved it!

We scored with having our friend John with us, he served his mission in Denmark and was able to speak Danish and be our own little tour guide and also help us order the best pastry of course. 

Our time in Denmark consisted of waking up at the break of dawn and grabbing a pastry from the bakery outside our apartment, then GO GO GO til we dropped. We wasted no time in Denmark and were out walking around until we couldn't go any further and would come home late and just crash. We literally wore ourselves right out and on our last day in the country half of us came down with a nasty cold that lasted almost the rest of our trip... but when in Europe no time to take a sick day! 

My favorite thing about Denmark was when we were driving through the country and would pass all these rolling fields full of bright yellow flowers. It was soooo pretty. I don't have any pictures because we were always driving by when I saw them but they made my heart so happy.

I wrote like 15 pages in my journal of experiences we had in Denmark and things that we did in just 3 days! There was so much to see. I'll just include the highlights. :)

Nyhavn!! I mean just so picturesque. But really the cutest street with colorful buildings on either side of the canal and old ships sitting in the water. So cute. There are restaurants lining the street and gelato and pastries! It was fun to walk up the street and cross the bridge taking pics of everything!





A Canal Tour! Granted this is extremely touristy... but hey we were tourists. Plus the canal goes all through Copenhagen and we were able to see a loooot of the famous landmarks and learn some history about them as we just rode by. It was SUPER nice to get to see everything while sitting down and relaxing. :) We even saw The Little Mermaid statue which is one of the landmarks Denmark is known for. Plus we were able to make note on locations that we wanted to go back to by foot and spend more time in! 





WHATEVER This place is called!!!!! haha just a cute little park outside one of the castles... everyone just hanging out with their lover, playing frisbee on the grass, eating a picnic. I loved it.





Church of Our Saviour. Visited this church just so we could walk up the spiral tower. An amaaaaazing view!! And unlike other towers that we've climbed instead of having a platform to stand on at the top, the spiral staircase just literally gets smaller and smaller and eventually runs out at the very top! 









Frederiksborg Castle. Favorite castle!!! Complete with a moat, castle gardens and the cutest ballroom. We loved walking through and I loved that it was a little bit chilly on this day... haha not sure why just made it seem more enchanting and eerie? I don't know. I liked it. 













Also whatever this cute little town is called. Within the first couple hours of landing in Denmark we drove to this town where the houses are 300+ years old and had the original thatched roofing... it was adorable. And the quietest town I have EVER stepped foot in haha. It was so peaceful. It was right next to the ocean and we walked out by the water where there were fields of windmills in the water! 




COPENHAGEN LDS TEMPLE. We love finding pieces of home when we are away and traveling! So cool to have something so familiar to us so far away. This temple in Copenhagen was originally a chapel! 



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Jun 21, 2017

Why I think social media can be AWESOME



Hi!!! Stayed up wayyy too late last night finishing up my shutterfly book because I wanted to get it ordered BEFORE the 50% off everything deal expired... which was last night. Granted Shutterfly offers that deal & more like every other week so really there's never any REAL pressure BUT I wanted it haha. If you know me, you know I love documenting my life! I just do. I get so excited about something and want to snap a pic of it in hopes of trapping those excited feelings and special moments within a little frame. And for the most part... my pictures do just that for me. I am NO expert and my pictures are far from perfect or non-pixelated (probably not even a term) but to the untrained eye, Jord and I LOOOOVE looking back at our pictures. We've known each other for 10 years now (WHAT?!?) so the memories that are sparked by looking back at pictures are just sweeter and sweeter as the years go by. I'm so grateful I've snapped pics in all our moments together. 

I know what some of you are thinking, and YES I do love to live in the moment and think that it is definitely important. If there are times where pictures seem too forced or inappropriate or it really is just better to sit back and enjoy it, I do know how to refrain ;) But my point is most the time it is hardly a distraction and believe it or not it is fun for us (okay mostly me) to be capturing how I see the world. 

What comes hand in hand with taking a million pictures for me, is I love to share them. (I have this weird perception that well hey I like to see what MY friends and family are up to... so hey maybe they might want to see what I've been doing too?! Basically I'll just pretend that you all care.) If you follow me on social media it probably seems like I am sharing EVERY single picture I take and sharing all the time haha and while I do post a lot there are a lot of pictures that don't get posted. And that is okay! 

I consider myself to be a pretty genuine person. When I care about people, I REALLY care about them and with that comes this funny little intriguing desire to know what is going on in their life. Weird right? Living away from family and friends for the past year the only connection I really had with a lot of people was through social media. (Cause who picks up the phone nowadays to actually call and tell your loved ones about your life?! -Another rant for another day.) I totally loved seeing that my cousins won their baseball/soccer/basketball games or my aunts and uncles spent an awesome week in Hawaii, or my friend painted something new and her shop is killin it and how cute all my friends' baby bumps growing! I love being motivated by fitness accounts and seeing great alternatives for a healthier snack option or also a fun new workout to try for the day. Getting advice on great places to eat yummy food? Yes please. Also pics please of my little nieces and nephews who I haven't had the chance to meet yet! I love having met people through traveling and seeing where they are going to next!! How inspiring is that?! Would I have ever thought of going to Iceland? Probably not haha! But now that I know it is a possibility and I can connect with people to see HOW they did it... definitely on the bucket list. ALSO weird as it seems I've had people come to me asking advice on one thing or another they've seen me post about (I know, I know, what?!) and of course I'm so excited to share some good news!! 

So whats not to like? Here comes the deep dark evil part of social media that traps so many... I think, no I KNOW the danger comes when people get caught up in a little word called comparison. And ya, I can definitely gather how that can make social media seem like the WORST. Coveting is of the devil. Not a healthy way to live at all. If you find yourself getting depressed and down rather than inspired by looking at other people's pictures, I totally think you should delete all your accounts asap! If following a particular account makes you feel bad about yourself? Here is the beautiful thing, you can choose to unfollow. No one (including me) NEEDS to have social media in their life! haha
I don't know HOW to get it across to you but, YOU are awesome. Just the way YOU are. Your life is beautiful and different (as it should be) than anyone else's. Your trials and struggles are NOT the same as anyone else. YOUR accomplishments are sooooo unique and something to be proud of!! Let's get real here by stating the obvious... pictures on social media are often filtered (don't we all know this by now?) haha and we just have to realize that YES there are so many awesome inspiring HONEST people posting about hard things that we could relate with or could help us to get through a similar struggle AND there are also people who like to keep it pretty positive and uplifting as far as sharing goes. I know I do, being vulnerable is scary ha!! You just have to take it as it is and accept that social media is going to be a highlight reel of someone's life. AND LET'S LET THAT INSPIRE US! Don't get down on people for being excited to share about their accomplishments and passions. If you don't like it, you don't have to be there. (Yikes that was harsh.)

I don't even know how to articulate my point with all this rambling haha but basically what I think I'm trying to get across is YOU do YOU. (and not just with social media- because let's get real it gets a lot deeper than that)
For me???
I love taking pictures and capturing what I think are beautiful memories. 
I love sharing these moments and hopefully my friends and family can be excited for me!
I also love staying connected and seeing what is going on in my friends and family's life. 
I love being inspired by creative people from all over the world!
And while it's awesome, social media NEVER takes precedence over real, genuine, human contact haha. Husband comes first. Family comes first. REAL PEOPLE always come first!!! PUT IT AWAY PEOPLE. PUT THE PHONE DOWN. 
BALANCE is crucial, as with all things in life. It's simply a fun little hobby to keep to the side. I share a lot, but I also have a life where soooooooooo much goes on that only those super close to me are a part of. 
So, share the positivity! Share the love. Be kind to others. Be kind to EVERYONE. Inspire! Don't take it too seriously! Share hard things! Don't share anything! Unplug for a while! Whatever! Just do you! Be healthy. Be happy. But, love one another!! 

Haha if you made it to the end of my extremely long random rant, props. I don't honestly know why I felt the need to explain myself (probably cause, America?? Freedom of speech? ;)) but there ya go.  

Also.
Here are a few of the pics I added to my Shutterfly book! Just a HIGHLIGHT reel. ;)