Mari & Jason Chesaning Wedding {Clio Wedding Photographer}

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Enjoy the View Photography

Mari & Jason had such an amazing wedding! The whole theme of their wedding was very rustic and they had some very unique ideas to change it up a little. From getting hitched at The Milestone Barn, having pies instead of a wedding cake, to having a little portable fire and full s’mores bar! We can honestly say that we had such a good time photographing their wedding. Check out some of these great ideas if you plan on having a rustic wedding anytime soon!

Thanks, Mari & Jason, for having us as your photographers!  We had a blast working with you and wish you many years of happiness!

Other Vendors that helped make Mari and Jason’s wedding day a success:

Florist: Mayn Street Flowers, 810-639-7975, maynstflowers.com/‎

Cake Artist: Sweet and Savory Bake Shop www.sweetandsavoryonline.com/‎

Pie: Dangerously Delicious Pies, www.dangerouspies.com/‎

Band/DJ: Music Box Productions, 

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Italy and Denmark

I’ve been back for a while, but haven’t had a chance to post any photos from our Honeymoon!  We had a really wonderful time despite the cold and rainy weather.  Everyone we met told us that it was unseasonably cold and rainy!! We chose the end of May/early June because we wanted warm weather.  It was romantic at times and kind of a bummer at others.  But overall we had a really great time.

Our first stop was Rome.  We were a bit delayed due to the airline waiting for a few passengers, so we missed our train, but we had a fun time taking a train, another train, a bus and then walking to our hotel at 11:45pm.  A really nice man asked us if we needed a ride the rest of the way and we took him up on his offer.  (would probably never do that in SF!) We stayed at a really great Villa called Villa Grazioli.  I definitely recommend it!

 

Our next stop was Florence! We stayed at a sweet refurbished farm house called Hotel Tenuta il Burchio in the town of Burchio.  It’s a really small village with one taxi driver, so if you take the train from Rome, be sure to call ahead and arrange a car. Because we didn’t and guess what we did? We walked to the hotel!  Strange coincidence, another lovely citizen picked us up and took us to the hotel on our walk! We must’ve looked like tourists needing help. Our room was in the dining room, which was really weird, but their dinners were delicious and the staff were amazing.  Here’s a bit of our stay:

 

After Florence we headed out to Capri! Taxi, train, train, boat, taxi, walk! We stayed at Hotel Il Girasole in Anacapri.  While the views are stunning, the hotel was kind of a dud.  Everyone there was amazing and sweet and willing to help, but the room walls are extremely thin.  I could hear our neighbor using his toilet.  No thanks! By this point we were starting to get cabin fever due to all of the rain and all I wanted to do was swim in the beautiful blue water, but it rained a lot and when the sun came out, it wasn’t hot enough.  Bummer.

 

It was gorgeous!

Our last stop was to a really great Hill Town in Umbria called Orvietto.  A coworker of my husbands is Italian and goes there every summer, so he gave us a great recommendation on a hotel (They only speak Italian, so he wrote them a letter and called for us!).  It had to be one of my favorite spots.  Gorgeous town, lots of yummy food and nice people.  I highly recommend this town to all of my readers! From Capri we took a car, ferry, train, train, funicular and bus… then we walked.  I think next time we travel we’re going to get a car. 🙂
and thennnnnn We flew to Copenhagen and did a 19 hour tour on foot.  I want to go back for at least a week.  It is such a clean and beautiful city.  It made me really happy.
It was 3 weeks of really amazing memories with my incredible husband.  I know this was a lot of photos and not much of the experiences we had together or what we did, but I’m keeping most of that close to the cuff.  Hope you enjoyed these photos.

A beautiful body

I always get inspired by blogs and articles I read that say how you should love your body no matter what and to stop hate speak about your body.  Hate speak like “I’m so fat”, “Look at this cellulite!”, “I wish I could lose X lbs”, “Why are you so skinny and I’m so fat?!”, etc.  I’m completely guilty of hate speak about my own body and not-so-secretly wish I could lose 20 lbs.  But you know what? I’m beautiful.  I may have cellulite, chubby thighs and a muffin top, but you guys, I’m pretty.  I know I am.  I just wish I could remember that 24/7! 

I saw this wonderful website/kickstarter campaign today that I hope you all read/listen to and really think about yourselves differently.  Speak highly of yourself, love yourself, and make sure those around you are supportive and love you.  If not, they’re not worth your time.  And if you feel like it, contribute to A Beautiful Body Project.  I think it’s life changing.   

http://www.abeautifulbodyproject.com/

Currently…

My friend Maria from It’s a Beautiful Life inspired me today! I’m going to try and post more often.  This will help! Here’s the “Currently” post! 

Thinking About: I’m going to Italy on May 18th for 20 days.  I want to go RIGHT NOW.  I want to get a hair cut, get my eyebrows waxed, get my nails done and pack lightly and correctly.  I tend to over pack or under pack and both are a bad idea.  I’m hoping I can under pack and find a place to do a bit of laundry.  We’re also stopping over in Copenhagen (for a whole 19 hours!), so I need to figure out what we should do there.  Get a hotel and sleep a bit or just party all night… I’m guessing we’re probably going to want to sleep.  My baby cousin Colleen is going to be there studying abroad, so we may have to hang out with her! 

Feeling: excited! See above.  I’m also a bit stressed out.  Lots of things happening this summer! Italy, Detroit for one of my bestest friends weddings, Orange County for a sweet little girl’s 2nd Birthday Party and hopefully some people coming to visit in Somerset! (FAMILY AND FRIENDS, HELLOOOO! Please come visit!) 

Watching: Secretly in LOVE with The Only Way is Essex. It’s totally the Jersey Shore of the U.K. but I can’t help myself.  I watched a few seasons on Hulu last year and then found the rest of them here.  Don’t judge. 

Reading: I just finished the 5th book of Game of Thrones, I Can Barely Take Care of Myself by Jen Kirkman and Attempting Normal by Marc Maron.  I’ve had a lot of reading time lately.  I’m currently reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  I just got Foodist: Using Real Food and Real Science to Lose Weight Without Dieting in the mail today, too! You can find me here on Goodreads! 

Looking Forward To: Hopefully getting to see most of my family and a lot of my friends this summer.  I miss my people! 

Making Me Happy: Eating really amazing and delicious HEALTHY food.  I’m such a food person.  I equate memories with food I ate.  I research places to eat when traveling and tend to base my experiences upon the type of food I had.  Italy is going to be so amazing.  Oh goodness.  

And that’s that. 🙂

twenty thirteen or two thousand thirteen

Happy New Year, friends and readers!

I normally hate to make resolutions because I generally don’t stick to any of them, but this year is different.   After the past year, I finally feel like I can stick to them and feel really good about myself when I do. So, here goes, blogverse:

1. Less thai food, more Weight Watchers recipes.
2. Work harder. I tend to be a pretty lazy human being.
3. More exercise.  See #2.
4. Spend more time with my family (including my husband)!
5. Pay off my debt.  Ugh. Last year was the year of saving for the wedding, and since I saved up so much, I can DEFINITELY get this stuff paid off rather quickly!

I’ve done pretty well in the past 7 days! A failed bike ride attempt (I’m still nursing a cold I’ve had since December 17th!), a nice long walk with Billy, lots of delicious and healthy meals, and some credit card payments! Go me!

I’m also looking forward to a healthy 2013 for my husband.  He has a neurology appointment this week and an MRI and appointment with his surgeon next month.  I can’t wait for him to be able to drive again (freedom for him more than anything), for him to reduce the medication he’s on and for him to feel like himself again.  I love that man more than anything.

Happy thoughts to all of you in this new year!

xo

I Love Fall

James and I went up to Somerset (see previous two posts) this weekend with his sister and her boyfriend.  Fall is in full swing! Fall color, crisp evenings, fall vegetables in full swing! Ah, it was amazing.  I had a great time.  I woke up each morning, made a healthy breakfast and set out on my two-mile walk with Billy.  It was amazing.  Crisp in the shade, a really nice and warm in the sun.  The grapes are all changing color and man.  I just love it up there!!!

I also ate really well: Garlic Shrimp in Coconut Milk, Tomatoes and Cilatro, Asparagus and Swiss Cheese Fritatta (although asparagus isn’t in season, so I used broccoli) and this delicious recipe: Asian Glazed Drumsticks.  I’m going to make all three again.  Everyone enjoyed my cooking! Success!  The drumsticks were a huge hit.  All in all, I lost 5lbs last week.  It’s a little too much weight, but I’m guessing about 2lbs of that was water weight/bloating from all of the boozing I did the week before.  I’m getting so much closer to my goal weight.  10lbs! I can do it!!!

I hope you all had an amazing weekend 😉

A little taste of fall

Duality

I recently read a post from one of my favorite bloggers (Camilla!) about city life and country life and it got me thinking about duality.  The definition is as follows:

noun

1. a dual state or quality.

2. Mathematics . a symmetry within a mathematical system such that a theorem remains valid if certain objects,relations, or operations are interchanged, as the interchange of points and lines in a plane in projective geometry.

I absolutely love duality when applied to my life.  James and I have our life in San Francisco.  City living in a great little neighborhood that feels like a suburb.  We can eat any type of food at any time of the day, we can go shopping at amazing stores for anything we’d ever dreamed of, and we have a city full of people to interact with.  We also have our life in Somerset.  Amazing country living with our huge vegetable garden, our beginning of an orchard, the pond with cute turtles, the lake across the street with geese and fish!  The closest decent grocery store is about 30 minutes away, there is no mall, the only restaurant near us just reopened and it’s a pub in the middle of wine country.  Very funny.  I can walk for miles without seeing a human being. Just horses, chickens, water buffalo and the cutest goat I’ve ever met in my life.  In San Francisco I’m connected to the world via my iPhone, my computer, my television… in Somerset the only connectivity we have is television and a land line.  We have no internet, our cell phones don’t really work.  I believe in this duality of life.  A place to be really busy with people and work and life… and a place to relax and care only about the fireplace, the garden and when my next 2 mile stroll with the dog will be.

It’s hard to stay healthy with such a stressful life.  Sometimes you really need to stop and make the best of your life.  If that’s buying a house in the country, great! If it’s going on a weekend trip away to Lake Tahoe every few months, even better. Don’t forget to stop and breathe.

woops!

I ate too much and imbibed in too many glasses of wine and bottles of beer this past week and gained those 2 pounds back! Woops.  But that’s okay.  It’s only two pounds and I really had a great time, so those 2 pounds are a testament to how much fun I had with friends and family celebrating Halloween and friendship.  🙂  I got back on track yesterday after my weigh-in and I feel great.  I made one of my favorite skinnytaste recipes: Crock Pot Chicken a la Criolla and stayed within my points.  I even had delicious chocolate as a treat!  So I’m feeling pretty great.  I’ve been cutting my dog walks in the morning short by a few minutes, so I’m not getting my full 2 activity points, so I need to find another walk that goes a LITTLE further so I can get that extra point!  I generally don’t use my activity points for food, but every once in a while it seems like a good idea – like when I go out on a date with my husband!

I hope you’re all doing amazing and that you have a really fun and safe Halloween tomorrow!  And if you’re on the east coast, I hope you’re staying dry and warm! xoxo

sixteen

Hi and Happy Wednesdays!  It’s been a rainy few days with LOTS of bursting beautiful sunshine in between some fun rain.  It just reminds me that fall is here and to stop pining away for a real summer.  It was really hard for me to spend my first San Francisco summer wishing for heat.  I’ll get used to it eventually! The 58 degree foggy summer weather is actually pretty nice once you get over the fact that it’s Mid July and you haven’t seen the sun since May.

Anyway! Guess what? I’ve lost a total of sixteen pounds since I first started trying to lose weight earlier this year! That’s awesome.  I lost another 2lbs this past week, which is really incredible to me.  I kinda fell off the wagon this past weekend, but not bad enough to gain more weight back.  Last October’s Martha Stewart Living had this amazing recipe for Beer Braised Short Rib Pot Pie that I made last year.  Well, it was rainy and cold so I was really craving it.  It is definitely not a skinnytaste/weight watchers recipe, but boy was it delicious.   It also didn’t help that after I made the skinny pumpkin granola, I had a whole can of pumpkin puree to use, so I made the biggest pumpkin bread ever – and not a skinny version! But I’ve been really good and only eat a tiny little piece every once in a while.  🙂 I got back on track on Tuesday and made turkey meatloaf (I know! I ate turkey and didn’t get a migraine!), garlic sweet potato mash and a salad last night.  Tonight I’m making summer veggies with sausage and potatoes!  It really helps to plan meals out on Sunday before going grocery shopping so I’m prepared for most of the weeks meals.  I just feel so much better about cooking when I don’t have to go to the store for something I’m missing, or having to come up with something at 4:30, ya know?

Hope you’re all enjoying the awesome fall weather!

xo