my Cincinnati weekend

When the going gets tough, the tough get going all the way to Cincinnati to hide out with their sister and baby nephew for the weekend. That's how the saying goes, right? Because that's what I did. Sorry Swift, but occasionally I say screw it to shaking it off, and it's okay to just run away instead.
Sometimes a week of drinking too much diet coke and spending too much on flowers for yourself isn't enough, and even the mountains don't feel far enough away from your everyday life, so you call your sister, buy a ticket, and show up at her house less than 24 hours later. I know this all might sound very dramatic, but I just need you to trust me and my decisions and accept me for the dramatic human that I am.

But I mean, come on?!?! Isn't the only thing you really want when you are feeling down is to walk downstairs from a sunshine nap and have your two year old nephew scream AUNT DANIELLE and start squealing and jump off of the couch even though he JUST saw you an hour ago. Seriously, that made you feel good just reading it, didn't it?

So I spent my weekend at the zoo with my nephew, and at the movies with my sister, and eating ice cream with her cute family and everything wasn't fixed when I got back to Provo, and I didn't magically feel like everything was perfect when my plane landed back in Salt Lake, but I did feel a little brighter, and a little more peaceful, and a little more like maybe this week won't be quite as bad as the one before.

Now that I'm back in Provo/Salt Lake and it IS time to shake it off, let's dance. Cause what better way is there to forget about everything else and just enjoy life?

peace. love. and getaways.

my McCarty reunion

Family is pretty much the greatest thing ever, right? So how about my whole McCarty family all gathered on the coast of Oregon My favorite people getting together at my favorite place! Here are a shmishsmash of pictures to tell you about the trip...

I always love seeing my sisters, and now they come with extra bonuses cause they always bring along my cute nephews. I seriously could not be more obsessed with these humans.

One of my favorite places to go when we visit Oregon is the Bandon Zoo because ALL zoos should let you play with baby animals don't you think?!

And seriously? Baby foxes. Is this Heaven?!

Oh yeah and watching baby James walking up to all the animals and saying "woof woof" was probably the cutest thing I had ever seen.

This was the view that I woke up to every morning. Hi?! Ok, so maybe it wasn't actually this sunny everyday because this is the coast of Oregon we are talking about here. But, still I couldn't believe how perfect this was.

I convinced my parents to go hiking with me, and we went on a stunning hike called the Arago Pack Trail. I loved it. I can never get over how green and perfec Oregon is. I think it's now one of my dreams to hike the entire Oregon Coast Trai (so like, who wants to hike 400 miles with me...?).

I love these people, and I love this place.

AND MY BABY EDDIE EVEN GOT TO COME ALONG!

The highlight of the trip was celebrating my amazing grandmother's 90th birthday. This woman is amazing, and I am so lucky to still have her around and to be a part of her incredible family.

She sure has created an incredible family.

Love you grandma and the rest of the McCarty fam. So glad I got to spend time with everyone and celebrate the legacy that my grandma has created.

my year in review

This year was good but tough. I can't really pin point one thing that made it so rough, but when I look back it's hard for me to just think yeah that's the good stuff. And really it wasn't bad, I have so few things in my life to complain about. There was no one big thing that made this year feel tricky, but it just kind of was.
One of the really interesting things about having a blog, is that it is really easy to go back and see what I was thinking of a year ago. Most people write down their New Year's resolutions and have no idea what they were by March (and that's being a little generous). All I have to do is scroll back for a while to know what mine were, so I thought I would look them up and see how I did....

1. Cut back on social media (I have a problem).

Nope.  No. Not really at all. AHH! I started being better about this by the end of the year, and I think that I have really stopped caring less. I think I may modify this for the next year to be use social media more effectively. 

2. Stop waiting till the last second to get everything done.

Hahahaha. Yeah I think I'm over trying to fix that problem. 

3. Remember to write all my wonderful friends serving missions.

I've been pretty ok about this!! I write my dear friend Kari who is serving an LDS mission in Costa Rica every week, and I try to send out a grouping of letters every couple months. 

4. Go on more adventures.

I try to see my whole life as an adventure and that satisfies me to my very core.

5. Let no one I know or no one I meet not realize how much truly I love them.
I'm glad I made this goal, and I really have worked hard on this. I have tried to become more and more comfortable with telling people I love them, and I pretty much never go to bed with out telling my roommates I love them; it makes our apartment feel much more homey. It means a lot to me that people know that I love them and I feel like that has strengthened a lot of my relationships this year.

6. Be my best. always. 

How can one really measure this. This is a life goal for my entire life really. 

So, that's how I did. Hopefully you did a little better. Haha. I will make you wait to see what my goals are for the year ahead (because I know you are just dying with anticipation to find out what they are!!). I need just a tad bit of time to really think about what I have ahead of me. 

I hope your Christmas was just as beautiful and warm as mine (internally warm, not externally...it's kinda cold here, but I like cold weather so don't worry too much about me). Also, I got a new camera for Christmas so if you don't see me taking and posting stunning pictures this year please pinch me when you see me (but like give me some times and be nice ok?). 

Happy New Year friends, family, and blog readers. I sure do love ya.

peace. love. and 2013.

p.s. I crossed four things off my Life List this year so that feels pretty successful to me!

my home for the holidays

To start off with MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU FILTHY ANIMALS!!!

I love love love this holiday and I am so so happy to be home celebrating, but it was quite the trek to make it back here thanks to a snow storm that came into Utah the day that everyone was trying to fly home for the holidays.

Luckily my friend driving me to the airport was clever enough to check the weather and see that it was going to be a little rough getting there. So my day started with getting up at 6:30 (actually the earliest I had woken up all semester...) and heading out at 7:00. Everything seemed like it was going great since I made it to the airport and made it on the plane and the plane was even almost empty so I had a whole row to myself! 

And then they kicked us off the plane and said the airport was shutting down....so I had to go sit around and wait for a couple hours. But, I mostly just hung out and watched Netflix so I mean I guess I survived. Eventually they let me back on the plane. YAY! and I still had a whole row to myself. more YAY! And then they told me that it was going to be another few hours before we actually took off. No more yay.

I had to take selfies of my disappointment to pass the time...

because my window looked like this and I couldn't even see outside.

But, eventually it cleared off and they started de-icing the plane. I really thought that this was going to be a quick process and I was kind of excited to see how it worked, and then I realized that this was going to take two hours and I decided to just sleep. Thank goodness I am a champ at sleeping on airplanes. I should probably put it under skills on my resume. 

And even though I got home six hours after I was supposed to and least I made it home. And since we got so delayed I got to land at night, which is one of my absolute favorite things. I'm obsessed with the lyrics in Lorde's song Tennis Court "Pretty soon I'll be getting on my first plane/ I'll see the veins of my city like they do in space." Because seriously this view mesmerizes me. 

But really it's all worth it now because I have spent the last several days just hanging out with the family, decorating the tree, and eating sweets more than I have been eating real food (woops). 

Plus now I get to hang out with this cute face all day.

I'm bummed that my sister Rochelle won't be here for the holidays as she and her hub and kiddo just moved to Germany, but I'm glad that I am home and happy and ready to celebrate with my fam. Christmas is so great. 

Merry Christmas darlings!!

peace. love. and home for the holidays

my holiday away

I can't believe that for a second I thought about not going home for Thanksgiving! (I know, I know. But I'm starting to feel weird about graduating and leaving Provo, so it makes me think about making weird decisions sometimes.)

If you ever thought that vacation was for sitting around and relaxing, you have not vacationed with my family. My sense of adventure had to of come from somewhere right? But, it was so fun to be able to spend my Thanksgiving holiday with all of the people that I am the most grateful for. And, I guess all the pie was pretty great too...

For one of our adventures, we thought that the kiddies might enjoy checking out all the fish at the Georgia Aquarium. It was such a treat to see my little guppies getting so excited about the fishes.

Danny and Dani. Can't believe Rochelle is moving to Germany and of course taking this little guy with her. But hey, he'll probably look even cuter in lederhosen. 

Those babies!!! I'm not gunna lie, I don't always get the most excited about other peoples babies, but I just swoon when I see these cute nephews of mine. I can't even imagine how obsessed I'm going to be with my own kids one day. 

On my last day of my visit back east, I got to celebrate one whole year of being an auntie with this guy as he turned the big one year.

The great importance of birthdays must be taught at a young age!! Happy birthday sweet baby James. So proud to be your Auntie Dani and can't wait to celebrate more birthdays with ya kid.

Even my cute puppy got in on the celebrating. I was actually so worried he wasn't going to remember me since Eddie was such a little puppy when I left to go back to Utah. We joked that he probably thought I was dead and would think I was a ghost. But ghost or not, he was still thrilled to have me back so that we could catch up on our snuggles. 

Although Provo has been my home for almost four years now, it always feels great to go back to Atlanta and see my family. Hope you had a perfect Thanksgiving too, and I hope you also took advantage of the opportunity to eat pie for breakfast everyday like I did (it's good for you, trust me). 

peace. love. and pie. 

my birthday!!!

(Insert Taylor Swift lyric about being 22 here.)

So yeah. Woof. I'm 22 now, which could not seem more old to me, but at the same time I know that I am still an infant, so yeah confliction. But, I always love my birthday. It is truly one of the greatest days of the year, cause it is not only a day where I can get away with whatever I want and use the excuse, "It's my birthday today," but also a day that never ceases to remind me that I have the most awesome friends and family ever. EVER.

I mean of course when you wake up to text messages and emails with these pictures, you KNOW you have a good day ahead of you.

My cute nephew Daniel,

my sweet puppy Eddie, 

and my best friend Kari who is on a mission.

I seriously received so much love on my birthday and spent the whole day being absolutely and completely happy. I decided to keep my celebrating small this year (you know now that I'm getting so old....) and went out to a perfect dinner with my two loves Chelsea and Alison.

 So lucky to have made friends like these when I came out to Utah.

And at dinner we even got free dessert. I at first assumed it was because it was my birthday, but then when I said something about that to the chef he just said, oh happy birthday, I had just wanted to make you guys dessert. Being a girl has some perks occasionally...like free dessert.

Birthday's are so great. I'm feeling real good about 22. I'm thinking some really incredible things are going to happen in my life between now and 23.

peace. love. and birthdays.

p.s. so that you at least believe me a little when I tell you that I am old, my application for graduation got accepted this week. 

my Oregon joy

My mamma grew up on the Oregon coast and some of her family still lives there, so it is always such a treat to go visit every summer. I even got to cross three things off my life list while I was there. Oh boy!

So one of my favorite places to go to in Oregon is this wild life park in Bandon where they let you play with the baby animals. Even at 21 I beg my family to go here. Haha. nothing makes you feel like a child like family vacations. But, I mean you KNOW how I love my baby animals...

Just hanging with a baby black bear...

 and a baby fox!!!! My favorite animal. When they told me they had a baby fox I was going to get to play with, you cannot comprehend how excited I got. This little guys name was Todd, and I loved him, and I wanted to take him home with me. (life list check 1)

But, the fun didn't stop there, a baby bobcat!

 Ok this is just a regular baby. But, that face!

and last but not least, a baby caracal. 

The coast of Oregon is seriously one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life. I just absolutely love it here and it's always nice to get a little cool weather in the midst of a hot Georgia summer. I didn't to go to Oregon last summer for the first time in forever, and I missed it so much. I can't imagine not making my way to the other side of America (at least every few years) for the rest of the my life.

 Yes, I am so obsessed with my dog that we brought him to Oregon. 

Aren't my parents cute? They take me on the greatest adventures.

It was pretty much the first not windy day ever in Oregon when we decided to go fly our kite, but it turned out brilliantly with just enough breeze to get our sharknado into the air. (life list check 2)

And to finish off my trip I had my grandma guide me through making one of her famous blackberry cobblers. Blackberries picked that day, homemade crust, and lots of sugar, I was pretty proud of the results. 

Can't wait till my next trip out west. This place is so perfect.

peace. love. and coast to coast.

my solo drive

I know I've mentioned it before on my blog, but for some reason I just absolutely love driving.

A curvy road, late at night, windows down (better yet a convertible), perfect music, and just me in the car= perfection.

Probably one of my happiest of all happy places. Absolutely nothing can clear my mind and de-stress me like going for a solo drive.

So, the idea of taking a little solo road trip to visit my sister sounded so so perfect, and it was, and I am so happy I got to go. Don't get me wrong the drive was not the only thing that had me itching to go, you know I was psyched about the destination too (but, I'm gunna save you my usual nephew gushing...but I mean he's so cute).

Darn you high gas prices for making me wanting to just drive around forever such an expensive method of relaxation.

Maybe I should start training to be a race car driver?

I know this song is nothing new, but it has been stuck in my head and is wonderful for night driving and long trips. So, seems fitting, yeah?

peace. love. and open road.

my friends and family

Aren't friends and family perfect? Well, I've been filled with both this past week and it has been so so lovely. I finally got to meet my precious nephew Daniel, or little Danny as I like to call him ;) I was also able to enjoy a visit from my cute married friends, Chandler and Alison Frame. Plus, the whole fam was here for one of my favorite holidays, the 4th of July (Go America!)

Thanks for visiting me Al and Chan, and for taking care of a little bit of my I miss my Provo friends blues.

Obviously I dressed up for the 4th, and of course I dressed up puppy too. We matched in our American flag wear and might I say, we looked fantastic. 

Baby bibs tell no lies. That's a thing right? I don't know, whatever, isn't my nephew James cute? Can't believe this seven month old is already so huge!!

But even if James is getting big, I still have tiny Daniel to snuggle with.

  Uhg, I just love my nephews SO much. 

All the Cronquist girls with their babies!!! Yes, Eddie is my baby. If I have to wake up with him in the middle of the night cause he is crying, I get to call him my baby. 

I thank Heavenly Father daily for giving me the most incredible friends and family. I am so lucky to be surrounded by intelligent, funny, beautiful, and happy people all day, erryday. My life really is great and it's the people around me that make it great. So, if you are one of those people who make my life great, THANK YOU. Thank you for adding to my happiness, making me laugh, and really, thanks for putting up with me. I love you. 

peace. love. and friends & fam. 

my nephew number two

Welcome to the family perfect new baby!!! My big sister Rochelle and her husband Matt finally had their little guy last week. Daniel Dean Welker is an adorable 8 lbs 21 1/2 inches, and even though I haven't met him, I am already absolutely obsessed with him. I have been assured that even though Daniel and Danielle are awfully similar names my new nephew was not named after me. Deny it all you want Rochelle and Matt. Dani & Danny forever.

Ahh! Just look at him. I was never baby obsessed until I saw my sisters' kids, but I am dying to hold this little guy and to kiss his tiny nose. 

James came right between my mamma and papa's birthdays. My sister gave them another grand baby for their birthday...I gave them 30 min phone calls. Gosh Rochelle way to one (or one hundred) up me. ;)

I absolutely cannot wait to see my nephew's this summer. I am almost surprised at how incredibly bummed I am to be leaving Provo for the summer at the end of this month, but spending time with  James and Daniel is pulling me home (well, and some trips I am planning on taking to visit my friends interning along the East Coast, you'll hear all about those no worries). 

And just so James doesn't think that I've forgotten about him with the excitement of another nephew here...

I HAVE THE CUTEST NEPHEWS THAT EVER HAPPENED

......but just wait till you see my kids one day

peace. love. and baby Daniel.