In 2021 we:

• loved the doggies
• went on two trips
• worked every other second

 

The end.

No but for real 2021 was a year of actual exhaustion . Looking back it’s such a blur of working 60+ hour work weeks, while  simultaneously doing my best to take advantage of this downtime our world’s been given and focus on some personal growth. I’m trying to make this not sound all sound such a downer haha but TBH….I’m tired, emotionally and spiritually. Good news is that the season of wedding reschedules is over (hooray!), our other work obligations seem much more manageable and healthier heading into the new year. 2022 seems like it’ll finally be the end of the emotional rollercoaster whirlwind that was 2020 & 2021. A return to normalcy 🙂

But through the grind, were able to say goodbye to so many things that were holding us back or no longer serving us, mentally and physically. Things like credit cards, car payments, our trailer (goodbye home on wheels!), and are enjoying this new thing called a savings account. Yanno, making up in my 30s for what I did in my 20s. We’re SO thrilled to now be in a healthy position to buy a home this year, which we will begin the process next month. It took us forever to even figure out if we will be sticking to our Wisconsin roots or venturing off to the dreamy California, but we **finally** got some clarity (you’ll have to keep reading to find out!)

All the hard work in 2021 seems to be paying off. I can feel myself taking a deep sigh of relief. Some years are glamorous, and some years are those in-between, get in the zone and focus on your responsibilities type of years. After the past few glamorous years of travel, this year of staying put was SO necessary. And as someone who likes to always add adventure and new things and thrills, I’m very proud I finally put myself in check, and prioritized the hard things first.

Iceland

When we did have a break, we took full advantage! This year we finally crossed off our first international trip, to Iceland! To put mildly, it was INCREDIBLE. Hands down our favorite of all our travels thus far, and honestly there is too much I could say about Iceland to fit into this recap. So if you want the full breakdown, check out the 10 Days around Iceland blog where I dive into things like “Why Iceland?”, our packing list (did everything with no checked bags, also didn’t bring any of my professional cameras -eep! Can ya tell?). I include our 10-day Itinerary, why we choose to vancamp vs hotels, so many photos, and some of our most commonly asked questions. If you’re planning a trip to Iceland or have it on your list, definitely check it out. Otherwise here were some highlights of our trip!

Wedding Season

We returned to the height of our wedding season in July which brought us all over the state, from Milwaukee to Eau Claire to Up North. We even got to photograph a wedding just 10 minutes away from our house – so rare!

We always love a good road trip, and this year our drives to/from weddings became extra important. Our schedules were so busy in summer and fall that oftentimes the only time Alex and I could breathe and reconnect with one another was on these drives. 90’s jock jams anyone?

It’s already been two months since our last November wedding and I’m already missing the high and connection and purpose it brings. I know a lot of people won’t relate to this feeling, but as a wedding photographer, nothing beats arriving at the venue on a wedding day, walking in and greeting the beaming couple. We get to forget about our own lives and for that day, all our energy is refocused into capturing the JOY of another’s! No matter what is going on in our lives, weddings always feel like a mental release. There is truly no better energy to be a part of every weekend. This year, I think everyone was just so happy to finally reach this day and see extended family and long distance friends again, the energy was extra contagious!

Looking ahead, I am excited for a well-balanced 2022 season. I’ve found I truly love sticking to 10-15 weddings each summer because I can focus so much more on each couple with much more intention, so we continued with that mindset into 2022. We are now currently booking into 2023 and have some incredible venues and even a destination out to the East coast on the books! We are so excited to continue doing what we love and can’t wait to meet and work with all of you!

And of course, a very special thank you to all 2021 couples. It’s been quite the ride for some of you! We are so thankful to have been let into your special days, every couple blew us away with their kindness, grace, and warmth. I wish I could share so many details of each but this would get verrrrry long! So I’ll stick to just highlighting each couple 🙂 Cheers to another beautiful year of weddings! We all made it through the past two years of reschedules and everyone was happily married! Yay! Here’s a look back:

 

We also photographed some engagement sessions, lifestyle sessions, maternity photos, and a surprise proposal!

SWEET SUMMERTIME

In between weddings and editing, were so many backyard hangs. Grilling hamburgers, throwing the ball around in the yard, and getting out on the water as much as we could!

F I V E  Years Married!

We celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary in August by renting an airbnb in our favorite spot in all of Wisconsin. I almost don’t want to say cause it’s our secret spot!! If you’ve never been to the driftless area of Vernon County and you love rolling hills, you need to go! Ontario specifically holds a lot of meaning for us, so many memories of camping and Kickapoo River canoe trips! This is Amish country, so if you like having lots of things to do just be aware that this is more a place to seek out if you want some peace and quiet and nature. The rolling hills are so surprising, it reminds us of being in Tennessee. After a weekend of fully unplugging, it made us seriously want to live out on the country. We are always happier with less and less choices brings more peace and simplicity. We bought food at the only grocery store in town, and made all our meals. We watched the sun set and lightning storms and the sun rise. We hiked and kayaked and watched on top the hill the amish return home below us after a long day’s work. Cows moo’d and it never felt so…..soothing LOL. So typical Wisconsin, how could we ever leave this state?

 

2021 CULTURE

It wouldn’t be a 2021 year recap without mentioning alllll the other things that made up the year: NFT’s and Crypto becoming mainstream, Netflix shows like Squid Games & Bridgerton bringing in millions of views, conversations on mental health and normalizing therapy were at an all time high, the first same-sex dance couple were paired on Dancing with The Stars, Brittney is free!!, Chris Harrison exits Bachelor Franchise after defending racial insensitivity (as a long time Bachelor viewer this was HUGE), the realness of Cancel Culture, the Capital riot and Biden is president, continued polarization and The Social Dilemma documentary continuing to bring social media issues to light. The government finally confirms UFO’s are real and no one reacts lolol, burnt out workers, everyone (EVERYONE) is short staffed, workplaces reinventing the new workplace normal. The production and delivery of vaccines and boosters and reopening borders for travel, Jeff Bezos space flights begin, weather is more extreme and California is on fire….

Which leads me to our…

Cali Road Trip: From Vegas to Tahoe, Along Scenic Hwy 395

We just so happened to plan a trip through Cali along their current fire zone. It was a brilliant idea! To be fair, we had no idea when planning how badly the current fires would actually effect our trip. The month leading up, we knew there were some seriously bad fires just south of Lake Tahoe that did end up dying out thank goodness. There were still awful fires taking place further south in Sequoia National Park, but being that Cali is a large and long state, we truly didn’t think that we would be affected all the way up north. Turns out, when there is wind, we were way wrong.

California Fires are no joke, and although this trip was not quite at all what we had planned (for reasons I won’t mention like getting smoked out of Mammoth Lakes area where we planned to spend 3 days, poor visibility in Lake Tahoe, cancelling Yosemite due to air quality conditions – AGAIN lol some day we will get here, and lastly, having no good hiking air or visibility of the Sierra Nevada mountains the entire drive home – this was the main reason we chose this particular 395 highway road trip). For someone who is faint of heart and always thinks they’re going to die, this turned out to not be the best choice of location lol. If you’re trying to visit this California mountain area, it may be best to do so in June when fire season is less in full-swing.

After our first two nights in Vegas (one to sleep after a late flight, and 2nd night enjoying the night life), we were excited to hit the road. First up, Death Valley National Park just outside Vegas. We *finally checked this one off our bucket list* after being near this area so many times. If you are are on a road trip, and it’ll be faster to drive through it, definitely do it because although the connection in the park sucks, and the name of the place sounds frightening, it definitely offers some interesting landscape and views. Would it be a place I’d seek out more than a couple hours? Mmmm. Probably not. If you’re into photography definitely wait til sunrise or sunset. We traveled midday in the hot sun and the colors in Artist’s Palette definitely weren’t as vivid (normally it looks like pastel chalk covered the mountains).

As mentioned, there’s NO connection or radio stations whatsoever for four hours or more, so you’ll have to sing songs for like 4 hours, and then 4 hours more as you travel on the 395. This is a very desolate area so make sure your gas tank is full and you bring plenty of water in case of a breakdown. Especially at the end of the main road through the park, there is a lot of uphill climbing, and after spending 4 hours in one of the hottest places on earth, we definitely can understand why cars break down. There’s even a 15 minute section where they advise you to turn off air conditioning to avoid overheating. We took in the views and were very happy to make it out (alive) and with no car problems!

We drove along the gorgeous 395, with the Sierra Nevada mountain views waving to you along the left, and passed by the charming small towns. Stop in Lone Pine and check out the Alabama Hills if you have time. These rocks remind me of Joshua Tree and there are some picturesque views of Mt Whitney! We also highly recommend checking out some hiking around Big Pine, as seen in 2020’s Cali road trip. We were short on time so we kept going.

As we were finally approaching our first main location, Mammoth Lakes, we realized the mountains were looking really hazy. We kept traveling up the mountain, and the light between the trees was so eerie as the sun was setting. Almost like a heavy glowing fog in between the trees. I wish I would have stepped out for a picture. When we got to the top of the hill at our resort, the air was now thick and gray. No one was there except for one parked car, a complete ghost town. Out of curiosity, we covered our mouths from the smoke filled air and walked into the lodge entrance (half expecting it to be closed). The front desk man was busy answering calls on whether or not they were closing due to fires, and assuring people that he wasn’t sure, (LOL), and as far as he knows, they’re open. I wanted to leave due to my gut instinct, but we had spent $$ on this nicer resort lodge so we checked into our room, thinking maybe we’re just from Wisconsin and this is Cali-normal.

After 15 minutes kicking our feet up in bed, we realized our noses and eyes were actually stinging. Okay….probbbbably not healthy lol. So we looked up the air quality online and saw the chart below. We were at 172 – the highest on the chart for the entire area of California and definitely not healthy, and nothing freaks me out more than not being able to breathe. It was too late to fully leave the Mammoth Lakes area, I certainly didn’t want to drive in the mountains in the dark to reach Tahoe. But at the very least, we decided to go back down the mountain where the air quality was much less intense and I felt I could sleep the night.

 

The next morning, we lucked out with the air being good enough to get a morning view of Convict Lake followed by a little hot springs soak. There are so many hot springs in this area we would have loved to explore them all! We continued up to Lake Tahoe where we were optimistic air would be clearer. I forgot how beautiful the drive into Tahoe is, it felt so good to be back especially after the place almost burned a month prior. We checked into our hotel and decided to listen to some live music and grab a bite to eat at our favorite Base Camp pizza. The musician felt connected to Alex’s dancing enthusiasm lolol and after the show, he came up to talk to us.

We got into talking about the area and how we were considering moving here. And he basically told us how terrible the fires and evacuation process has been on him. He laughed and said rather seriously, we should sit tight in Wisco cause soon everyone will be relocating to us in the midwest. I left this conversation realizing this dream of living in California, would always stay a dream. The entire past couple years since visiting California for the first time, I dreamed of moving out here. And during quarantine when everyone was relocating and able to work from home, we actually were truly considering it. So much so that this vacation was actually half us deciding where (which mountain towns) we might want to live. There’s just not a ton of mountain hiking in Wisconsin LOL, and being such lovers of hiking and mountains it made sense to move to them. But it finally all clicked after this conversation from this local.

As beautiful as my California dream was, my gut instinct was telling me this is not where we want to invest or be right now, or even long term. I came to the realization I could not live in a place that I didn’t feel safe majority of the time. I’d much rather live where the clean air and water is. After months and months of long talks and agony over wanting to make up our minds, the smoke ironically gave me clarity. Wisconsin now felt more appealing than ever. We can always just visit Cali on vacays and it’ll be all the more reason to appreciate the mountain hikes when we are able!

So our mountain trip through Cali Hwy 395 filled with alpine lakes hikes and hot spring soaks suddenly was cut very short and turned into us bumming around Vegas not knowing what to do for the last 5 days of our trip (ps: turns out, one night on the Vegas strip is **definitely enough**). But it felt good to finally have this clarity and peace of mind so in a way this trip served a huge purpose. And we were still so happy to get some time away and in the mountains. We got to explore new hot springs along the 395 and revisited some our favorite Vegas hikes. I think we’re ready to hang up the Cali towel for a little while, but eventually we’d love to come back for a second try when there is less fire risk and check off more hot springs & hiking trails we had initially planned!

Closing out the Year

The rest of October/November was spent in a work/editing haze, wrapping up the wedding season and sending off so many galleries. Putting in the most hours ever worked **in my life** juggling meeting demands at my other job. But in early November we got lucky with beautiful weather for a much needed girls overnight getaway in the Dells. Spa, shopping, restaurants, hiking. A perfect 24 hour escape!

 

At last, December. It’s actually so funny to compare this year in review to last year’s, the effort given in Christmas 2020 was AT AN ALL TIME HIGH lol. Instead, this year I spent my time in recovery mode, focusing on personal projects that I love, like sending out client gifts, and finally going through our vacay photos and putting together our Iceland blog. We had a great time getting together with the full immediate fam this year in-person thanks to no positive COVID tests. I got dressed up for something other than a wedding for the first time all year, and spent New Year’s Eve grocery shopping with Alex for the perfect cheeses in preparation to stay in to watch the ball drop over a steak dinner and charcuterie board 🙂

Looking ahead to 2022

We are excited for a much more balanced schedule. And less vacations (woah did I say that). As amazing as road trips are, doing two 10-days road trips in the same summer/fall season was a lot to plan out. For 2022, I think our biggest priority will be on buying a house and making sure we have everything set for that!

Now of course we can’t go a full year without travel, so we did score some $100 round trip flight deals from Appleton to Denver for early June, where we plan to do another 10-day road trip (insert cry emoji….we just can’t get enough road trips!). While in Colorado, we’ll be seeing my fav band Lord Huron at Red Rocks Amphitheater, a venue that has been high up on my bucket list  am so stoked! Not sure what else we’ll do in Colorado as it isn’t fully mapped out yet, but we would love to do some hikes around Aspen and see what that fuss is all about! As well as Colorado Springs/Garden of the Gods, and the town of Ouray to try out UTV’ing for the first time. Overall, just take in the mountain views and hot springs. Hopefully being June there won’t be any fires in this area. We plan to do this by van again, since we have a voucher for Escape Campervans after we cancelled our trip to the Tetons in exchange for Iceland (are you sick of our van travels through mountains yet)? Maybe someday we’ll sit on a beach on a tropical vacation LOL.

As far as goals…we’ll have a bit more tangible goals for 2022 after this coming weekend. I rented a winter’s getaway retreat airbnb in the woods for Alex and I to just be still. I always love this quiet time after the new year. There’s less distractions and I have much more capacity to think clearly and creatively. So we’ll be doing a necessary lil detox from 2021, get some pampered massages at Sundara (which we have never been to before!! So excited), and use the stillness to brainstorm and listen to what we truly need right now, and from this coming year.

If I had to choose a word for 2022, it would be: Connection

Did anyone else feel a bit disconnected this year? It feels like 95% of my waking hours were spent working from home, so I guess it’s easy to see why lol. I spent so much of this year behind a computer screen, that at times, it felt my only connection to the outside world was listening to podcasts.. while at work LOL.

This was the year that therapy and mental health became normalized. It seemed everyone was using this downtime to really put in the work and challenge and grow themselves. I spent my workdays listening to so many podcasts on self-growth and life coaching this year that I’m a littttttle burnt out haha! But this was a goal of mine going into 2021, to further this exploration into thine self, and I will say, the hours put into listening to these types of conversations every single day (shout out to Jay Shetty’s On Purpose) have definitely helped tremendously over the course of a year. I was able to recognize and address some unhealthy patterns and realize that I do not always need to be *doing*fixing*planning* something. I can simply just be.

 

The biggest mental health takeaways this year:

A few stood out from the rest, so I wanted to share them in case anyone needs a lil dose of self-growth heading into this new year!

• You do not always need a plan. (MEEEEE MEE ME). It’s okay to sit back and just experience what comes.
• Your life is only as good as your mindset. If you’re not happy, change your mindset.
• Be more interested in how your life FEELS than how your life looks. You can’t be present when you’re on your phone.
• Get inspired by your own story, your own vibe, YOU are all the inspiration you will ever need.
• Pay attention to what you feel like after spending time with someone. It’ll tell you everything you need to know.
• You are not responsible for other people’s happiness. Release this pressure.
• Just because you carry it well doesn’t mean it’s not heavy. Let it go.
• You don’t have a soul, you are a soul and you have a body. (I don’t know how to explain my feelings about this one without going super deep, but basically…this one helped me finally release the pressure of physical perfection most woman like me have. I realized the soul is just so much more profound than the body. Like, if you really think of it, the body is really just an outer shell, a platform that allows our soul to be in the physical world. I’m not saying don’t take care of your body and be healthy, but definitely don’t measure your worth or let anyone else measure your worth based on this outer shell).
• Setting a boundary is not being rude, sharing your feelings is not being dramatic, having needs or holding others accountable and having expectations is not being difficult.
• Don’t forget to drink water and get some sunlight. Because you’re basically a house plant with more complicated emotions.
• Just Be (thanking Alex for reminding me of this one when I need it most) 🙂

 

So many lessons learned this year, and I’m happy to have done self-reflective work, but now I am ready to expand outward again. At the end of the day, all I know is I am not my fullest, happiest self when I am in isolation 95% of the time. Is anyone? I want to build more connection with other people and things around me and outside my four walls.  I understand that I am who and what I surround myself with whether it’s the TV shows I watch, the podcasts I listen to, the people I follow, or the company I choose. I think the world can all agree we’re a little burnt out and we just want some peace, happiness, joy again. I’d love to start finding the connection and community again. Whether that’s getting back to sharing my purpose/ voice through my photography business, moving to a new area, finding new hobbies and meeting new friends, volunteering or helping out in a cause we believe in to make an even greater impact and connection to the world we live in.

So long 2021. You exhausted me and challenged me. But I’m ready to take these lessons with me in 22′. Cheers to everyone for making it this far! You are here. You are alive! Let’s hope for a lighter, more connected year!

 

Thank you all for following along with me another year! I truly hope you have found something beautiful to take away from the past year. Do you have a word or mantra for 2022? Leave it in the comments below and let’s cheer eachother on!

As always, stay adventurous – Meghan

Over the past few years we have traveled to many places, but Iceland was actually our first **international** trip. Of all the places we could choose, the initial question many people asked us was “why Iceland?” Coming from living in Wisconsin where we hibernate from the cold over half of the year, why would we want to use our precious summer vacay going back into the cold and ice? Well now that Iceland has become a bit more of a popular destination, people now seem to know that it is actually not all ice, but a plethora of lime green moss atop black sand and waterfall after waterfall. Iceland comes alive in the summer months and shows off so many colors from the blue glacier lagoons to the red lava erupting volcanos, and lime green canyons that will make you feel like you’re on another planet entirely. And best yet? You will likely never experience nature this untouched, raw, and in it’s natural state. We love our national parks, and Iceland felt like one large national park – fully protected and cared for by its people!

Iceland didn’t even become on our radar until I joined the photography community five years ago. It seemed every photographer was heading out to Iceland to capture this stunning scenery! And being avid nature lovers and noootttt so much into big cities, we thought our first time being in a strange new country with a high density of people sounded a bit overwhelming for us. So we chose Iceland where we knew the focus would remain on raw nature (which is always our top priority), and where we knew there would be accommodating, friendly, English-speaking locals. Every Iceland review we read of prior travelers was outstanding and what really sold the deal was knowing we could travel around the entire island in just the right amount of vacay time (7-10 days). All in our favorite mode of transportation – a converted campervan!

Heaven is real, and it’s only a 6 hour flight.

It’s actually crazy when you compare how close in proximity Iceland is to the US with the few amount US travelers that have actually gone and visited. We couldn’t believe only a 6 hour flight (5 hour flight outbound from Chicago) to this nearly untouched magical piece of earth, and the flights were extremely reasonable $$. Originally, we booked this trip pre-pandemic for $600 round trip back in January 2020 (just a month before our plans went to shit and the world shut down haha). I was all excited to spend my 30th birthday soaking in the Blue Lagoon and we faithfully waited allllll the way up until that very month June 2020 before calling the trip off due to still ongoing COVID travel restrictions. It was a huge bummer…but one we saw coming for months in advance and luckily had a really amazing backup trip planned road tripping through Cali instead.

Going into 2021, we honestly still didn’t think Iceland was going to happen. People were still working from home. It seemed this pandemic was never going to end. But then, with the release of vaccines it seemed there mayyyy just be a glimmer of hope! In April 2021, Iceland was one of 3 countries to open their doors to Americans. We saw an article that if you book before end of April, you’d score $400 round trip tickets. Already having our whole itinerary planned out + vouchers from cancelled bookings ready to go, and two weeks blocked off end of June for our Grand Tetons National Park trip, it was a no-brainer. We cancelled our trip to the Tetons (sorry Tetons!!) and took this chance to finally see Iceland. After a year of hunkering down with no travel, we were pinching ourselves that this was finally MAYBE happening!!! (So long as we passed our PCR Covid tests!)

Packing List

We’ve had lots of interest about this trip. Why the van? What was our itinerary? Packing list? What our favorite spots were? Etc, etc.

So my basic outline will be as follows:

1. Packing List – I’ll share what we each brought (we didn’t check any bags! Very minimal)
2. Itinerary – Many have been asking for this breakdown, it is finally here! The main chunk of this blog post will be sharing our trip in consecutive order (with location names that are hard to pronounce!)
3. Q/A – at the very end, I’ll be sharing my answers to all your burning Iceland questions! This was my favorite part to write because it truly breaks down our thoughts on Iceland and it’s culture. Great things to know if you’re planning a trip to Iceland one day!

So let’s start with the Packing List. Being that we were going to be living out of a van for 10 days, we knew we’d have to keep our packing list pretty minimal…otherwise things get cluttered FAST. This was a great challenge because we had to pack for all 4 seasons + footwear for all 4 seasons + drone/cameras/laptops/go pro equipment. I still am not sure how we made this happen. It’s important to know that we traveled end of June into first week of July. This is the warmest time of year for Iceland, but you should still expect temps to be 50 degrees on average and drop even lower during midnight sun. We boarded the plane with 2 carry-ons, 2 personal items (backpacks), and did not do any checked bags.

• My carryon Bag: 5-6 sports bras/cami tops, 5 athletic long sleeves, 2 sweaters that were nice enough to function as hiking sweaters OR going out to eat sweaters, 5-6 leggings, 2 swimsuits, 1 raincoat shell, 1 puffy jacket, 1 fleece.
• Alex carryon Bag: same except for not the sports bras/ camis :P, and instead of sweaters he packed a couple Eddie Bauer henleys (waffle textured long sleeves) that look nice enough for eating at restaurants & can function as hiking base layers
• Backpack 1: small mirrorless camera + two lenses/DJI mini drone/GoPro/chargers/memory cards & all other electronic accessories/laptop
• Backpack 2: any leftover boots/jackets that couldn’t fit into our carryons, face cleanser, deodorant, toothbrushes, minimal makeup bag, this charging port I bought on Amazon which was recommended & ended up being super handy for keeping all our electronics & phones charged while being in a van 10 days

WHAT WE DIDN’T BRING: my professional cameras (EEEP!) They are just so large and bulky, and I was worried if I brought my full gear that the entire trip would be me being in “photography” mode vs real life mode. We also didn’t bring any t-shirts (tank tops and long sleeves are easier to layer), toiletries, shampoo, “getting ready” essentials, flip flops. We knew we could buy all that stuff there in travel sized bottles for cheap and it’d save lots of room.

In hindsight, I think we were pretty spot on with our packing list. I ended up wearing every single clothing item packed, without having to repeat and wear dirty clothes. We personally didn’t need the fleece or puffy jacket, it was really nice while we were there and 55 and sunny in Iceland feels like 75 and Sunny in Wisconsin. So if you’re planning a trip mid-summer mayyybe go easy on the jackets. It’s just hard, because you never know with Iceland weather what kind of luck you’re going to have.

TIP: INVEST IN A GO PRO! The GoPro we ended up using a LOT, especially at the lagoons since it is waterproof and I didn’t want to ruin my phone in the water. We got some really cool timelapse videos with it and overall just had lots of fun getting to know the Gro Pro. I tried being a film maker for an eventual Iceland vlog, but after seeing our very amateur (and shaky) video clips I’ll be keeping this one to ourselves LOL. We also used it for photos since it has a wider frame than my camera, so I had fun with some wide framed shots! We could have done without the drone, we only tried using it once and almost lost it mid-flight, which then turned us off from wanting to use it again. If you are skilled in drone piloting, unlike us, definitely bring one cause this place is absolutely EPIC for it.

MY ONLY (SOMEWHAT BIGGIE) REGRET after coming home and editing through the photos, was not bringing at least one of my professional cameras. I always go back-and-forth with wanting to be present during our travels vs making it “all about photos.” If I were traveling by myself, I’d definitely be out there, full photography gear, driving around and diving deep into it all. But when you’re traveling with your husband, you want to live in the real world and experience each present moment together. There was just something freeing about the idea of leaving it all behind and just simply BEING (plus saving space, not having to deal with a checked bag, or haul around bulky gear everywhere I went). I knew that no matter what photo I took, if I was actually present in the moments, that they would live on far more beautifully in my mind than any photo. So as much as the photographer in me sometimes wishes I had my best gear in hand, at the end of the day…does a slightly more beautiful photo matter when the one in your mind matters most?

10 DAY ITINERARY

Do I need 10 days? How many days would you recommend?

For going around the entire island, 10 days felt perfect. Without having to deal with quarantining day 1 and backtracking to the city 3 days prior to our departure to get another covid test, we probably would have been content with 7 days.

However, I’ve been telling so many people that if they ever wanted to take just an extended weekend, Iceland is also a wonderful choice because of the shorter flight and because there is so much you can quickly see in a short amount of time. In 4 days, you could fly in and Day 1 enjoy Sky Lagoon and downtown Reykjavik boutiques and restaurants/night life. Day 2 & 3 rent a car and drive less than 2 hours on the Ring road to see the many attractions from waterfalls to glacier lagoons all in-a-row on the south part of the island (seriously, this is all VERY easy driving and accessible sightseeing. If you’re not a very adventurous person but can appreciate looking at nature, just know that every attraction is right off the main road, no hiking required). There’s also lots of nice hotels, airbnbs, and restaurants here making it an ideal spot for tourists. On your last day, drive back into town and visit the active volcano or soak in the Blue Lagoon before departure!

Clockwise vs Counterclockwise

Starting from Kefllavik, we decided to drive clockwise around the island. I recommend doing it this way as it eases you into the Iceland experience, leaving the most popular tourist attractions for the very end. Because the south has so many iconic attractions in such a small section, your mind can easily get used to the stimulation of one epic location to the next to the next. Literally 10 epic locations in one day. Versus the rest of the island requires a bit more driving and anticipation and slower enjoyment. So I think if we had gone counterclockwise, it could have made the rest of our trip SEEM more lackluster (even though it is not and I’m very very happy we did the whole island!) It basically comes down to, do you want to eat dessert first? Or start with the appetizer?

Van camp vs Hotels

I do want to stop real quick to say why we chose the van instead of hotels, because this upfront decision will ultimately determine the overall type of experience you’ll be having on the island.

Iceland is small (smaller than the state of Wisconsin)! But being that the entire center of the island (known as “the highlands”) are mostly volcanic activity and require a 4×4 vehicle along some pretty rough roads, many people stick to the main easy-to-drive road that circles the island called “The Ring Road.” So although it’s a small island,  this makes everything a litttttle harder to get to and feel more spread out, because you can’t cut through the middle. If you are planning on only seeing the popular southern part of the island, perhaps getting a hotel or booking some trendy airbnb’s would be the way to go! There are loooots of sleek modern tiny homes to choose from in this area, although be aware they are usually in a “community” setting next to other tiny homes. So if you’re looking for something more remote, Google Earth the location and scout the satellite images prior to booking.

On the flipside, if your plan is to get the **full Icelandic experience**, and to be able to explore the entire island and all its glory in 7-10 days time, then I would **strongly** recommend traveling by van. It’s actually pretty popular to tour the island this way and there are many van companies to choose from. We chose Happy Campers due to their fun colors and it just sounds…happy! Everything in Iceland seems to be bold colors, the houses in fishing villages, the lime green mountains that blanket the country, people in red puffer jackets or bright yellow raincoats. These vans just seemed to match the aesthetic and made us feel happy and “homey” away from home. Their website also has the most incredible Q/A info and so I knew they’d be a reputable company and we’d be in great hands. We were very impressed by their customer service and how accommodating they were during COVID mess. They gave us 50% off our total price if we chose to reschedule vs cancel…so we were able to score a hella good deal!

Anyways, if you aren’t bothered sharing small quarters with your traveling partner, or aren’t bothered sleeping in a car by yourself if you’re traveling solo, then van no question is the way to go. Either way, I promise you the experience and memories will be WORTH IT (when did you ever have a lifechanging experience in a hotel? Just saying). The best memories Alex and I have are all on van road trips we’ve taken. It forces you to be a part of an experience more than hotels ever will. Plus these vans come with built in WIFI so you never have to worry about getting lost, not having connection. Google maps works just fine in Iceland by the way. Also built in sink, mini fridge, kitchen equipment + storage, fold down couch that turns into a bed (was actually suuuuper comfy!) And nice natural light & scenic views outside your window at all times 🙂 We never felt unsafe in Iceland. It’s such a welcoming island community and VERY vancamp friendly.

Hotels on the other hand would have majorly slowed us down with the check-in, check-out times. Especially during the “midnight sun” (the sun doesn’t actually set in the summer months) you’re going to want to take advantage of the extra sight-seeing time you’re given and have the flexibility to find places to sleep on the fly. No matter how much you plan this itinerary out in advance, Iceland weather is unpredictable and plans will change constantly. You may realize you have more time to sightsee this day, or maybe you didn’t get as far as you wanted this day. You definitely want some wiggle room and don’t want to regret having to drive 3 more hours to reach your hotel you booked. It was incredibly easy to find camping along the ring road & it’s all super affordable. I wanna say we spent only $30 our entire trip on camping- WOW! Also just a head’s up, Iceland is a bit more expensive to visit when it comes to food/hotels, one more reason to choose van.

Day 1: Arrival, Quarantine Nap, Pickup Van, Get the Essentials, Explore Reykjavik (Southwest region)

We departed Chicago on a midnight flight. Too amped to sleep, we watched movies and a glorious sunrise instead. Five hours later we were being greeted by Iceland’s purple lupines and a baron flat landscape. Once we arrived at KEF airport, we were guided to our covid test, and then we called our van rental company to come pick us up (free service)!

After picking up our van and getting our groceries + essentials we decided to venture to the Capital of Iceland, Reykjavik to explore their downtown area and the iconic Hallgrímskirkja church. You can go inside and pay a small fee to go all the way to the top for the best view of the town, which I wish we would have done because it would have made for a great vantage point of all the colorful housing and cultural charm which was unlike anything we have seen here in America!

Afterwards, we drove back south to the airport and eastward into Grundavik to see the active volcano nearby. Unfortunately due to fog and poor visibility we could not hike it and so decided to revisit this at the end of our trip. We’d be coming back to this area anyway for a dip in the famous Blue Lagoon (which we had booked for the last day of our stay & I recommend booking in advance due to the popularity)! We crossed our fingers we’d get to see the volcano the second time around, and fell asleep after still feeling groggy from the different schedule!

Day 2: Snaefellsnes Peninsula (Northwest Region)

The official start of the journey! Drive 3 hours to Londrangar Cliffs and the Harbor at Arnarstapi. Explore. **Most of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula attractions are located off of Ring Road and gravel roads are required. Gravel insurance on your rental vehicle is recommended! This made for a bumpy start of our road trip, but the rest of the trip was smooth sailing. We learned that whenever you venture off the Ring Road, you can expect a little more adventure.

The fog during this drive (in one of the most desolate parts of Iceland) made it feel all the more eerie. We watched as the city of Reykjavik faded into a now baron landscape of lime green moss and old lava fields that looked like mint chocolate chip icecream! When we arrived at both Londrangar Cliffs and shortly after, the harbor at Arnarstapi, we were the only tourists there. There is a small visitors parking lot at both locations. Don’t miss getting a glimpse of the harbor before walking the trail to Gatklettur Rock Formation nearby. There are several stone “bridges” as you can walk over and they are all relatively close to the parking lot. Don’t do what we did and walk two hours looking for it!

Drive 20 mins to Búðakirkja Black Church. It’s pitch black paint job along with its isolation make it a unique photo attraction site.

Drive 35 mins to the iconic Kirkjufell Mountain, the iconic wizard-shaped mountain surrounded by waterfalls and rainbows. The sun finally popped and it was truly breathtaking.

We ended our day at Grundarfjordur Camping ground nearby. It was REALLY hard to want to fall asleep when the sun was finally shining, but we knew we had to stick to our sleep schedule and catch a good “night’s” sleep.

Day 3: Husavik (North Region)

Drive 7 hours to Husavik, but along the way stop at Godafoss. (You will quickly learn that names ending in “foss” = waterfall). We groggily woke up in the midnight sun to begin our venture north. It was another very desolate drive which was beautiful but being so exhausted it all felt like a blur in hindsight. All I remember was lots of techno music, sheep, and more lime green landscape. We saw mayyybe two cars the entire 7 hour drive. And no towns except for sporadic homes here and there. It made me wonder what this kind of lifestyle all entails and if these people ever get lonely or if they are much happier this way. We were so happy when we finally reached Godafoss so we could nap again. Once we woke, we stretched our legs and saw our first of the many northern tourist attractions! It was a little nice seeing some people (and public bathrooms) again!

Book a whale watching tour in Husavik.

Husavik is considered the whale watching capital of Europe, and during summer months many whale touring companies will boast 100% success in catching a sighting. It’s also such a picturesque and quaint colorful fishing village. You may recognize it from the movie “Eurovision” starring Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams, which is definitely worth a watch when you need some comedic relief.

Since we had never seen any large ocean mammals before we decided to test our odds! We booked with Gentle Giants and decided on the GG2 tour: Puffins & Big Whales combo. We started with a ride out to Puffin Island which was very interesting seeing Iceland’s iconic bird flying all over and diving into the water – they were very quick and impossible to take photos of! Then a group of dolphins were swimming along our boat and Alex got some awesome video footage of a dolphin swimming right up against the boat. And then last but not least, we cruised over to the other side of the bay (which by the way THIS WAS ALL SO SCENIC AND BEAUTIFUL) and spotted our first whale, a humpback. We were all admiring from afar, and then we noticed more and more surfacing. We were in a pod of 6 whales, which the guide said was extremely rare as they are typically solo animals. They were surfacing all around us and ini the video I’m just repeating “woah…..oh my god…..woah….” like five times over. We were simply blown. It was truly epic and I highly recommend. Even if you don’t see any whales, the experience on the water was so refreshing and breathtaking!

After freezing out on the water, we went for an evening soak in the soothing geothermal waters of the Myvatn Nature Baths.

We naturally wanted to sleep after this, as it was approaching “night time” but technically we had just woken up not too long ago. So we kept exploring the Lake Myvtan area, specifically Krafla geothermal area and the Viti Crater.

Other cool things to explore:

• Town of Akureyri – Known as the “capital of the North” Akureyri is a charming town with plenty of shops and museums. Enjoy the area before hitting the road again to Lake Mvatn area
• Lake Myvatn area: Namskard, Skutustadagigar Pseudocraters (would be cool for a drone shot), Dimmuborgir Lava Field, Grjotagja Hot Spring Cave (go during mid-day otherwise won’t be able to see into the cave thus defeats the purpose of its crazy blue waters) If need a place to stay, Camping Myvatn has great reviews and is very close to everything.
• Asbyrgi Canyon (giant horse shoe shaped depression, rich in folklore with forest in the middle

We ended the day at Dettifoss parking lot to sleep. We were very tired at this point and you’re probably not supposed to sleep “overnight” in the parking lot, but we were too tired to keep driving. We decided to rest our minds and wait until morning to explore.

Day 4: Stuðlagil Canyon + Lots of Driving (North to Southeast Region)

We woke at Dettifoss to the most glorious sunrise I have EVER witnessed. Had we slept even 15 minutes longer, the lighting wouldn’t have been the same. Unfortunately due to recent rain, the main trail that takes you up close and personal to the waterfall was closed off, and although it did look accessible we wanted to be respectful to the “closed” sign. So we admired from up top and took in the sunrise glow. Dettifoss is the most powerful waterfall in Iceland and 2nd most powerful waterfall in Europe and we had it ALL to ourselves. It was unreal and definitely a highlight of our trip, next time we return we will definitely walk all the way up to the edge!

Next we drove 1 hour 45 mins to check out Stuðlagil Canyon, the Basalt Column Canyon in Jökuldalur valley. **Note: THE ROAD IS VERY UNPAVED AND ALONG AN EDGE. Was the most stressful drive we did on our trip, we also missed the turn (its easy to miss) and ended up in a parking lot on the wrong side of the river that still gave view of the canyon from above, but you couldn’t walk down to it and cross the river like the trail we were supposed to take, and the viewpoint seen in the majority travel pictures you see. If you find it on Alltrails app, know that the directions are correct, even though it seems incorrect. You actually DO turn left into the most random, privately owned farm area to park.

Once looped back up with the Ring Road, it took us past this eastern town of Egillstadur, and decided to try out Askur Pizzeria for dinner. (SOO GOOD, order the #1 with wild goose meat!)

After a delicious eat, we drove 45 mins along a beautiful route to see the Hallormsstaðaskógur Forest which if I remember correctly was the only lake along the Ring Road and is a gorgeous area to take photos in the purple lupines! Note: these are an invasive species to Iceland. Although we didn’t pick any wildflowers, this is the one time picking yourself a bouquet is probably OK! 😉

Other cool things to explore :

• Drive 1 hr to the cute little Rainbow Road Town of Seyðisfjörður came highly recommended as best in all of Iceland by multiple peeps. Camp at Seydisfjordur campsite if need to nap. It was a bit out of our way for what we wanted to see next, so we decided to pass.

We ended by driving an additional 4 hours through the jagged fjords in the hazy east coast until we reached our final sleeping destination at Stokksnes, the incredible black sand beach that, with the right conditions, perfectly reflects the peaks of the Vestrahorn Mountains. This came highly recommended by many travelers as their favorite “off the beaten” path spot, so we knew we had to check it out. You can park in the Stokksnes parking lot and then walk to the beach. Or if you go in the bakery you can pay a small “camp” fee to vancamp in their parking lot and also get access past the private gate, which allows access to drive down a road that gets you way closer to the water. Recommend! The owners of the parking lot are also super nice. It was actually my birthday when we woke and when we went in to get coffee the lady gave me a free muffin treat 🙂 So sweet!

Day 5: My birthday! Filled with so many favorite sights! (Southeast to Midsouth region).

After a bite to eat at the cafe it was time to explore Stokksnes! This became one of my favorite spots from the entire trip! We were there around 7am on a Wednesday and had it almost to ourselves (just one other couple off in the distance). The weather was ridiculously windy and cold so unfortunately we couldn’t enjoy for very long as sand was getting in our eyes. The reflection was also very minimal due to the tide being very low. Nevertheless it was still a super cool and worth seeing. I’ve truly never seen any landscape like it. I just wanted to be able to hop from one dune to the next to the next.

We then drove an hour 15 to hike Mulagljufur canyon which took about 2 hours out and back. This was another spot recommended off the beaten path. At first we weren’t sure we were in the right spot (again, trust your Alltrails app!), but eventually you reach a secluded parking lot with tons of other hikers gearing up.

The hike itself was moderate in terms of difficulty, so long as you can handle a steady climb. It looks like it would take a journey to get to this below viewpoint, but based on what we’ve done in Glacier National Park, this was not even in the same ballpark. In fact, we didn’t really do any extreme hikes our entire time in Iceland. Everything was very easy to get to, many times just a 2 minute walk right off the main road. So if you think going to Iceland means involves lots of effort to get the views, it is surprisingly not at all! This whole Iceland trip was the most easiest sight seeing we’ve ever had to do, and by far the most diverse scenery! It’s what allows you to see so much in such a short amount of time.

Afterwards we kept along the main road, now approaching the height of the tourist area – the midsouth. We were crossing a bridge and out of nowhere came this out-of-this-world land of blue. I told Alex to pull over cause we need to stop, little did I know it was the well-known Jökulsárlón / Diamond beach area. This was the first major tourist attraction of the popular southern region, and I instantly understood why. HOLY BLEEP it was incredible. The icebergs, the shapes and colors trickling down the glacier floating into the sea will take your breath away. On the other side of Ring Road, you can walk down to the Diamond Beach, where the icebergs wash up on the black shore like glistening diamonds. My regret is not walking all the way to the water, it was a huge stretch of sand and from what our eyes could tell, there wasn’t many for us to see during summer, but we should have walked all the way to the ocean to check. I guess we’ll just have to return! Also we didn’t see any, but keep an eye out for the seals that call the lagoon and beach home.

We continued on, passing through another purple mountain majesty field of lupines, til we 1 hour late arrived at  Fjadrargljufur Canyon. This was the desktop on my phone and much anticipated location for a looong time. I imagined it being an adventure and long hike to get to, and super remote. When in reality it was a quick 5 minute walk off the main road LOL.

We were getting exhausted so we made the final trek to Skogafoss area to camp (which is really just a parking lot area). When we pulled in, we were thrilled to see the most prime parking lot with the unblocked view of the waterfall was available to us! We could watch it out our bedroom window as we fell asleep and morning when we rose. Everyone parked was already sleeping so we got out and walked up to the fall. This is one of the most photographed spots in Iceland, the way you can walk right up to the base of the waterfall is very unique. I wanted to stay and admire until dawn, it was so special to have this place all to ourselves, but Alex was super tired from driving (don’t blame him!) so we walked back to the van to sing happy birthday, I made a wish,  blew out the candles to my cupcake and drifted off to sleep to the sound of the waterfall’s power.

Other cool things to explore (this area has a LOT, we definitely want to come back and explore the midsouth more):

Svartifoss Waterfall (this fall tumbles down unique basalt columns, which inspired the design of Rekjavik’s Hallgrimskiirkja church).

Skaftafell area of Vatnajökull National Park. Camp within the National Park $4 a night at Skaftafell Camping – HIGHLY rated. Gorgeous view of glaciers. We would have done this but it wasn’t time to sleep yet, and we wanted to keep making progress on our route.

Book the Glacier Explorer tour by Arctic Adventures. Lasts 5.5 hours. We originally booked this tour which would have been awesome to hike on top of a glacier! But we didn’t want to lose an entire day to it. We already felt like we were crossing off so many sites on our original list due to being a littttle too optimistic with how much we’d be able to see in one day. If we didn’t have to backtrack to Reykjavik for our COVID test two days prior to departure, it would have allowed us more time to stick to our original plans. But we wanted to keep making progress in our route. Another reason for us to return! 🙂 Also, if you’re in this area in the wintertime, it would be a MUST to do an Ice Cave tour.

Þakgil campsite for the night! We were highly highly hiiiighly recommended to camp here…it’s in the middle of this mossy green canyon. It’s off the main road about 45 minutes, but it’s not an F road so you don’t need a 4×4. Here’s a pretty good article on what the area is like! I was so bummed to cross this off the list, but it would have taken a day out of our itinerary and after now seeing that many of Iceland is mossy green, it didn’t feel AS necessary. Although still would have been cool to camp in this remote spot.

Day 6: Lots of Water fallin’! (Midsouth region)

We woke up to many more people walking up to the waterfall, now that it was normal sightseeing hours. We walked up again ourselves, this time got much closer (and wet!) It’s so crazy how powerfully loud the sound is crashing down against the ground, Alex got the closest out of anyone I saw and from the look on his face it was well worth it. I tried to get as close but I looked down and realized I was completely drenched. I yelled at Alex my camera was wet and we dashed back to our van. A refreshing way to start the day, that’s for sure!

After Skogafoss make sure to check out Kvernufoss. This one is hidden from the rest of the popular waterfalls on the South Coast, but is actually just located right behind Skogafoss. It is a beautiful short hike leading up to the fall, and make sure to walk all the way behind the fall for the best experience! Hot tip: **WALK** here after visiting Skógafoss so you don’t need to fuss about parking. The hike starts behind the Skógar museum and takes about 20-30 minutes. You can also park at the museum to be closer but will cost you a fee.

Drive to town of Vik & take pictures of Vik Church with Reynisfjara Black volcanic beach in background. I swear Iceland has more churches than people, and they all are so cute! Afterwards, head to the beach for a closeup of the dramatic rocks that jet out of the water. This is one of the most beautiful black sand beaches in the world.

After playing around with the cool basalt columns and boulders on the beach, grab a bite to eat in town and drive an hour west to catch the glorious colors of Seljalandsfoss Waterfall at sunset!

We both had such a natural high after seeing many amazing sights over the past two days, but we had to start making our way back to Reykjavik for our early AM Covid Test. However it did feel a little nice knowing tomorrow would be a slower pace, filled with shopping and the spa. We picked a camping spot just outside the city and said hi to even more horses!

Day 7: Backtrack to Reykjavik for Covid Test (Midsouth to Southwest Region)

Depending what restrictions are still ongoing when you travel to Iceland, you may need to get a COVID test to get back to the US. While we were traveling, this had to be done within 3 days of departure. So we chose Friday for our Sunday flight, knowing it could take up to 24 hours to get our results back. Like our initial COVID test upon entry, this only ended up taking 5 hours to get our results texted/emailed to us.

After our test, we spent some time in the city of Reykjavik exploring the various boutiques and fun cobblestone streets. DO BE AWARE that there are hardly any public bathrooms downtown. You basically have to eat at a restaurant or purchase something at a cafe if you need to go. They do have these weird coin-operated cylindrical “toilet booth” things (think of a telephone booth on the side of a street) that you can access, however expect the cleanliness of a porta-potty. Alex would not recommend lol. All other bathrooms we experienced in Iceland however were phenomenal and very sleek modern clean, just not downtown apparently!

Speaking of sleek & modern, we booked THEEEE BEST spa experience at Sky Lagoon. It’s a brand new facility in Reykjavik with an infinity pool overlooking the ocean, swim up bar, and very luxurious private changing rooms if you book the Sky pass (worth the extra penny). It also comes with the 7 step ritual which mixes hot and cold sensations for ultimate mind/body/soul rejuvenation – also a must during your visit. I’ll do a little compare/contrast of the 3 spas we visited down in the Q/A section at the end!

We stayed at the spa for a total of 3 hours, which I felt was the perfect amount. But we were now getting hangry. We picked up a Dominos pizza and went back to the same campsite as the night before to eat our za & drift off to sleep. Honestly, at this point our hearts were feeling very full and doing more sightseeing didn’t seem necessary??? Aside from the Volcano and Blue Lagoon. Those were musts to still see!

Day 8: The Golden Circle + Snorkeling (Southwest Region)

Our goal today was to finish up the last sights of the Golden Circle. We drove an hour back the way we came to a town we initially drove through called Selfoss, famous for their Icelandic hot dog stand Pylsuvagninn Selfossi – The Hot Dog Stand. We didn’t explore Iceland cuisine all that much (our van had a mini fridge for us to buy groceries and save on $$) but if you are visiting Iceland you have to try the traditional Icelandic Hot Dog. It’s made mostly from Icelandic lamb but also pork and beef and it’s usually served in a warm bun with white raw onion, crispy fried onion, sweet brown mustard, ketchup and remúlaði.

Were the food prices and such higher or similar to US? Are there any other Icelandic staples?

The restaurant prices I would say are more expensive, grocery store seemed pretty comparable slightly more. But you’re also paying for much higher quality local farm fresh food. It’s comparable to eating a nicer restaurant in the US ($15-23 an entree on average). We like to spend our money more on experiences than food, so besides the two restaurant trips, we kept our costs down by buying groceries and making sandwiches – thanks to our van for having a mini fridge that allowed us to do so!

Many things were also closed while we were awake (since we did most of our exploring during the midnight sun). But what we did try was all fantastic. Everything was very fresh and delicious. Their brick oven pizza was the best we’ve ever had – we only went out to eat twice and that’s what we got both times LOL. The tourist towns are still very “small town feel” but must be growing because there were so many brand new, modern architectural restaurants and hotels. Would have loved to have looked inside them!

We did not try their staple of fermented shark and a beer – from every traveler I heard we didn’t miss out on much lol!

Once our healthy 😉 breakfast was demolished we drove just 15 mins to Kerid Crater. I recommend taking the short walk down. You can walk all the way around the crater both above and below but we thought the view right off the main parking lot was really good so we saved our legs the effort.

There are other things to see along the Golden Circle, but we decided to drive 40 mins to Þingvellir National Park, where you can walk the valley between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. 

We booked a snorkeling tour of the Silfra Fissure, the only place in the universe where you can go snorkeling in between two continental plates. We can now say we floated between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, which are slowy drifting apart splitting Iceland in two at a rate of about 1 inch per year. We had never snorkeled before, and I will say that snorkeling in freezing water is NOT for the faint of heart. The amount of dry suits and the way we had to suction cup ourselves was intense LOL….very claustrophobic but hilarious and wish I had a photo of this! It took an hour just to get everything on!

With the air in your suits, it allows you to simply float, look down the clear glacial water 500 feet and enjoy! There were no fish, but exploring the blue lagoon and lime green grasses were such fascinating colors to witness in nature. If you’ve snorkeled before, you may not think it’s as cool as we did, but having never done it before it was a neat experience! Our guide was so calming and reassuring and had his underwater camera ready to take some awesome photos of our group of 6! Unfortunately he had to carry a person in our group who had a panic attack once in water, so there’s not much to share of this. But you can see what we were up to and check out more info here.

After this, it was about 7pm so we  made our way back to the airport area where Blue Lagoon/ Grindavik are located to do the much anticipated volcano hike followed by a final morning dip into the Blue Lagoon before our flight.

For the volcano, we wanted to make sure to hike closer to night time for the best views of glowing lava but DO be careful of nightly fog. We were supposed to hike this our FIRST night into our trip, but some intense fog and poor visibility kept us from doing so. That same night a man actually became separated from his wife in the fog and couldn’t find his way back, and luckily was found many hours later by a rescue team. Do not underestimate the fog here! In a place where there is actively flowing lava and hot magma, it becomes all the more necessary to know where you are stepping.

If it is windy, you may want to check the direction the air is blowing and make sure it won’t be blowing right at you on your hike. For us, the wind was blowing all the smoke from the fires making the air hard to breathe, especially with the steep climb uphill. Remember, the higher you go, the more smoke you’ll likely breathe in as smoke rises. Check weather forecast ahead of time to make sure it is safe to hike.

Lastly, keep in mind the hiking trails may change at any moment, so make sure to follow recent routes. Path A which took you closest unfortunately was recently closed when we went due to lava flow, so we had to do Path B which didn’t take you as close. Although I feel like we did Path C or D cause we saw pictures of other people who went the same time as us who were able to get muchhhh closer. Definitely should have looked into it more, but it was still cool to see from a distance and to get up close and personal with the black flowing lava fields!

Other things we missed:

• Haukadalur Geothermal Valley – home to the great Geysir—the original “geyser”. Its neighbor Strokkur erupts every ten minutes or so, sending boiling water up to 20 m (66 ft) high, and the area is dotted with bubbling hot springs and steaming fumaroles.
• Gullfoss – You can approach it right to its edge to observe its incredible scale and power. We were feeling good on our waterfalls so skipped this one, looks beautiful though.
• Krysuvik – another geothermal area near the Volcano that came recommended to us after our trip

Day 9: BLUE LAGOON & DEPARTURE BACK TO US

We woke up feeling good about last day. We felt we had seen a LOT in the last week and our travel hearts were feeling very full. We didn’t quite reach a point of feeling homesick, but another day and we probably would have! 9 days was just the right amount of time, and we were very excited to go home and see our puppies! One last stop at the iconic Blue Lagoon, then off to the airport we went!

We finished out our trip by saying goodbye to our Happy Campers van & watching one two many good movies on the plane. Our first international trip (and favorite trip ever taken) had come to an end. Bittersweet!

When we got together with friends and family and began telling the stories of our trip, the common theme was how incredible, low-fuss, streamlined, logistically easy this trip was. And we saw more scenery than we ever knew our eyes could see in one week’s time. With it being only a 5-6 hour flight, I was literally telling everyone they just simply must go!

We got very lucky being one of the first travelers back into the country so tourist numbers were way down from usual. That along with doing majority of our sightseeing during the midnight sun when most people were sleeping….at times we felt we had the whole island to ourselves. We feel truly lucky that this window opened up at the perfect time and we were able to experience Iceland in a way not many people can anymore now that it is increasing in popularity. Definitely go and see it for yourselves. It is a million times more magical than any of these photos will ever be! I still can’t believe I did this all without my professional camera gear in hand. Majority of these are Iphone actually! Which only goes to show how anyone can take images like this, because Iceland is truly incredible and it doesn’t take a lot to showcase it’s beauty.

And now to answer some of the most commonly asked questions we received!

Bless Bless (“bye bye”!)

If you’ve made it this far, thank you sooo much for being here! I hope you’ve found something helpful you can take away on your next trip to Iceland. And if you found any of this helpful, I’d love to hear in the comments below as well as any other questions you have! Thanks again & stay adventurous! – Meghan

It’s going to be impossible to remember 2020 without looking back and remembering first and foremost, the Pandemic that turned our worlds upside down as we tried to grip onto any sort of normalcy. Add in an increasingly tense political atmosphere and the battle of two Americas, and BLM that had so many of us awakened of the systemic racism that exists in our country. With no distractions, and everyone tuning in, 2020 forced us to see the hard and uncomfortable truths in our society, and rather than continuing to turn a blind eye, actually become a part of the conversation. To do the work, to unlearn and to relearn. The best word I can come up for 2020 is “monumental” and for so many reasons, I know this year will be remembered for centuries to come.

Aside from everything going on in the outside world, it wasn’t always heavy! We welcomed a sweet floofball into our home, turned the key to our first non-apartment and non-wheeled living space. Celebrated 14 couples on their wedding days after lots of rescheduling and shifting and downsizing and re-imagining, and met my newly engaged 2021 couples! I turned the big 3-0 and we set out to California, spending 10 days scenic driving & living out of a converted van. I discovered the glorious world of podcasts while working from home haha (okay where have these been my whole life?! they kept me so feeling so entertained and educated and inspired each and every day!) I used the extra downtime I was given to try to process my feelings on a more regular basis, instead of always distracting myself. And I ended this year with a deep dive into self-discovery — understanding my motivations, fears, and everything in-between (aka I hopped on the Enneagram bandwagon & now am convinced I have been fully “seen” – where are my Type #7’s at?)

Anyways! I should probs share a few of the kajillion photos I’ve taken this year right?! Here are our top highlights that made up our 2020!

Lennie – The Best Quarantine Decision

Whenever I am going through something uncomfortable (aka a pandemic), I have a tendancy to busy myself with distractions. Not being able to travel or plan any future trips, I of course figured out how to bring adventure into our own living room! So meet Lennon aka “Lennie.” The perfect dose of happy distraction that lifted our spirits and kept us entertained all throughout those first months of lockdown – and onward! Our hearts grew 10 times bigger this year, and I seriously can not imagine getting through quarantine without this sweet boy and his mouth-breathing, slobber tongue, and playful cuddles the entire time! It was our first time raising a puppy together, and gotta say – I think we’re pretty good at parenting!? Gosh I miss these little legs.

A Wedding Industry Turned Upside Down

When the world shut down in March, immediately all I could think of was my brides, my weddings, what will happen to this year?! Will it be cancelled? Every couple had to make some hard and emotional decisions and I am so proud of each and every one for handling this year with so much grace. Some chose to wait it out and risk keeping their dates, hopeful they’d be able to still happen. Many had to cut their guest lists, some to just 4 people! Others chose outdoor and intimate venues in backyards or parks. And others rescheduled to later in the year or 2021 to be able to celebrate their day as planned when times would be safer.  There was tons of shifting and re-shiftiing but in the end we were lucky to still be able to serve 14 couples on their wedding day! Along with meeting some of our new 2021 engaged couples 🙂 Despite everything, love wasn’t cancelled this year and it was another successful, beautiful year of weddings!

A look back on all the couples we celebrated this year:

CHELSEA & RYAN | 1.18.20 | FETE OF WALES | WALES, WI

MEGAN & SPENCER | 6.20.20 | CHAIN O’ LAKES | WAUPACA, WI

HALEY & BRAD | 7.18.20 | GRAND GENEVA RESORT & SPA | LAKE GENEVA, WI

MELISSA & ERIC | 7.25.20 |BURLAP AND BELLS | BLACK RIVER FALLS, WI

CAITLIN & BEN | 8.08.20 | POP UP WEDDING | VILLA TERRACE ART MUSEUM | MILWAUKEE, WI

KATIE & JOSH | 8.08.20 | POP UP WEDDING | VILLA TERRACE ART MUSEUM | MILWAUKEE, WI

EMILY & RUDY | 8.15.20 | BACKYARD WEDDING | ELKHORN, WI

RAQUEL & TIM | 8.21.20 | INTIMATE PARK WEDDING | EAU CLAIRE, WI

LISA & MARK | 8.28.20 | MONONA TERRACE ELOPEMENT | MADISON, WI

AMELIA & TYLER | 8.29.20 | THE CARRIAGE HOUSE | OCONOMOWOC, WI

KATIE & ZACH | 9.05.20 | ST. JOHNS ACADEMY & CHENEQUA COUNTRY CLUB | DELAFIELD, WI

BRIANA & DYLAN | 9.19.20 | LILYDALE | CHIPPEWA FALLS, WI

ALYSSA & BRANDON | 10.09.20 | THE ATRIUM | MILWAUKEE, WI

KAITLYN & MICHAEL | 10.17.20 | WHISTLER’S KNOLL | HORTONVILLE, WI

And the new engaged couples we got to meet!

HAILEY & BRETT’S COFFEE SHOP ENGAGEMENT SESSION | BOXED & BURLAP, LAKE GENEVA, WI

BRITTNEY & ZACH’S NATURE STROLLS ENGAGEMENT SESSION | DELAFIELD, WI

LESLIE & LUKE’S ENGAGEMENT SESSION ON THEIR FAMILY LAND | WATERTOWN, WI

SARAH & ANDREW’S HARTMAN’S CREEK ENGAGEMENT SESSION | WAUPACA, WI

Special thank you to all the couples who made up this 2020 wedding season!

An Iceland Trip Turned Cali Road Trip

I entered the first two weeks of the year bedridden with some “unknown virus.” Hands-down the most miserable illness of my life, and looking back I had every single symptom of COVID. But I occupied my time by putting together a 2019 blog post on our adventures while spending a year on wheels, and creating a 2020 vision board. One of those visions was finalllllyy booking our first overseas trip. Destination?

I C E L A N D

I spent my days in bed planning out our itinerary: snorkeling between two tectonic plates, vanlifing around the island, endless waterfall and craters and volcanic activity, a world of lime green grass and black sand. Whale watching and remote camping, and hiking on top of Glaciers and into Ive Caves. This world looked like another planet and I was so giddy with excitement to turn the big 3-0 in such a magical way. Life was feeling too good. Something had to go wrong.

Well, a couple months later, the world literally shut down — eep, no big!?!? I remained hopeful but every week I would check Icelandic Air’s website for the latest press release with no good news.. Come June when we still weren’t allowed in the country, I had to admit it just wasn’t going to happen for us. It was onto a Plan B.

My days in June were now so filled between getting up at 5am to run and wear out a four month old Lennie so I could work a few hours peacefully at home before he’d wake up. And then I’d have to run with him again at lunch to exhaust him yet again so I could work the afternoon. Evenings I still had to spend all my free time wearing out Lennie and as soon as he would give me moments to breathe I’d bury myself into quickly re-imagining an entire 10-day trip in just two weeks time.

We shot our first wedding of the season at the end of June, and just a few days afterwards we were headed out west to California, back to the golden state that we still had so much left on our bucket list to see! I didn’t realize how hard it would be to leave my growing baby puppers behind, but Alex and I were so excited to have some time just the two of us again and felt beyond lucky to go on an adventure that didn’t involve our backyard!

We spent the next 10 days escaping reality and living out of a campervan and exploring all the scenic spots in central California, The Sierra Nevada Valley, Lake Tahoe (turned the big 3-0!), drove through Napa and San Fran and down the coast. Finally checked off our Highway 1 bucket list, camped near Big Sur, and completed our trip by spending the Fourth in one of my favorite places – Joshua Tree (View our full Cali trip HERE)

Our First Home for our Growing Fam

After our Cali trip, we returned home to what finally felt like a normal “busy season” again. Our world was slowly opening back up and weddings were happening again. Our growing puppy started to make it known that we needed a bigger living space to continue to grow our family. A few weeks later it was August, and after 10 years living in small apartment spaces or on wheels, we finally upgraded to a home ** with a fenced in and private backyard. Oh the glory!!! We had so many weddings stacked up this month from spring postponements, along with working our other fulltime jobs, but we grilled out in the yard and had fires and enjoyed our newly domesticated life as much as we possibly could before the inevitable cold weather would come!

The Changing of Seasons

With almost all our weddings of the year taking place in August, my months of September and October were spent in an editing haze, keeping up on my timeline for delivering galleries while shooting our remaining four weddings and balancing that with our other jobs. The air outside became super political and heated and it was harder to balance all that was going on in our society and work and keeping social lives. I tried to make sure I gave myself enough rest & relaxation – which ironically is not actually physically resting, but usually involves social activities and getting outside in nature.

We took the dogs to Rib Mountain at the peak of fall colors, I got to see a different side of Appleton and it’s scenic river walks with my sister, and we took a much needed girls trip to La Crosse where we hiked the beautiful bluffs along the Mississippi River. These times in nature and with loved ones are the moments that truly nourish my soul the most and allow me to reset.

Allowing Myself to Feel & Process

This year was heavy. And up until the last months I rarely allowed myself to process anything as it was happening – kind of like I just disassociated it. My life was busy and if I sat and thought about things too long it became too much for me. I couldn’t watch the news, and I could barely go on social media. In these times I turned inward, to my closest people, and focused on self-care. I didn’t realize that by not allowing myself to process my emotions I wasn’t truly practicing self-care. I was just escaping via other distractions. But with no more weddings in November and December, I found my mental capacity beginning to open up again and then all at once.

I started to really work on self-care through Enneagram and therapeutic podcasts. And I honestly have never felt more seen and heard. I recognized I have this wired-in need to endlessly achieve, and an inability to rest. That I am constantly focused on the next great experience or finding new ways to live the most meaningful life. And that this can also be a way of escapism. When life gets dark, or confusing, I love to alter that energy into something positive, and when I can’t turn a bad situation into an enjoyable situation, I escape to find joy and fulfillment elsewhere. Buying a puppy on a whim, planning our next trip, busying myself with home projects, anything to get me focused back on happiness and excitement.

I now understand that my biggest fears are being deprived, feeling trapped in negative emotions, or feeling loss of control. All of which made up 2020. 2020 was the most challenging but necessary year for my journey to growth, because through forcing me to give up control and forcing me to stay put, it allowed me to just BE here in the moments that make up my life. That it’s good to sit in the uncomfortable sometimes, as it allows us to fully listen and learn.

 

A Half Virtual Christmas

Come November, I found so much joy decorating our new home for its first Christmas and carefully planning out gifts for loved ones. We drove around and looked at all the Christmas lights in the area, made sugar cookies for the first time (and almost broke our teeth) watched so many holiday cookie challenge shows and Christmas movies (Klaus being a new animated fav!) Started collecting my Christmas Village set and broke last year’s new tradition of getting a real Christmas tree (we were scared Lennie would eat it LOL). When Christmas Eve and day came, we enjoyed necessary time with loved ones both in person and virtually.

New Year’s Hopes & Manifestations

I enter 2021 recognizing that it’s not an escape from the uncomfortable reality of 2020. For me it’s a continuation of constant self-growth and understanding. No concrete goals I need to achieve, just some fun ideas I’m *hoping* to be able to do! and if they don’t, I know I’ll be okay with that too.

A few things I’m gonna put out into the universe, in hopes they will happen:

1. Sounds so cliche, but I want to really make fitness a priority. Quarantine Nineteen is a THING, and we were so busy that we neglected our bodies more than we would have liked. Going into 2021 Alex and I have realized that our number one goal in LIFE is to eventually hike the Pacific Crest Trail – in **FULL** (from Mexico to Canada along the Sierra Nevada) This is a 4-6 month long excursion in a completely rugged terrain. And in order to be in a position to take this on within the next decade, we’re gonna have to start training our bodies and our minds. So going into 2021 we would love to start small with some weekend-long backpacking, working our way into week-long hikes. And tons of Pelaton and lifting weights 😉 Call me crazy for putting a 10 year goal on this list. I just know that you never get anywhere unless you start somewhere.
2. Sit down and do the hard stuff. Continue to work on myself. My responsibilities. The not-so-exciting stuff. Take care of these things so they don’t pile up and make me crave more distractions.
3. Get to a point where I can spend a Saturday lounging around and feel no shame, whatsoever.
4. Be able to take our pending Iceland Trip this summer?!? I still have the itinerary ready to go, the campervan booked, and all the activities paid for (vouchers) so I’d just really *really* like to see it all come true! If not Iceland – then I’d love to experience Wyoming and the Grand Tetons in fall when the aspen leaves turn yellow. We’ve found throughout the years that the mountains makes us most at peace. Perhaps do a couple weeks backpacking there? Weee shalll seee!

 

On a day-to-day basis I never feel like I do enough, and it’s not until I look back on an entire year that I realize woah- our lives now look so different. And although it takes a lot out of me, it’s why I find writing these year-in-reviews to be so necessary. A time for me to sit back and reflect and open my eyes to the truths that have been happening all around me and within me for the past dozen months. See what has changed, am I any different? What lessons have I taken away? It gives me a moment to feel proud. Especially in this year. Cause despite being in a pandemic, there was SO. MUCH. GOOD. So much growth. And not in the ways I was expecting, but in the ways that were needed.

I know going into a new Year can bring up pressure to be better, to set goals, and to achieve. Especially if you’re at all like me. But no matter where you are at going into this new year I want to remind you :

You are already enough. Remove pressure to endlessly achieve. Give yourself time to process things around you and heal and learn and grow, always. Continue to make self-care a priority. It’s okay not to have concrete plans going into 2021 but to instead just see where your ideas take you. Wherever you feel pressure, I hope you release it. And wherever you need more care and attention, I hope you receive that.

Cheers to surviving in this Pandemic , friends and happy new year!

So I feel somewhat guilty for taking the time to blog our personal travels amidst a busy wedding season! However I have a lot of wedding couples requesting this blog to help plan their own honeymoons! SO…if COVID has your honeymoon plans like ?!!?! I’ve got you.

This particular trip takes us all over Central California, however if you scroll to the very end I’ve also included some of our all time favorite US destinations in states such as Tennessee, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Montana, the good ole Midwest too, and of course – California. And because we’re not really “city peeps” and prefer to take in as much nature as possible when we travel, all of the locations on our list are social-distancing friendly 🙂 Especially if you’re gonna rent a van and road trip it vs. hotel stays!

If you read my latest travel blog of our time spent in SoCal then you know I’ve been longing to get back to Cali. I had plane tickets and an itinerary all set to go for celebrating my 30th golden birthday in Iceland, but when we got closer to date (and we were still kicked out of the UK) I realized it was time to devise a Plan B back to the golden state of Cali.

Ever since our first month-long van trip out west, we’ve been dying to get back in a van. Soo we decided to rent a van and explore the remaining bucket-listed locations of California. Actually the more I devised this Plan B, the less I worried about Iceland, and when we were down to the wire and I realized that Iceland was ultimately a no-go, I of course was pretty bummed we wouldn’t be able to FINALLY get overseas. But I didn’t have to feel too sad or overwhelmed. I had already built up excitement a road trip through Cali. Now having only two weeks until leaving for our trip, I quickly threw together a route, booked a few campsites a long the way, and off we went!

VEGAS BABY

Soo having just 10 days, we didn’t quite have time to road trip it all the way from Wisconsin to California. Instead, we flew into Vegas & rented a van there through Escape Campervans. We scored an awesome deal (I wanna say like $35/day!?! Literally no one was traveling yet end of June as everything was just finally reopening). This company has TONS of different designed vans all painted by local artists, and are located in several areas throughout the west, so next time you travel check to see if they are located by you! It was way more fun for us than when we hopped from hotel to hotel. Vanlifing always makes a road trip really feel like a road trip and you get so much more experience & stories out of it. We were paired with an optical illusion design van & decided to name her Trippy aka “Trip.” I hoped so badly Trip would make it all the way to the coast, through the mountains, and back. The mileage on her scared me & also the breaks were a little sketchy — eep! But the trade off was that she had everything we needed. A bed in the back that could fold back up into a couch, a sink, cabinets, solar panel for the mini fridge (THE BEST), and a fold up table. We were SET!

DEATH VALLEY DEATH TRAP

Just outside Vegas is vast, desolate desert. We had always wanted to drive through Death Valley and check out the lowest and hottest point in the US, Badwater Basin. However after driving nearly an hour to the park, the entrance was closed. It was also predicted to be 114 degrees and the thought of driving three hours through a National Park – with no cell service and an old van in this crazy desert heat – didn’t sound much appealing anyway. The only reason we were going to try to go through Death Valley was because it would have saved us a loooot of driving time, as our next location was driving through the  Sierra Nevada valley to get to Big Pine to camp.

So we had to turn around, hook all the way to Highway 15, and take a bit of a detour, I luckily got cell service and rerouted us all the way down and around. About an hour later somewhere in between Death Valley and the town of Baker we realized we were seriously in the middle of nowhere Desert USA. Definitely no service. Wondering how many dead bodies were buried out here “Breaking Bad” style. There is literally no reason for ANYONE to be out this way unless you’re up to some shenanigans.

We started passing by like 20 or so rental vans, all parked on the side of the road. Still in the middle of nowhere. Alex and I were like OKAY something sketchy is totally going down there omggg I don’t want to be a witness. Then we passed by about 20 or so cops all with their lights on, heading straight to the group of vans. I turned to Alex and was like “how funny if one of those cops comes behind us thinking we’re a part of it” Cause for some reason it just occurred to me that Woah – we are in a rental van too. Not just any rental van either, we had the one that was hand painted in total trippy graffiti. Well another 5 seconds later and my wish came true. We were being pulled over. In the middle of a drug raid in the middle of the desert.

I watched the cop in the mirror slowly and steadily coming towards our van, gun pointed up and ready. I rolled my window down and anxiously awaited him to just get to the dang window already cause my pounding heart couldn’t take all this.

When he got to the window, he said he was checking for fireworks and asked us what we were doing out here & so we (like a thousand words per second) explained this is a rental van and we’re doing a road trip yada ya, we were trying to go to Death Valley but it was closed cause it’s too hot. He was trying to make sense of our route in his head and I was like WELL I have it all on maps on my phone I CAN SHOW YOU OUR ROUTE IF YOU WANT!?! As I’m already leaning over and trying to grab my phone on the van floor (looking back, this was NOT a smart move I am very very lucky that this guy had great instinctual abilities to realize we were truly just two lost doofs and not a threat).

“Oh I see, yes…I know where you’re going. Big Pine you’ll like it there. Honestly the best thing that could have happened to you today was skipping Death Valley. It’s way too hot to be out there.”

10 hours of scenic valley driving later (no joke, it took forever), we arrived at Big Pine just in time to climb the scariest hill up to find a campsite. Thankfully there was a few left for us & we crashed as soon as it was dark for what would be an *epic* hike the following morning.

BIG PINE, YOU FIIINE

We woke up at the crack of dawn, eager to conquer the 16 mile hike up and around 7 alpine lakes. This would be my last day in my 20’s and couldn’t think of any better way to cap off the decade. I had stumbled upon this location while googling random areas on a California map. I really wanted to live in the outskirts of Vegas but Alex hates the desert, so I was trying to find a place that was close enough to Vegas but offered some evergreen trees + cool temps for Alex. That way we could have the BEST of both worlds.

Well, somehow I came across Lone Pine and then Big Pine and it all just looked incredible. And better yet, it was pretty off-the-instagram radar which is SUPER hard to come by these days. I then researched and found that the drive up the Sierra Nevada valley is one of the most scenic so I knew I had to make this a part of our trip. Plus it made sense with our original plan of seeing Yosemite National Park, which would have been on the way up to Lake Tahoe. But Yosemite was limiting the number of passes each day and the availability didn’t work very well with our trip. We would have been suuuper rushed, and no one wants to rush Yosemite. Sooo we will just have to return to Cali again to *finally* cross off Death Valley & Yosemite (as if I was mad for a reason to come back!)

Anyways back to the hike. For some reason I was expecting this to completely ruin me. But this hike was so enjoyable, such a steady incline and beautiful open mountain views the whole first half of the way up. After zigzagging through the woods for what felt like forever we finally made it to First Lake, and stopped to soak in the view before taking 50 more steps over to Second Lake for an even more impressive view. What was most impressive though, was that we had this all. to. our. selves. It was a Sunday, yet no one was here for a full hour straight. We felt so lucky, and never have we ever been this alone in a place this gorgeous.

After about an hour laying in the sun, shoes and socks off, we heard a few people beginning to come and wanted to let others enjoy the main view. So we stood up to get ourselves ready again and WOWAAHHH. There’s a reason you don’t want to stop moving halfway through a long hike. We were so stiff! Luckily, it was all downhill and we made it back in much shorter time than it took to get up. We started around 9am & finished around 3, with stopping multiple times. Totally doable for a day hike.

I mentioned there were seven lakes, although I would have loved to do all seven (all are relatively close by in a loop) We heard that after first & second lake, the others aren’t as impressive so decided just to head back…but now in hindsight I wish we would have done all 7 cause when can you nonchalantly mention you once hiked 16 miles up a mountain and passed by 7 lakes all in one day? Probably not often.

Afterwards we got back to camp & ate a ton of trail mix (for some reason we forgot to go grocery shopping prior?) We were so parched and thirsty and craved a mighty meal of carbs, but survived instead on trail mix, cheese itz and water. Alex passed out cold at like 6pm which made for a veryyy very long night. Keep in mind, there was still no cell service for me lol.

THIRTY, NOT SO FLIRTY, BUT THRIVING

June 30, 2020. Weather: perfect. All 30 years of my life I never can recall a rainy day on my birthday. I’ve always loved having a birthday set exactly halfway through the year, in the heat of summer sunshine. We started off this particular birthday by living to actually see a day in my 30’s, testing the van breaks all the way down our first mountain. Then it was another long day of driving through the Sierra Nevada valley. It was a beautiful drive & we were just so anxious to get to Lake Tahoe and get ourselves a hotel bed & shower and some actual eats at a local restaurant.

We took a quick stop at Mono Lake nearby, cause after visiting the Salton Sea we realized we love looking at dried, washed up desert lakes haha. This one’s water used to source LA (crazy) and now that they realize the lake is drying up at rapid rates, they are trying to reverse the damage done so the water levels don’t keep dropping. The crazy rock formation is called Tufa and basically is limestone that forms when water from heated underwater hot springs rich in calcium meet with the carbonates in lake water (reference: google).

An hour before sunset, we finally arrived to South Lake Tahoe and checked into our hotel at Hotel Beckett – highly recommend cause it’s super close right on the downtown area with gorgeous mountain views & the inside is soooo cute! The bathroom was also HUGE. Having come from not having one for a few days this made me very happy.

We got a bite to eat – the Thai Chicken Curry pizza at Base Camp Pizza to be exact. It was incredible. Then walked to see the lake for sunset (harder to do than it would seem as much of South Lake Tahoe shorelines are gated off and very residential).

We went to the G store as well and loaded up for the following days. Got a slice of chocolate cake and a candle and Alex sang me happy birthday outside the hotel late at night. I even caught it on video to savor forever. It was a very fun night chilling by the fire, despite it being just the two of us (now 30 year olds!!) we made it a really fun, low key golden birthday.

WILD WINDY KAYAKING

The next morning we got up early to travel to the north side of Lake Tahoe, where we would be renting a clear bottom Kayak. Quick note: if you think these are cute, they are. But if you think you’ll be actually kayaking in them – you won’t LOL. The bottoms are actually flat so they barely move, and Alex and I are pretty decent kayakers. We thought we’d have time to make it to the recommended areas like Secret Cove and Hidden Beach…however we didn’t even make it around Crystal Bay during our 4 hour rental. It had already taken us an hour and a half to “float” that far, and we knew we’d be battling choppy waters on the way back now that it was 10am and the boats were coming out. That being said, I don’t think it was super necessary to go that far, I really just wanted to find some jumbo rocks to play around on and kayak through, which we found nearby on the north end and I’m sure are located throughout the whole lake!

After kayaking we decided to hike the Eagle Lakes Wilderness trail to get a beautiful bird’s-eye-view of Lake Tahoe and another more remote alpine lake (can ya tell we looove our alpine lake hikes?) This hike was much shorter than our last, although definitely a climb to the lake. It was also a muuuch smaller lake. We got there and found a secluded spot on the shore off the to the left. As Alex was taking video of me about to dip into the water I swear I saw a brown bear dash by on the trail behind Alex. Alex, who was busy pointing a camera at me, of course didn’t see it run *behind* him so it must not be true. Will remain a lifelong debate.

Then after this hike we decided to do ONE more hike, the iconic Rubicon Trail. A much more beginner’s hike although it was still pretty strenuous going down the hill to the shoreline from the road up top. The trail is VERY long and connects two different state parks. I heard the area by Emerald Bay is the most beautiful and it happened to share the same parking lot as the hike we just did at Eagle Lake, so we got very lucky (parking here is a B!)

Honestly we didn’t really hike the Rubicon long cause it felt a little tooooo touristy but we did it to say we did it. And we LOVED the giant redwoods. The way the light falls between the trees, ugh. Pure heaven.

LAKE TAHOE TO NAPA TO SAN FRAN TO MONTEREY IN A DAY = WHAT WAS I THINKING

The next day we had another looong day of driving ahead. Ya know, I probably should have made this two separate trips: Vegas + the Sierra Nevada mountains (including Yosemite & Death Valley) in one trip, and The Coast as another. But you just never know when you’re going to get the time to travel again, so I just couldn’t resist trying to see it all. The plus: we got to see it all. The downfall: We got to see it all for like one second. Haha, but hey. We were there, we saw it. And now we always know where we want to “revisit” again when the time comes!

We stopped to rest our feet in Napa at my favorite winery from our first van trip we took back in spring 2018. Napa Valley is all so beautiful, but these textures, omg. Even more beautiful than I remembered.

Unfortunately due to having to still drive akjdglksdajgdsja miles we couldn’t stop and drink the wine. But I took a swig of my Barefoot Moscato I had left over in the back of the van just to say I did LOL. Then it was onto the coast <3333

We finally arrived in San Francisco and got in and got out of there as quickly as possible once we went over the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. There was a jumper on the bridge and I am hoping everything worked out okay in the end… afterwards I googled Golden Gate Bridge to see if anything was in the news but there is on average one person every two weeks. Ugh, I didn’t like reading more into it so I stopped researching. We have heard great things about San Fran but honestly Alex and I were having minor panic attacks being on constant ramps and 5 lane highways and seeing homes stacked and literally connected to eachother and their driveways basically a foot away from the highway. It took two hours to get out of this traffic, and by this point we were so beat out of shape lol.

Eventually we made it to Monterey and drove a little inwards to the beautiful Carmel Valley for sunrise and to make camp. We got to enjoy sitting by the pool and these views from the van before a much needed sleep.

DRIVING THE HWY 1 CALI COAST

You would have thought we would have given us a day to rest, but the coast is very long. And if we wanted to get back to Vegas in time for our flight, it meant we would have to keep moving. Poor Alex. This is when I really regretted not breaking this up into two trips. However, I still am so happy we got to see the coast. I mean…just look at it. It made my photographer self very happy & out of our whole trip I definitely took the most photos here. We must have stopped every 5 minutes to get out and look at the next view around the corner. It was all spectacular, especially the first part by Big Sur. After many years talking about it, we finally can say we drove Highway 1!

We made another pit stop at Morro Rock. One of my bucket list items was to touch the actual rock. I bike this beach on my Pelaton for my 5 minute cool downs / meditation but never quite made it to the rock. I saw this location was on our route so I figured real life would be the time.

So turns out the rock is huge, and there is actually a shortcut and separate parking lot right up against the rock and so after spending time at the beach (and realizing it would haven taken hours to walk to the rock) we cheated a little, drove closer and voila – finally touched that dang rock!

After Morro Rock we still had a bit of a drive through the hills to our next campsite in Ojai, California. The scene quickly changed to this rust colored grass and twisty trees. It was a nice break from all the scary cliff driving. By now we were nearing the outskirts of LA so this is a beautiful town of so many incredible mansions and celebrity homes. We camped up on the hill and googled which celebrities all lived below us and watched the sunset over the town.

ONE LAST STOP AT THE MAGICAL JOSHUA TREE

Before making our way back to Vegas we decided to spend our last night in Joshua Tree. My happy place. We drove through Thousand Oaks and Calabasas and I tried to find the K krew from the highway. Once we saw the magical field of wind turbines I knew we were coming into Palm Springs. It was Fourth of July and I was worried we wouldn’t be able to find a campsite in Joshua Tree but turns out there are tons to choose from. We got really lucky with site #14 at Ryan Mountain campground and had so much seclusion + had these awesome jumbo rocks to gaze at and climb (if it weren’t 108 degrees!)

It was actually so hot that once we got there we couldn’t do anything other than lay in the van where there was shade and turn the AC on every now and then, although it quickly heated back up (Even at night it was still in the 90s but we managed to still sleep through it. Thanking the long drives for that!)

I had packed two nice dresses and despite the major unshowered vanlife hair at this point, got a little dolled up to take some pics as a new 30 year old woman. So here’s being 30, camping in my favorite place on earth and afterwards watching the brightest full moon rise over the mountain and the Joshua Trees casting eerie shadows against the night sky.

The next morning, we made the final trek from Joshua Tree to Vegas through the Mojave Desert. Our flight wasn’t until midnight but we had to drop the van off by 4pm. So it made for a long night at the airport. But it gave me plenty time to look back on this trip and just be so thankful for all the beauty there is to see in our own country, always just a road trip away.

Annd, without further adieux, for anyone having to reroute their overseas travels or honeymoons and needing to come up with some local destinations instead, here is a list of some vacations/road trips we’ve taken and love, as well as some that are still on our bucket list!

US DESTINATIONS WE **LOVE** // FOR YOUR VACATION / HONEYMOON IDEAS:

1. Glacier National Park, MT – the mountains are calling and you MUST GO. Seriously. If heaven was on earth, it would be here. Get your hiking boots ready & get life-changed. Read/see all about our trip here.
2. Yellowstone National Park, WY – if just chilling in nature, crazy & beautiful geothermal activity, and taking drives and watching buffalo roam sounds up your ally then Yellowstone is perfect! Make sure to avoid summer months though, or you’ll be caught in a line ride the whole time. We chose opening week of April & felt we were the only ones there & it was spectactular. Other option: October
3. Zion National Park, UT – This is the place to REALLY get adventurous + take in some red rock views. Angel’s Landing is one of the most dangerous hikes in all of US and not for the faint of heart, but if you can make it to the top it is certainly worth it (I wouldn’t know, I’m faint of heart LOL). We’ve also always wanted to hike the Narrows but the water was too high in spring. This is a place we will have to return to! The park is much smaller than the other parks, and is super accessible by free shuttle to all the different stops. Stay outside the park at Under Canvas Zion in a cute little canvas tent for a one-of-a-kind glamping experience! (note: these are also at some other National Parks too!)
4. Palm Springs & Joshua Tree National Park, CA – Okay sooooo this might be my favorite place on all the earth, even though I love the mountains. Something about the desert just speaks to my soul (We stayed for a few months one winter and I talk about this area a lot HERE.) The Joshua Tree are just so whimsy & fun and I legit can’t get enough of them. The towns outside the park are also really cultural and small (they don’t allow any chains – everything is local). Vegas is a short drive away through the Mojave Desert, otherwise Palm Springs is directly below and we also LOOOOVE it there! Rent an airbnb with a pool and enjoy the desert heat!
5. Outskirts of Vegas – who knew that going to Vegas meant more than casinos + nightlife! Red Rock Canyon, Valley of Fire (do the Fire Wave hike), Hoover Dam and Lake Meade area, plus so many awesome hot springs hikes (some of my favorite hikes still to date, ask me for the deets!). Death Valley is also nearby as well as Zion. Honestly a lot is a day trip away from Vegas but no one ever thinks about it unless you live out that way! It’s a great place to fly in, do the Vegas things & also see a lot of cool nature.
6. Sedona, Arizona – Okay sooo there’s tons to see in Arizona. Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon, Saguaro National Park, Scottsdale was a cute town!, but my favorite would have to be Sedona. There’s just something godly about this place, where the red rocks meet up with sage greens and make unique structures and endless hiking. It’s also a very artsy town and there’s tons of restaurants, boutiques, and things to do! We shot Kim & Nick’s wedding here, and now I have to go back and do more personal exploring!
7. Pigeon Forge, Tennessee – Okay so I CAN’T leave out this place cause it’s super special to us. Alex and I got engaged in one of these rental cabins overlooking the Smoky mountains (there are thousands of these cabins to choose from! And most are surprisingly so affordable + include pool tables and hot tubs with mountain views on the deck!) We loved it so much we returned here for our honeymoon! Tons of interesting things to do nearby such as Smoky Mountain National Park, town of Gatlinburg for your free shots of moonshine (and Dollyworld, if that’s your thing :P)
8. MIDWEST – If you’re from where I’m from, getting time in beautiful nature doesn’t mean ya have to cross the entire country! We did a Lake Superior Road Trip including Duluth MN + Apostle Islands, WI + Porcupine Mountains, Upper Michigan. And it was SO incredible! Read all about our trip in our 2019 year in review!

REMAINING US DESTINATIONS ON OUR BUCKET LIST:

1. Grand Tetons – a 2020 couple of mine just honeymooned here & it wasn’t really on my radar until I saw pictures in their stories! And it’s near Yellowstone so you could probably hit up both if you wanted! There’s too many backpacking trails and alpine lakes I lost count! Also makes a great winter retreat at one of Jackson Hole’s many ski resort & spas.
2. Oregon & Washington – We really didn’t get to see a whole lot here on our first van trip. But if you love mountain air and waterfalls, and mossy green forests (Washington!) then this is your mecca. Another fun idea would be driving the coast as most of the mountains and views are on the western half of these states, stopping at various places along the way!
3. Charleston, SC & Savannah, GA – we actually have never made it down to the East Coast and the “southern charm” states. Our eyes always wander west, but there’s tons of history and adorable culture to see out this way that we’d love to get around to!
4. MOAB – really all of Utah we still need to see!
5. Bryce Canyon – another Utah National Park we really need to see & have heard is a favorite amongst many national park enthusiasts!
6. Yosemite – one of these days we WILL get there. And it’s located next to all the areas on the first half of our trip above in case you wanted to venture around more places while you’re in the area  ;):)!

 

+ Our list is always growing. There’s always more to discover and explore in the incredible US. Is there a place we’re missing from the list? Let us know in the comments below!

If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read all about our Cali trip (and maybe even stumbled upon some other trip ideas along the way!) I hope you have gained some inspo for your next case of wonderlust!

 

Stay wild,

Meghan

YEAR IN REVIEW

JAN – APRIL

I don’t normally do an extensive year-in-review, but I decided this year was simply too incredible to not be documented in a special way.

We started 2019 with no idea where we would be (literally) when Dec 31 hit. Geographically & mentally speaking, it was all pretty up in the air. At the turn of 2019 we were brand spankin new at fulltime traveling. Only one month into our new living situation – our family of 3 in a 21 foot travel trailer – and settling down in the Southwest for the coming winter.

A few moments I will remember forever:

• Arriving into our first destination: Palm Springs, California. With all its palm trees that greeted us into our first long-term stay while living on wheels. And the feeling like we were homeless within this magical Hollywood getaway destination (Kris Jenner one of many that has a home here). Nonetheless it was the first and only place that made us feel home while away from home. The wind turbines, the joshua trees, the hazy purple mountains. The late night desert hot spring soaks and the cackling coyotes. Something about this place fascinated us and to this day is a place we often talk about visiting again. Also it had all the malls and restaurants and hiking I could ever dream.
• It snowing as we drove into Santa Fe, and later on the whole desert?!?! It seemed we were bringing the snow with us from Wisconsin everywhere we went. But it was actually really beautiful seeing the snow contrast with the red rocks and covering the palm and cactus landscapes. A different type of scene that was for sure.
• Breaking down Christmas Eve in LA and scrambling to find any available car mechanics, also breaking down Valentines Day in Vegas (why did we always break down in major cities and on romantic holidays?) Also our car being broken into and my laptop stolen while parked at Venice Beach. Good times had by all.
• Walking up to the Grand Canyon at sunset to get our first peek of it. We were so giddy to finally see it & I’m happy I got Alex’s reaction on video. His face as he looked back at me said it all.
• Conquering the climb up  to the top of Cathedral Rock. This was the first real attempt I made at conquering my phobia of heights  (which afterwards, created a whole new thrill for me in taking on more dangerous hikes)
• Driving through Joshua Tree National Park, the Doors album through the speakers, feeling like I was a 70’s California flower child
• Soaking in natural hot springs in the redrock mountains after climbing/descending chutes and ladders and ropes (by far the quirkiest hike we’ve done! We also had to dodge some naked men!)
• Driving through Slab City & seeing how the real deal hippies live. Being mind-boggled by the Salton Sea
• Stepping outside the camper at night and instantly being in awe. We were staying in the middle of nowhere near the Salton Sea and the stars were so bright they were actually twinkling and even seemed to be dancing. Alex spends many nights looking up at the stars, but this night he could see Orien in full for the first time. He pointed it out to me star by star, point by point, line by line, all the while as the stars twinkled and danced there way before my eyes until its figure was so evidently there. One of the most beautiful memories of my life.
• The old man who welcomed himself into our camper at 10:00 at night
• Camping alone in the red rocks just outside Zion National Park, and realizing the giant sheer mountain face just a few steps past the little river stream by our camper was the park’s iconic Watchman mountain (it took us going all the way in the park to realize we were camped right on top of it! Surreal)
• Taking a night swim in Desert Hot Springs and hearing a pack of cayotes howling/chanting/cackling – the most startling sound I’ve ever experienced.
• Celebrity spottings in LA – Chris Kattan literally running his face into Alex’s Belly as he exited a Rite Aid, not paying attention where he was going. Also seeing the Property Brothers casually leaving brunch across the street on Christmas Eve in Larchmont Village.
• Overall just everyone in California looking so chic and with perfect brows meanwhile I’m a dirty homeless hippy in need of a tweezers.
• Cash’s excitement to get into the SUV anytime we were packing up the trailer to go some place knew, also Cash’s excitement to get out of the trailer anytime we arrived some place new. Just like me, he never got tired of it.
• Anytime I realized we were living in a camper and traveling the country with my two boys. For the first time in my life there was simply nothing more I was searching for.

 

There are so many lessons and so many memories I will take from this experience that made me feel I was truly *alive.*  Full body, life changing experiences. They are also the hardest to put into words. Living on wheels is a challenge for sure, but no matter what happens this way of life for me anyway is **10 times more rewarding** because it creates deeper experiences and really creates a special bonds within yourself and the people who shared in the experience with you. I now get to share so many of them with Alex.

Lastly, I discovered that traveling fulltime is both a beautiful blessing and curse. When you’re going at it fulltime, you don’t always have the mental capacity to pause and reflect and truly appreciate these experiences the way they deserve. You’re too focused on the schedule ahead and the next experience. As incredible as it was to be traveling months on end, I am now a firm believer in doing everything in moderation. Even when it’s a good thing, you need to take mental breaks, and every once in a while you just need to come home 😉

MAY – AUGUST

After spending our share of time in Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, back to Arizona, then New Mexico – it was April and time to head back to Wisconsin for wedding season <333! We were fortunate to work with 15 lovely couples + meet many more 2020 couples.

We kept our “home on wheels” travelin’ life still going strong back home in Wisconsin,  using each week’s wedding location as our home base for that week or two until the next came along.

Although I likely won’t do it again because it required tons of extra planning and coordination during an already busy wedding season, I am glad that we gave one summer on wheels a go. We were able to check off so much on our bucket list: Apostle Islands, Upper Michigan, the charm of Lake Geneva, +  finally got to check out Duluth where Alex used to live (pics of our Superior trip later down in this post!) We were able to see so much of our home state of Wisconsin + Midwest that we never saw before and might have never had the proper chance.

SOO without further adieux, here are 2019’s loveliest **newlyweds!**

KIM + NICK | CATHEDRAL ROCK | SEDONA, ARIZONA (FROM MARCH 30, 2019 )

MEGAN + DEREK | BLACK SWAN | MILWAUKEE WI | MAY 4 2019

KELSIE + JASON | THE LAGERET | STOUGHTON WI | MAY 24 2019

ALI + FATIMA | SHORES OF LAKE MICHIGAN | WHITEFISH BAY WI | MAY 30 2019

AMBER + RYAN | THE LAGERET | STOUGHTON WI | JUNE 7 2019

LEXIE + JASON | ST JAMES FARM FOREST PRESERVE | WARRENVILLE IL | JUNE 13 2019

LAKE SUPERIOR TRIP

This was the summer of work hard / play hard. During the off-weekends we made the most of it by checking off some long overdue bucket list items. We took a two week trip dedicated to Lake Superior, and involving three different spots: 1) Duluth, MN 2) Apostle Islands, WI and 3) Porcupine Mountains, MI.

Favorite memory: Chasing all the cargo ships coming into Duluth + biking Madeline Island after one two many drinks…but we stumbled upon the quintessential Apostle Island view!♡

 

We then got ourselves stationed at Neshonoc RV Resort near La Crosse – our favorite of all the WI Thousand Trails membership locations (pssst, if you’re going to be doing some fulltime RV traveling I highly recommend looking into a yearly membership through them) We enjoyed the view of the lake and got ourselves ready to photograph wedding #1 of 3 at Burlap and Bells this season. So many of our couples chose the forest to say “I do” and we could NOT have been more on board!

CAITLIN + ROBERT | BURLAP & BELLS | BLACK RIVER FALLS WI | JULY 27 2019

DANIELLE + ANDREW | WHITE OAK CHAPEL | BRILLION WI | AUGUST 3, 2019

GLACIER & BANFF

August marked 3 years of marriage & 10 years of Alex and I being together. I forced myself a year ago to block off this whole entire month so we could set aside time to take a major trip. We went with Alex’s location of choice and lifelong bucket list item — Glacier National Park. I won’t get too much into our time here because I wrote ALLLL about our trip in this blog post here. But basically, this place was insane. Definitely the highlight trip of the year and our new favorite place on EARTHHH. We’ve seen a lot of cool shizz this past year but if I could recommend just ONE place you see, it’s Glacier. HOLY LIFECHANGING.

 

SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER

We came back from our Glacier trip refreshed & ready for a fully packed fall season. 6 weddings in the month of September alone + meeting soo many of my new 2020 couples! I still need to get these lovely weddings on my blog so stay tuned this off season while I play catchup!

CARLY + DAN | MAXWELL MANSION | LAKE GENEVA WI | SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

BEKKA + NATE | BUBOLZ NATURE PRESERVE | APPLETON WI | SEPTEMBER 6, 2019

SARA + ADAM | BURLAP & BELLS | BLACK RIVER FALLS WI | SEPTEMBER 7, 2019

CHRISTINE + MYKAL | HARTMAN CREEK STATE PARK | WAUPACA WI | SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

AUBREE + ELLIOT | BURLAP & BELLS | BLACK RIVER FALLS WI | SEPTEMBER 21, 2019

JORDAN + ZACH | CASTLE FARMS | CHARLEVOIX MI | SEPTEMBER 29, 2019

During this trip to Charlevoix for Jordan & Zach’s wedding we also made a few stops along the way to Mackinac Island and Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes (but don’t go all the way down to the water, unless you want to spend two hours getting back up or pay to be helicoptered out!)

 

We had a month to play catch up on all the editing, and then last not but least we celebrated:

EMILY + DUSTIN | BRIGHTON ACRES | OSHKOSH WI | OCTOBER 26, 2019

+ SHOT MANY ENGAGEMENT SESSIONS AT SOME RAD PLACES

 

+ SHOT AN ANNIVERSARY SESSION WITH AMANDA + JOE BACK WHILE WE WERE IN BANFF

 

+ DAPPLED WITH A FEW FAMILY SESSIONS

 

NOVEMBER – DECEMBER

With the cold weather moving in Alex and I started discussions on what to do next. Another adventure down south, or put the travel trailer in storage and find an apartment around here to bunker down for the winter. For months we weren’t seeing eye to eye and it was so difficult to know what to do. I didn’t want all good things to end. I could have seriously lived on wheels forever. I didn’t know it a couple months ago, but now I know for sure that pauses are good and breaks are necessary. All good things must end– at least temporarily.

Alex has been simply amazing, always. He has encouraged me try out a lot of the things I wanted to do this past few years — like start up a biz and join me in my travel lifestyle, and now it was my turn to ask him what he needed – which was some serious structure and routine. In October we signed a year long lease to an apartment and although I went through a little identity crisis and may have cried a little (read: actually began SOBBING in a Best Buy parking lot on our way to get our cable router LOL), my anxieties quickly subsided when we began actually living in our new space and I realized how NICE it was to have things like a washer/dryer, full size fridge, stove, oven, SHOWER, couch to spread out our legs and hallways to move our feet from one room to the other. The finer things in life 🙂 Boy, looking back at this past year we were REALLY slumming it.

The first few days in our apartment (of course had to add in all the adventure decor/feels as possible).

 

SPONTANEOUS TRIP TO ARIZONA

My newfound love of bunkering down in Wisconsin for the winter was put to the test when our nephew Daniel asked us to join him in a road trip to AZ for a week. Part of me was worried I wouldn’t come back haha. But I am SO happy that we decided to do it. We stayed at the cutest hotel in Scottsdale for the weekend and checked off the Kasha Katuwe Tent Rocks on our way back home in Santa Fe (we happened to miss this gem while traveling through last year)! After Santa Fe I was actually missing home and just so anxious to get back and start decorating our new home for Christmas + get into the holiday spirit.  And just to simply enjoy a season of REST.

 

Right before we left for our trip to AZ we celebrated Alex’s 32nd bday at Lambeau Field (our first time seeing actual STARTERS play!) & ended up being a high scoring and *winning* game vs the Raiders. My sister and I also took a day trip to Madison to see Lana Del Rey, which is now about the only music I listen to while editing. After we got back from Arizona we celebrated my Grandma’s 80th birthday at the casino (and she won big!) and enjoyed the perfect Thanksgiving meal, plus Black Friday + Small Biz Saturday with the girls.

 

We started this Christmas season with a new tradition, Alex and I went to get us our first real tree. We spent a wonderful holiday with family and friends and it felt TWICE as merry as usual (to make up for our last doozy of a Christmas :P)

 

2010-2020, WOAH you were a crazy decade in the best way possible. I met the love of my life, graduated college, adopted our fur child, had multiple career changes, married the love of my life, started a business, took a chance living on wheels, and saw more places in this beautiful country of ours I never knew I’d see in my lifetime. People always ask older people “what were the best year’s of your life?” Well…my 20’s were simply the best + most rewarding years of my life thus far. But I’m hoping (and have a good feeling) there’s still more to this story 😉

Thank you so much to all the friends, fam, couples and vendors that I have worked with this past year and decade! You are all so loved and appreciated! Cheers to the NEW 2020 DECADE!