Waring and I went to Blue Ridge for our 10 Year Anniversary! We spent three days exploring, ZORBING, and living the camper life. This was the longest time that we had left the girls since Ella’s birth. We missed them, but had a great time just being us….which is where everything started ten years ago. I am so thankful for each passing year with this little family that God has blessed us with!
For the last three years we have made Christmas Ornaments over the Summer. I have loved this little Summer Bucket List Tradition. Last year Ella was only a few weeks old and NOT amused. This year she was a bit more cooperative!
Our first trip to Europe with the girls proved to be magical and exhausting. Raising travelers is tough business and certainly NOT for the faint of heart! Waring and I were determined that we would raise our girls with wild hearts for exploring the world and a heart for learning and curiosity. Even though it isn’t necessarily easy to take the two little nuggets around on all of the adventures, we hope that it instills in them a sense of adventure and perspective that allows them to see the world through the eyes of others and not just from their own fixed point on the globe.
Spain was everything we thought it would be and MORE. Here are just a few of the memories that we made along the way:
-Practicing our Spanish everywhere
-Churros, tapas, orange wine
-Beautiful beaches along Costa del Sol
-Bullfighting rings in Seville
-Rowboating in the Plaza
-Staying up late!
-Train rides
-Learning what a bidet is the wrong way…
Addie loves to dance. She loves to play dress up. She loves to put on makeup. She loves to be the center of attention. Basically she was in her element tonight, and we loved every minute of it. Photographic evidence of Addie in her element below:
If you ever need to get rid of some pent up frustration (not me…) then I HIGHLY recommend spending an evening at Bear Axe Throwing! Waring has been interested in these axe throwing venues for a little while, but we were so excited to hear that one had actually moved in right down the road from us in Pooler, GA. We booked a lane, just like you do when you bowl and had a blast with two of our friends for Waring’s birthday. As it turns out you can play games, compete against your peers, and take score. Sharp objects, competition, and cyclone fencing= not your average date night, but still TONS of fun!
This item was not on the bucket list, but has to get an honorable mention because it was just so dang fun!
I love starting new family traditions. This one is definitely a keeper….family vision boards. As much as I HATE the fact that Addie is getting older, I LOVE that she is old enough to really participate in this task and make a vision board of her very own. Her pictures of sweet girls and pretty dogs just melts my heart. She can read now so she was able to pick out all of her own words too. We have these posted on the fridge to remind us of these focal points all year.
In his book, The Secret of Happy Families, Bruce Feiler suggests several ways that families can build rich memories and moments together. One of the suggestions that we have already taken Bruce up on is the creation of a family motto (see previous post). Now that we have a motto for our family, I think that it is only fitting to tie everything together in a beautiful crest to represent our family and what we hold most dear. A quick search on Fiverr, a rough sketch, and a few days later we have our BEAUTIFUL family crest. I am absolutely in love!
The Celtic cross and laurel wreath represents our faith in Christ and our loyalty to family. The compass represents our love for adventure and the year below it is the year Waring and I were married. The sun and the waves represent our love of the water and sense of wanderlust. Our two little girls are represented by the tea cups. They are feisty, beautiful, strong, and truly embody the saying, “she’s whiskey in a tea cup!” The two arrows represent Waring and me as we remember to appreciate our lives crossing paths as God protects and guides us along the way.
Y’all, I love Harry Potter. The movies were not my thing, but the books were my jam. I love being able to escape into a world of magic and possibilities where the good guys win and heroes can arise from the most unlikely of circumstances.
I have wanted to go to Harry Potter World since it opened, but it just never really worked out…until this past weekend.
I literally haven’t been to Universal Studios since I was a high school senior attending my own Gradbash celebration. Last weekend, however, that changed. Waring, Corie, Derrick and I led a group of our school’s seniors to the event to celebrate their upcoming graduation. After 7pm it was just seniors and their chaperones in the park AND chaperones got fastpasses to ride all of the rides for the whole night AND tons of food and snacks!
Harry Potter World was as truly magical as I had hoped and the rides were so much fun. I felt like I was back in middle school! Corie and I even went to Olivander’s and had our wands choose us (twin dragon heartstrings)!
Ever since reading The Secret of Happy Families, by Bruce Feiler, I have been eager to create rich family traditions. We created our vision boards for the year using magazines and glue, and this weekend we had the chance to create a family motto.
The Feiler family motto is, “begin in adventure and end in love.” This family has two young girls and I absolutely loved what they came up with. I really wanted to create something similar that encompassed our values as well but I wasn’t sure just how to get those creative juices flowing as a family to come up with something until….
A few weeks ago while visiting New Mexico we visited the AMAZING Meow Wolfe interactive art exhibit. While there we learned that the creators each put words into a box and they drew two words to name their creation.
As a family we chose to do the same. We each put words into a box and drew out a word that represented each family member to create our motto.
Drum roll……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The Harvey family motto is:
Travel Hungry. Love Safe.Â
I love it! Ella’s word was hungry. Waring chose travel. I put in the word love and Addie chose safe.
We as a family want to strive to stay curious and “hungry” for new adventures, novelty, and wonder in the ordinary. We also know that no matter how far we roam and what happens in life, the love of our family is our “safe” place where we can return home to at the end of each day.
Daily Drops in the Bucket 