It's about that time!

It's been since last October that I even touched this blog. I just signed off and decided to give up. I decided that I am a terrible blogger.
Well, I am making a change. I am back in CA and ready to be more active in my endeavors.
Wish me luck and stay posted....

Love & Barn's

The trend this year seems to be get married and have a big party in a barn. I must admit, I kinda like it.
I flew to Utah to celebrate love and marriage with my girl Aly. Here are some pics to document the day...

My brother is the Bomb!

Greg is in his 5th and final year of Architecture school. He is amazingly talented and is keeping a blog to track his final year. This being his thesis year he has to come up with an idea and create. I personally am a bit jealous of all the artsy fun. I have secretly always wanted to be a designer. Instead I chose a creative outlet in designing beautiful hair. :) Here is what I helped my bro design when I was home visiting CA last week.....
All the pencils, partly my idea! Yep that's right I'm taking credit for the great art project that will begin his thesis.


http://gregferrell.blogspot.com/2010/10/on-point.html

Nerd Alert!

I just finished this amazing trilogy of books. The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay. I couldn't put these books down. I think I finished all 3 in a bout 2 weeks time. They are fun reads that leave you wishing there was a fourth. Katniss, Peeta, and Gale live in a barbaric and crazy time when survival and love are crucial to live on.

I am a sucker for teenage fictional series, i.e. Harry Potter, and I hate to admit the Twilight books. This series has been fun. Please read them and let me know what you think.

This month my book club is reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. I highly recommend this read as well.

U T A H

This is a little tribute to a state I love! I am coming in about 2 weeks. Everyone knows that this current New Yorker is really a CA girl always and forever, but we can't forget about the 3 years of my life I spent in UT. This is were it all began. At age 18 I ventured far from home with one of my best friends. We grew to become like sisters over these growing up years in UT. We enjoyed the mountains, we made new friends, and had so many many adventures.We got our first apartment, first out of high school crushes and heartbreaks. I learned my trade and did haircuts in the kitchen. We learned how to drive in the snow, I learned how to snowboard. We laughed and cried and loved. I usually come back to these mountains every year hang with my girl, mountain bike hike and swim. Now I am coming back to celebrate this best friends wedding! Here are some photos to the state that will always hold a special place to me...



Me and Aly at the 4th of July fireworks in P-town. giggling as usual :)






I am also excited to see this girl! My cute little sis. Who 10 yrs later is living it up in good ol Utah!

Bloggers

Some people are just fabulous bloggers. These are the people who inspired me to create my own blog. I would like to pay tribute to just a few I have been spying on lately.

First is my cute friend Aly. She is getting married soon and I love spying her blog!

http://coocoolalalife.blogspot.com/

I also my friend Brigham's blog is always up to date and entertaining. He and I love to eat! And we are especially snobbish about the best places to eat in NY. If we don't mind saying so ourselves, the best places are all downtown. Unfortunately he made the long haul move uptown, but will always be a true downtowner at heart. We have been on a few eating adventures lately that he has blogged about. Please read....

http://briggie.blogspot.com/2010/09/best-pritchett-party.html

http://briggie.blogspot.com/2010/09/best-it-only-took-me-1000-years.html

I also love this one too.... http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

This is not a friend, though, I wish I was! This has been a fun and inspiring blog for me in fashion. I love the things I see on the streets of NY everyday and this blog really captures it all.

Enjoy all the little blogs that I enjoy.

Life After Travel...

I have so much rolling around in my brain right now that it is honestly hard to sort it all out. Sometimes when this happens the best thing to do is just write it out. I am a big believer that blogs should be mostly pictures and silly fun things. Remember my very first post about how my blog would in no way ever become an online journal/diary.....well, maybe I lied just a little bit. Enjoy what's rolling around in my little old head right now, or don't, and wait for some more pictures!

A very wise and dear person in my life asked me awhile ago if I ever thought about the opportunities that have been brought into my life through all the travel I have done. Have I ever thought that there is maybe a purpose for all the life experiences that I have had through exploring the world. I really enjoyed this question, because up until the moment she asked it, I was just planning trips and going along for the ride. Not ever thinking about why I do it, or if there has ever been a reason. Or am I just a free spirit with an itch for adventure? Sure, of course I was learning about new cultures and new people, new customs, ect. But was I really thinking about how all of my travel could affect me or the people around me after the trip. Or should I be taking less selfish trips in the furture, and start doing humanitarian trips and serve others?

I have read a lot of travel magazines, books, and memoirs from kindred travelers. One thing that I love to read is how traveling opens our eyes to things unfamiliar to us and teaches us so much that we could never learn in a book or read in a magazine. Traveling can make us more open minded, or perhaps closed off. It can make us drop stereotypes that we once formed about a culture. I find that almost everywhere I have ever been I end up falling in the love with the whole country.

As I just recently traveled through Asia I learned so much about people and human nature that I just can't re-tell in a way to fully give you the same feelings and emotions that I felt being there. When I told a friend of mine who had been to India that I was traveling there the first thing she said was, "Leslie, I can't really describe India. It's just something you have to experience." And yes my friends that is an absolutely true statement. Multiply times during the trip Caroline and I would see something and just look at each other and say, "How do you explain that. How do you even tell people and have them believe that this is actually happening."

I am humbled by the kindness and love that poured out of people in India who were with almost nothing. The Adam Chew's of Malaysia. The smiles on the peoples faces in Thailand. The constant concern about how we "felt" in Vietnam. The old man on the subway in Hong Kong, and the reaction I received from those around me as I stood up to give him my seat. These are moments and emotions that will stick with me forever. Sure these countries have shady sides and a seedy under belly, everywhere does, but there is so much goodness and vibrancy out there. I find that the culture, and customs, and nature, and clothes, food, and all the things that define a place and make them there own are all fun. But what I remember in each place are the people. The small interactions I had with the children in India or a tour guide in Peru who told us where church was on Sunday.

So in conclusion to my random thoughts about travel. I find that if anything, the purpose of all the travel in my life is to hopefully make me a more understanding, loving, and less judgmental person. And to teach me that the world is much smaller then we think. Although these are all things that I am constantley trying to work on, I hope that the more I see, and the more I live the more I become a reflection of the goodness I see in the people of the world.