Excitement to share =]

Hey guys!!!! This is a little bit of a random post but I just wanted to share how excited I am! My Aunt Jennifer gave birth to my little cousin Levi Daniel Hand really early Saturday morning after a whole lot of labor and pushing. We got to go see them in the hospital Saturday afternoon and I was able to take some newborn pictures.  He is adorable! Such a little chunk at 9 lbs 10 oz.

 I wanted to share his preciousness. I am a little baby crazy, so my boyfriend says. I am very much so content with playing with my cousins for a long time. No babies of my own for a while. I'm not ready to stay up all night yet lol.

I hope y'all have had a great weekend! 

Emily

Treasure

 

 I know that a lot of people have different definitions of treasure and have different things that they choose to treasure. I treasure a lot my family and friends especially. A lot of the objects that I choose to treasure are some how connected to my family and friends. I wanted to share one of them today. I saw a blog post where a lady was working on making a wedding ring quilt. I have a wedding ring quilt that was my Great Aunt Edna's. It is beautiful but she made it and that is what makes it special. She was an unique person. She lived in downtown Atlanta with her sister Flo and they worked as secretaries at various companies downtown. They both never married. I never got to meet Flo she passed away a year or two before I was born. They were single independent women living downtown when women just didn't do that. She was such a fountain of knowledge when it came to our family. I did not get to know her as well as I did but seeing things that were hers makes me feel connected to them.

After I got this one I realized that she had stitched her name on one of the patches. Making it even more special.

Hand Stitching

A larger picture of the pattern. 

 

I hope y'all enjoyed this! I thought I'd share. If you liked this post please leave a comment and let me know something that you treasure. Or if you write a post like this on your treasure let me know!! I'd love to see what y'all treasure.


Emily

Cruise Day 1

The Carnival cruise we went on was a 5 day cruise out of Jacksonville, Fl on the ship Fascination. We went to Halfmoon Cay and Nassau. This was my first cruise!!! I know there are other first timers out there or people who have never been on one before so I thought I would go into detail on the 5 days.

Day 1:


We live west of Atlanta in what I guess you could call a suburb of a suburb, basically were in the middle of civilization and the country. So we woke up Saturday morning at 4 a.m. to leave our house to make the ship that we needed to board before 4 p.m. because it shipped out then. I would not suggest doing this. It was stressful my mom kept thinking that we were going to get a flat tire or hit a deer. On the way out we had to drive through Kennesaw Mountain national battlefield and there are always deer along the road there. I thought my mom was going to have a heart attack.

My family is not the drive straight down kind of people, we have to make stops, multiple stops. We stopped for Chikfila and then at least 4 more times at rest stops. We actually arrived on time, our boarding call said that they wanted us there around 12 to get on the ship, and we were early around 11:30. I think that they try to space it out so that people are not rushing all at once to get on the ship.

Now going through the security and customs took maybe 30 minutes. I brought a large back back so that I could carry on important things. Like a bathing suit, change of clothes for dinner, breakable make up, and my actual purse was stuffed in there. I also carried on my camera bag, did not want that to get lost or crushed. An important fact that I did not know was that once in customs you are not allowed to take pictures or be on your cell phone. We found this out when I took a picture of my mom and little brother. But it was nothing more than what you go through during airport security. Also we went ahead and set up our on ship accounts before we arrived so that made the process go a lot quicker.

Once that was over we were able to board the ship. I will say that it is CHEEEEEZZZZYY but once you overlook the cheesiness its alright. I just thought of it like a mini Las Vegas. We explored the ship when we first got on board. Our rooms were on the Empress deck which is the same level as the lobby. There were things that I liked about my room and things I hated. It was my brother and I in the same room and it was an inside room. So when you walked in there was a fake window with curtains and when you opened it there was just plastic behind it. =[ But our room was a handicap accessible room so the bathroom was a little larger and the little hallway was. (If you have a handicap room and there is someone that needs it they will move you, my mom was told that they would move you up not down.)

It takes a while for your luggage to get processed. My luggage came before the rest of my families and we put them on the same cart, initially. My guess is that they moved them around. I would definitely put an extra set of clothes in a carry on.

An exciting thing at least for the ship leaving from Jacksonville is that the ship has to go under the Jacksonville bridge. Apparently if the tide is in(or out??) the water level can be to high for the ship to go under the bridge and you can not get out. It is crazy going under it!! We went up to the highest deck we could get too and watched as we went out of the port. I think that was really need looking at the different houses and boats as we went out.

Afterwards I think we all went back and took a nap, lame I know. But we had all been up since around 4 a.m. Then we went to dinner! Dinner was fantastic. I wish that I had taken pictures of the food for y'all. Then we went and sat outside and watched the water for a while.

Day 2 coming soon!

Also I have bought some Elf lip glosses and the new Revlon whipped foundation to review soon.

Emily

Back from Cruise!!!

Hey! Sorry it has been a long time since I posted. I have been back from my cruise for a while now and have been slowly working away at editing my photos.

 It was a lot of fun. I think that it would have been different if I had went with my friends and not my family. It would still be a lot of fun but different experience. My best friends and I have talked about going on one for spring break next year. 

The ship was interesting. You definitely have to embrace the cheesiness of the decor. I really liked watching the shows. Also dinner was amazing. Nassau was really cool, it was their Independence Day and many of the stores were closed. We had intended on taking a walking tour but, when we realized how much walking was involved and how hot it was our plans changed. We ended up going on a tour with a driver named Otis. He was amazing! When you come out of the building they make you come through at the port and there are drivers everywhere wanting to take you on a tours, just ask where is Otis. He was great showed us the real Nassau and was informative about the island. He knew a lot of different facts and let us know about the changes that are going on. One fact that he gave us is that milk is around $8 a gallon. WOW. Half Moon Cay was amazing, I would have stayed there the whole vacation.

I have a lot of pictures! I am going to make a series of posts about the cruise. About the activities we did in the ports and the ship. Also I was thinking about doing a post on how it is traveling with out my boyfriend. I am not sure if that is something y'all would be interested in but let me know. We have been together for 3 and almost a half (August 12th) years!! And I think that it would have been interesting to have read a post on what it is like for a non-single 20 year old on a cruise whose just with family. 

If you have any cruise questions please let me know!!!! 

Look for another post soon! 

Emily 

 

New Beauty Items for Cruise!

Hey!!!! I hope y'all are having a good start to the week. Last week I went on a bit of a beauty product spending spree. Which included trips to 2 different Ulta's and a Target. I needed to pick up a few things from my cruise! The ship leaves this Saturday so after then I will be MIA until around next Thursday! Alrighty I'll jump into what I got! I will give some mini-reviews of the products as I go along, but remember that I got most of these products last week. I will continue to give updates on how they work for me.

WARNING: Picture Heavy!

 One of the first things that I picked up is a primer set from Tarte. I love love love love Tarte products. This past year for Christmas my mom got me the True Blood Palette and is is amazing. There was a sample of a eyeshadow primer that came with the True Blood palette ran out of so when I saw this kit for $9 I was sold! They are sample sizes but especially with the eyeshadow primer a little goes a long way. The eyeshadow primer is a different formulation than the one that came with the palette. The primers names in this trio set are Clean Slate Poreless (.25 fl oz.), Clean Slate Flawless (.25 fl oz.), and the Clean Slate 360 creaseless (.09 oz.). All of the primers are formulated without parabens, mineral oil, phthalates, sodium lauryl sulfate, and synthetic fragrance. They claim to be waterproof, the only one I can agree with this (so far) is the eyeshadow primer. Even when I went to take the swatch off of my hand I just grabbed a towel and rubbed. It would not come off then I used soap and it took scrubbing for a few minutes!!! I think I am going to love this stuff on my cruise. I did get these at Ulta.

 On both hands left to right: 360 Creaseless eyeshadow primer, flawless primer, and poreless primer.

Napoleon Perdis make up remover wipes, was given as a free gift because they were out of the original Tarte gift with purchase. I've never tried Napoleon Perdis products so I think this will be interesting. A $15 value. Find them here.

Alrighty the last big thing that I got at Ulta is my new tinted moisturizer. It is more than I wanted to spend, I did have a 20% off coupon though. But I had tried a sample of it before and really enjoyed it. It gave me coverage for a tinted moisturizer. It is the Tarte Smooth Operator Natural Tinted Moisturizer with SPF 20. It is normally $36 but because of the coupon it was $29. I love this stuff it is so smooth on the skin.

Sitting on skin then blended in. 

Then I actually got this product in my June Birchbox. I love this it is like a bronze/gold/brown eye pencil the name of the color is Old Gold by Eyeko. I love the color. The only problem is that creases like crazy on me. And this was why I got the Tarte Eyeshadow primer because I love the color.  

  

 I also grabbed an eyebrow brush and an angled brush from Elf.

I am jumping on the Lip Butters Band wagon! This is the Revlon Lip Butter in Sweet Tart! I was trying to decide between this color and another one that looked more warmed toned. These things really are amazing. I love the way they feel on the lips. I almost want to use this more than my normal Burts Bee's as a lip balm because they feel so good. I think that this is going to be great for the cruise. I also love the packaging it is so cute! Also I used the coupon that I got in my Target Sample bag to get $3 off! =] Now I can go buy another one!

 Here it is swatched on the same hand as the Eyeko eye pencil. It is so pretty! It is nice and sheer here but on my lips it looks a lot deeper.

The last thing that I got was a bronzer. So far my only entrance into bronzers is my Bahama Mama bronzer by The Balm. It is pretty dark on me and I just wanted something that would give me a nice glow with a little bit of color. So I got the Rimmel London Natural Bronzer in Sunlight. It is in the lightest shade in the collection. When I swatched it on my hand below (it is underneath the Lip butter) it is a little hard to see and is almost my exact skin tone, on my hands. But because I wear SPF on my face it is lighter than my hands. This warms up my skin tone perfectly.

Hopefully this post was not too overwhelming! I know it is a lot for one post. I do want to do a post tomorrow or Thursday on the clothes I have bought for my cruise.

What new summer products have you bought?



Emily

So Happy!

You know those moments when it is like you can fully breathe again. I just had one of those.

I had decided to not worry about my grades for my summer classes because now that the semester is over there is nothing I could do about them. But every time I would log in to see if my teachers had posted them I would hold my breathe. This time I logged in and my grades were posted. But my teachers did not have my final grades posted so I had to go look at my actual transcript to see what I made. I got a B for both classes!!!!!!! I am so happy. No more worries I can look forward to next week with out a pit in my stomach. I will be keeping my Hope Scholarship for the third year in a row and I have also made the Deans list again for the Spring semester!

I hope everyone is having a nice stress free summer!


Emily