her lovely dream.

You know what I love? I love life’s little instances where you realize you are in the exact place you should be, at the exact time you should be there. Where it seems the cosmos have aligned just for you in that exact moment of time. For example, last Friday night, Chris and I were scouring over some racks at a local thrift shop with my brother and his GF, looking hunting for the PERFECT ugly sweater for our trip to Tahoe for NYE this weekend. We’re throwing an ugly sweater party on Friday night as a pre-cursor to our fabulous bash we’re throwing on NYE. Well, in one exact moment, our wedding song came on {the song I walked down the aisle to: Brett Dennen’s “The One Who Loves You The Most” - if you haven’t heard it…go listen to it!} and I found the most PERFECT ornament for our 1st married Christmas together {and it was only $1!} I don’t know what it was - but it was one of those pure moments when you take notice of just how right everything feels in the universe. It was amazing! The four of us had a good laugh at how everything lined up so wonderfully in those 2 minutes of time and here I am, still thinking about that perfect little moment 5 days later. 

Merry Christmas Eve to you all! I hope you are having a splendidly wonderful day, wherever you may be. This time of year is my absolute favorite; surrounded by those you hold close, mistletoe, home-baked cookies, beautiful decorations and colorful chistmas trees. I just can’t get enough of Christmas this year! 

This will be mine and C’s first official “married” Christmas together and we couldn’t be more excited! Today we’ll be hanging at my mom’s house with all of her side of the family and some of our close family friends. This is one of my favorite family traditions. I can’t think of how many years it’s been now that I have spent Christmas Eve with my amazingly {huge} family and I love it even more each year! 

Tomorrow, C and I have a perfect Christmas Day planned; we plan on sleeping in, opening gifts with each other in our pajamas, making a {ginormous} Christmas breakfast, and then lounging for the rest of the day. We’ll most likely watch {many} movies, bake delicious snacks, and nap before heading over to my “other parent’s” house for an delicious crab feed dinner! Holy wow - I can’t wait to just eat my heart out! 

Below are a few glances into what our past week has looked like around here. There’s been lots of frosty cold mornings, snuggles, napping, baking, forgotten fall leaves, and Christmas decorating. We’re absolutely in love with this time of year.

I hope you all have the most amazing Christmas. May it bring you all of the joy, peace, and happiness one could ever need. Happy Christmas!

It’s been a lengthy and artificial relationship, but I am happy to finally say that after 8 long, tumultuous years, Facebook and I have decided to call it quits!

I’m free! I have officially and happily dumped Facebook! I can’t tell you how often I have thought about doing this over the past 6 months or so. The only thing that’s been holding me back has been my uneasiness about losing touch with friends that live really far away, but I’ve since realized that this is not a viable reason to consistently allow my boredom to overtake my computer screen. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I would end up on Facebook and not even remember how I got there, or what my purpose was to even be on the internet…it was getting out of hand. Also, there’s something really liberating about not having my life plastered onto a page for my “friends” to see. If they want to “see” what’s going on in my life, they can come here…and look at pretty pictures.

My ultimate goal is to open up my own photography business, so I may eventually make it back to Facebook if not only to have a business page for “Melissa Lynn Photography” - but that’s definitely a future endeavor.

The past year and a half has been the most intense time of my life…and it’s only going to continue to be crazy if I allow it to be. I’ve decided to set myself some very small, measurable goals because it’s the only way I’m going even make a dent in my much larger goals. I’ve got to start small, and work my way up. I need to disconnect, recharge and reboot. It’s time to focus on Melissa. I deserve just as much if not more attention than I give to those around me. In order to be the best wife, the best friend, or the best daughter, I need to focus on being the BEST me I can be.

Feel like you need a recharge too? Come along with me and let’s give each other the support we both deserve and need! 

Hey everyone! I’m back with the remainder of some of our honeymoon pictures. This was our 3rd stop on our adventure {after we left Disney World, we headed to NYC to finish off our trip} and was by far the most exciting! We spent 4 days in lovely New York City and saw every inch of it that we could possibly squeeze in. I didn’t lug my big camera around all that much because it rained A LOT, but fortunately the day we decided to stop by Occupy Wall St., I had it with me. I LOVE shooting this type of scene. It was fascinating to watch all of the people protesting for whatever view-point they had…and trust me, there were people of all ages, races, sizes, and occupations…it was mind-blowing! Chris and I spent quite a bit of time walking around and just people watching. 

{note: I personally choose to not voice my opinion about the Occupy Wall St. protests on this blog; I just think politics are better left for face-to-face conversation.}

While we were in NYC, we stayed in the Upper East Side in an apartment we found on homeaway.com…if you haven’t heard of it, you should SERIOUSLY check it out…it’s really the only way that C and I like to travel. It saves you money, you get the pick of what necessities you require, and best of all you get to immerse yourself within the culture around you, rather than stay in a stuffy hotel with a bunch of other tourists. Honestly, it’s so worth it! C and I have traveled through Home Away MANY times…and we absolutely LOVE it. 

{all opinions expressed above are solely my own.}

Hope you enjoy the rest of some of our honeymoon photos. And most of all, I hope you’re enjoying your holidays. Cheers!

{at my one of my favorite spots…Rockefeller Plaza.}