I sitting here, reflecting over the past year and I am surprised with how much my direction changed in 2018. I initially started my blog as a way to keep my family informed with everything going on in my life, but this year I decided I wanted to pursue blogging a little more seriously and set in my mind that I was going to focus more of my time and energy on the blog. I started following some great bloggers on Instagram and I quickly started comparing myself to these bloggers

I cannot believe I am turning 35 today! I haven't met an age I didn't like, so I am very excited to see what 35 brings my way! I am going to share 35 facts about me that you may not know, so here we go! I was born at Landstuhl Army Hospital in Germany. I was 3 weeks late and my mom was in labor for 56 hours, now you know why she only has one child! I grew up in Orange Park, Florida, which is a suburb of Jacksonville. I am my Mom's only child and the oldest of three girls for

On Tuesdays you will typically be reading about my top 5 favorite items, but I have been sharing so much with y'all recently I decided to share this as a stand alone post. After we got back from Banff my Mom said she had finally found a place to put on a Wanderer Bracelet. I looked at her like she was crazy and making up her own words, so I Googled a Wanderer Bracelet and was happily surprised! With a Wanderer Bracelet, you can wear the coordinates of your favorite places or

At this point in the journey I have shared with you lodging, restaurants, actives and the lakes, but now I am going to share the top 10 things you need to know before booking your trip. Research the time of year you want to go. When I initially started planning this trip I wanted it to be the weekend of my birthday, end of October, as a celebration for turning 35. One of my friends started doing some research and found the blizzard season starts within the first few weeks

This is the post I am almost excited to share! We have all seen the photos, that are all over social media, showing these amazing teal-colored lakes! One of these social media posts is what sparked my interest in going to Banff. I always wanted a big party for the 35th birthday, but when I saw my first photos of Peyto Lake I changed my mind and wanted to take a trip. I wanted a trip that I would remember for years to come! We saw our four lakes over the course of two days, bu

When I first planned the trip to Banff, I had the idea that I could wear cute fall outfits and not have to worry about being too cold. In the weeks leading up to the trip, the weather was showing me something different. We kept having chances of snow and the highs were hovering around 40 degrees. I quickly realized I needed to start packing more for warmth than cute fall outfits. I had been seeing these hometown sweatshirts from Aerie in the email and decided to head over to

When I tell you there is no shortage of activities to do in Banff, I am not lying. While I was researching what activities we wanted to do, beyond visiting the lakes, I stumbled upon a website for the Banff Jasper Collection. This website will show you some of the most iconic attractions in the area and I was excited when the offered a attraction combo packages for one price. They have one package, the ultimate explorer, which provides entrance into the Banff Gondola, a glaci

I think this is one of the posts I’ve been so excited to share! I consider myself to be a foodie and typically post photos of restaurants and food on my social media pages. I researched restaurants for weeks leading up to the trip and found a great deal of information about the best places to eat. I made notes about each restaurant I read about and put together a document with pros, best dishes, what they are known for, etc. I sent this list to my travel group and told them t

I am a pretty basic girl when it comes to pajamas. I am typically in shorts and a tank top all year round because it is what I'm most comfortable in when I sleep. When I started looking at the weather for our trip, I quickly realized I needed some pajamas that would be more suited for the cold weather. I stumbled upon this set, from Nordstrom, and was immediately drawn to them. They are made by J. Crew and luckily were on sale. I had convinced myself I was going to swing by m

I would like to tell you finding a hotel in Banff is easy, but I can't tell you how many hours I spent looking at hotels all over Banff, Lake Louise and other locations. I had a few dream places I wanted to stay, but I knew the Fairmont (at over $900 CAD per night) was not a reasonable thought process. I read blog post after blog post to see what may be the best, but in the end I headed over to Trip Advisor to see what they recommended. On thing to remember when looking at lo

I cannot believe this was my last full day in Banff. This will be my last daily post from Banff, but when I tell you I saved the best for last, I'm not lying! We started the day by trying a new place for breakfast, Good Earth Coffee House. I had a pumpkin spice latte and a breakfast sandwich. We found a fire pit outside of the coffee shop and decided we needed to visit it for a few minutes. It wasn't long before our excitement kicked in and we knew it was time to get in the c

It is amazing how quickly your days get away from you while you are on vacation!!! My plan was to upload the photos each night, put together the preview blog post and the schedule it to be posted. Clearly that did not happen! Monday was our first of two busy days, so we woke up early, grabbed another great breakfast from Whitebark Cafe and then got on the road. We had a 2.5 hour drive up to the Athabasca Glacier and we passed by some amazing winter scenery on the drive. Becau

Hello Day Two! After some fantastic sleep we woke up to falling snow and snow covered roofs! Today was our easy day, so we hung out in the hotel and then hit the streets of Downtown Banff! We started off with a small breakfast at Whitebark Cafe, which is a small coffee shop right next to the hotel. We then walked through most of the shops down Banff Ave. We stopped at the Banff Ave. Brewing Company for lunch and yo our surprise, they were playing every 1 p.m. NFL football gam

Good Morning from the Canadian Rockies! I have been thinking how I should do these posts from each day I am gone and I decided I will do brief posts each day and will do series of full on travel posts when I get back. Yesterday was soooo long! I was up at 2 am so we could pick up our fourth person and drive to the airport. We flew Alaska Airlines, which is always great. Our first leg was Atlanta to Seattle and it was smooth sailing. I didn't sleep a lot on the flight, I just