Hogsmeade Tour

It's finally here! :D Our tour of the most magical place on earth: Hogsmeade Village!

We first had to walk through a good portion of the Islands of Adventure park, with all of it's different themes and attractions to get there, but we payed no attention that first day. We headed straight towards Hogsmeade. It was the whole reason we went! We were so darn excited with our first view of everything! We could see the Hogwarts Express, Zonko's, Honeyduke's, Dervish and Bange's, Ollivander's, The Three Broomsticks, and off in the distance- Hogwarts! :D

And this is where our tour begins.


Awww, excited Yeti! :D

 We stopped quickly at a few of the shops, bought some chocolate frogs and Every Flavor Beans from Honeydukes,  

An extendable ear and a pygmy puff from Zonkos, before going back out to fight the crowd and heat on our journey to Hogwarts.

Once we finally got to the entrance, and stood in line for an eternity or five- this was it, we were about to be in freaking Hogwarts! :D 

This was us as we were walking inside for the first time:

SO stoked!! :D

First walking in, we saw some awesome statues and the staircase to Dumbledore's office (tear!). The designers did such an amazing job making everything look real! It genuinely felt just like you were there.

Then, after a series of winding hallways and corridors, you get to Dumbledore's office. All of the rooms were just stuffed with the coolest, most realistic looking HP memorabilia ever, as well as hollographic projections of some of the characters, and of course- the famous music playing!

Don't pretend you're not humming it in your head right now :P

I can't actually remember the order of the rest of the castle, heh, so here are the other pics:

Those pictures really moved and talked! :D

After the big tour through Hogwarts, you get to the actual ride! It was genuinely the funnest thing I think I've ever done, haha. It goes on a big virtual adventure with Harry, featuring dementors, the womping willow, long terrifying broom dives, a room full of massive spiders and all of their babies- one even spits on you (ack!) and tons more. Every time the screen dove down towards the ground, we really felt like we were falling and raised our feet up and everything, haha. It was a crazy blast. After we got off, we bought some things at Filch's Emporium of Confiscated Goods, bought full matching Gryffindor robes and scarf sets from Dervish and Banges, as well as wands from Ollivanders :P I got Luna Lovegood's, and Calvin the elderwand. After all of this, our stomach's were a' rumblin, so we got lunch atttttt

The Three Broomsticks!

:D 

At all of the different shops and eating establishments, the employees were dressed in full costume, and the Three Broomsticks was no different. We got fish 'n chips, roasted chicken and corn, and of course, butterbeer! If you're wondering what butterbeer tastes like, it was like a butterscotch flavored cream soda- or icee- whichever you prefered. Totally delicious for the first and second drinks- totally overpoweringly sweet after that. But still, its cool to say we got to try it :P

Honestly, it makes me a little sad to recount all of this to you guys, because it was seriously one of the funnest, most romantic, genuinely carefree times I've ever had. I miss it. The weather, albeit cloudy, was very warm and wet and lovely. I'm so used to this dry Colorado wind. Everything went just almost perfectly, and we couldn't have asked for a better honeymoon. Thank you Mom for helping get everything booked, and Mom and Dad for our wonderful wedding present- the plane tickets and money that allowed us to do this! We are eternally greatful. 

And thank you readers, for going on this tour with us today :P 

Next I'll be featuring the other side of Universal Studios- 

until then, have a beautiful day.

:) 

Nerd Life

We

may

have

geeked

a

little

hard

for

the

Deathly

Hallows

pt. 2

midnight

premier

:D

Mornings

While I know we're not a fairytale, I am nothing less than enchanted.

Countless bright white and pink lit mornings, our hair tangled and matted in each other's. Mouths open and dry with sleep, minds fuzzy with half remembered dreams and movie reel figment memories. Our first sight reflected in each other's clear blue eyes, lips cracking chapped smiles.


This is how I will remember this summer.

Jonesin' for Quotes

We're back everyone! :D

Those six days spent with my Yeti at Hogwarts, were literally the best I've had so far. It was magical and so hot and sometimes scary and fun and romantic. As it turns out, I totally love the wet blanket heat that is the Florida atmosphere, and I can't wait to save up enough to go back! I've been swamped catching up at work, so I haven't had time to get pictures uploaded and edited on my old clunker of a computer. But, while meadering the internet today, I found some amazing quotes I wanted to share with you!

Coming back to real life after such an amazing time has been a little difficult, but it has made me see what a huge waste we've been making of our time. Life can be fun and sometimes scary and exciting EVERY day if you work hard enough at it, so no longer will I be dragging my feet, just getting by. I feel a change in the wind, readers. The world feels ablaze with new opportunities and honestly, I feel really very hopefully for the first time in a long time.

Oh my gosh, I could not agree more.

I have, by no means, a difficult job as a receptionist. Millions of people just like me around the world do the same thing and get along just fine, and while I think that's totally alright for them, it's really been wearing me down. Emotionally, as well as physically. I've been getting stress headaches almost every day for a while now, and I'm just at the end of my rope. I find it completely draining to live each day without passion and creativity. I want a bright future. I want color and violent hand-shaking passion. It just so hard to be brave when your familys' well-being is on the line. I know I am protected though, and my story is written flawlessly, I won't fear.

A lot of what inspired this way that I am feeling, nerdily enough, was Harry Potter. We saw the 12:00AM premiere of The Deathly Hallows pt. 2, and don't worry, I won't spoil it for you, but it was epic. It made me realize, that while having fun watching movies and reading stories is okay, and even good sometimes, I have been living my adventure vicariously through fictional characters. I want my own epics, and adventures, and stories. I want to carve out a mark for myself in this life, rather then just float in the streams. I've felt so fruitless and uninspired lately, but this is where I change that. Slowly and surely, I AM GOING TO make changes. I will not procrastinate, be afraid, or logic this feeling away. If you've seen HP 7 pt. 2, then you'll understand when I say that I want to be a Neville.

True, that.

Have a beautiful, inspired day everyone.

See you with pictures real soon :)

All quote images found here.

Hogwarts Honeymoon!

Hey everyone, sorry I've been slacking on posts the past couple of days, it's been a little frantic around here. We've been packing and planning and replanning and more packing foooorrr: Hogwarts! :D Well, the closest we can get to hogwarts at least, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios :) We're leaving for the airport any minute, I just wanted to let everyone know what was happening and say ttfn!
We're beinging the laptop, so hopefully I'll still be able to do blog posts, but if not, see you in 5 or so days!
xoxoxox,
Grace

P.S. Get used to pictures like this one:

:D

Do the Loco-motion!

Happy Friday, readers! 

Honestly, is there anything better than a warm sunny Friday where you know you have the whole weekend ahead of you? Erm, maybe some things, but it's still pretty great :)

The other night, the fabulous Ms. Vikki found this super great spot along the train tracks to take pictures, and be goofy and giggle and generally have a great time. We lugged out my big old Sony DSC-H5 to take them with, since my good little camera is still sick :( Next to the tracks there was also a whole old warehouse covered in the coolest darn graffeti ever.

Despite how I look in that picture, I am not super ripped, haha. I have actually been very scrawny and a little undeveloped my whole life. I've worn the same shoe size since middle school, and didn't lose my first tooth until I was 8. I talk a big game though :)

I believe you're only as tough as the ferocity inside of you.

Charm and wit and looks are great if you are blessed with them, but that deep down strength to get through whatever lies in your path is, to me, real character. Someday, I want to get the words 'True Grit' on my knuckles just as a reminder not to lose that :)

We took some pictures of Vikki too while we were there, and I think they turned out pretty darn great. She's so beautiful its ridiculous :P

Not to mention totally hilarious and my best lady friend :) Look at that hair! It's like a cascading river of gold, haha. Speaking of beautiful people, our blog has officially hit 25 followers! :D I appreciate it so much, it is so darn flattering to know that 25 people in this world care what I have to say.

Not only that, but every last one of you is sweet and kind and some have crazy great blogs of your own! I'm so happy to be a part of your day, all of you. I mean it :)

I was mid-talking in that top one in case you couldn't tell :P

I wore some random Ross dress, a vintage leather braided belt, Target flats, and a vintage studded leather bag that I bought for 3.99 and totally adore. It was such a nice, comfy outfit for this amazing hot-but-not-too-hot with a side of breeze weather. We leave for Universal in 6 days! I can't guarantee the Florida heat won't kill me, and my hair will be an awful fuzzy mess, but boy am I excited!

For any new readers out there, Vikki is my sister-in-law. She's a little younger than us, but mature and super sweet and cute and creative. She moved into our downstairs about a month or so ago due to some family issues, and its been so nice to have her. A lot of people have been saying that it's a not a great idea to have her live with us since we're newlyweds, etc. but honestly, it's been a breeze. She's clean and nice and it's like having a sleepover every night :)

Yes, I am a nerd that still collects rocks. I really liked this one, heh. I looks like a teeny meteor :)

I realize all of the poses in this picture are almost the same, they were just all too pretty to choose from! :)

Some of these pictures were taken right as a train was going by, which was both scary and awesome :) It seems a  little crazy that locomotion still exists though! I've never been on a train before except those little sight-seeing ones in the mountains. Thats a new item on my to-do list- take a train somewhere!

Thank you so much for reading!

It makes me all proud and mushy to get your sweet comments :)

I hope you all have a wonderful,

stupendous, crazy beautiful day.

I'll leave you with this one last picture, my favorite picture of the whole night, lol:

bahaha :D