San Diego Photo Spots

While we were in San Diego, we visited a couple places just to take pictures. And while most of our choices turned out to be amazing, there were a couple that were total fails. Read all about them.

Sunset Cliffs
This is seriously an amazing location. Even if you’re not into taking pictures, you should still come here just to watch the sunset. I definitely suggest walking down further from the road a little bit to really get the cliffs in your pictures. That being said, use your brain and be careful!
When we got there, my husband just let us out and had to drive around for a little bit to find a parking spot. So, if you’re planning to go here, leave yourself plenty of time to park before sunset.

Greetings from San Diego postcard mural in North Park
located outside the Belching Beaver brewery
This is such a cute mural to pose in front of. Especially as a tourist! There were even other people taking pictures while we were there that took our picture for us.

You are Radiant! Mural in North Park
outside the Artelexia store
This one isn’t really my favorite because it’s difficult to find parking and when the sun isn’t just right, it casts a lot of shadows.

Spruce Street Suspension Bridge
This was one of our favorites. The bridge itself is pretty, but it’s just such a fun little walk. And while my son was slightly terrified at first, because some people walk heavy so it swayed at first, he eventually loved it! It is located in a residential area so it’s pretty easy to find parking, just be aware that you are by people’s houses so be courteous.
The views from the bridge itself aren’t really anything special, but we loved it all the same.

Favorite Color Mural in La Jolla
7596 Eads Avenue
This is just a fun little mural full of colors. There was a truck parked right next to it so it was a little difficult to see at first, but we made it work.

One Pointed Attention Mural in La Jolla
7835 Ivanhoe Ave
This mural was inspired by molecular structure and scientific drawings.
It was a little different, but we still enjoyed taking pictures.

Fails:
Secret Swings in La Jolla
While we were there, the swings were not. We couldn’t find them at all. And trust me, we did try. There is an okay view near where people say they are, though.

Scripps Pier in La Jolla
We couldn’t find anywhere to park after driving around for almost 20 minutes so we never even got a picture here.

If you have any other awesome suggestions for photo places near San Diego, leave them in the comments for us to try out the next time we visit.

Free Habit Tracker Download

It's been a while guys! I have been all over the place with homeschool, planning our next trip, and trying to get this holiday season started. But I just made this habit tracker inspired by one I saw on Instagram and I just had to share it with all of you. I'm excited to start developing good habits next year. I want to work out regularly, not go months without creating, and making sure I blog every week.

I'm not sure if you're like me or not, but one thing I love is checking a box. I make a ton of lists and checking something off my list is just so satisfying. It's gotten to the point where I start my list with 'finish making list' just so that I can check it off when I'm done. Pathetic, I know.

Anyway, just in case anyone else would like to join me on my path to better habits, here is what I came up with: Click here for a fully editable version

I Dyed My Hair Purple!

So, there I was, sitting in my living room, looking at the pictures I had just posted on Facebook from a weekend away when I scrolled past one of those Overtone ads. In case you don’t know what Overtone is, it’s like a hair dye. But you dye your hair crazy colors (like pink or purple or blue). And it looks like hair creme as opposed to normal hair dye. And before I knew it, I was dreaming of crazy colors.

Ah! I’m 29. I’m not some teenager that can just do whatever they want to their hair...right? Well, I’m an adult. I CAN do what I choose. And I choose to embrace the crazy in my life and go for a new color.

Backstory: I haven’t touched my hair with dye of any kind in over 10 years. I used to highlight, lowlight, full on dye my hair whenever the mood took me when I was a teenager. I never did anything crazy. They were always natural colors. But then I got pregnant and I had heard that you’re not supposed to dye your hair while you’re pregnant. So I didn’t. Then we were poor. Then some woman that was cutting my hair made me feel disgusting because my roots were too far out to just need maintenance, but not far enough out to look like it was done on purpose. Needless to say, I never went back there again. And I decided I just wanted natural hair so that I didn’t have to worry about it. So I grew it out. And I grew it out. And I grew it out. My hair has been completely natural from root to tip for over 5 years.

But the desire has struck! I need that dye job. So, I decided to go with something a little low maintenance (so that when it grows out, it DOES look like I did it on purpose). Here’s where I decided on a Balayage.

But I had some questions. And I needed a new stylist. The one I had gone to for a couple years just wasn’t doing it for me. Seriously, I have the worst luck with stylists. They either complain about how much and how heavy my hair is or they just don’t talk that much. Some of them simply don’t know how to work with my hair (it’s super thick and fairly long) so the cut they put in it, doesn’t work for me. And while some have clearly been worse than others (hello, woman who told me my dye was terrible), I just haven’t really connected with anyone. And while the lady I was with for a couple years did an okay job with my cut, I had ZERO confidence in her ability to dye my hair properly.

I looked. I researched. I found pictures of hair people had done before, and I settled on a couple girls from Fringe in Bloomington, IL. They seemed young and modern and willing. So I called to make an appointment for one of them to just cut my hair first. I went in, and got a couple inches taken off. The girl was so nice!! And she did a great job on my hair. I asked questions and she seemed knowledgeable. So we started talking about the dye job I might want done. She gave me some advice. And I booked my appointment for Wednesday, September 18th at 11am to get my hair done.

This is what my hair looked like before I went into the salon that day:

She highlighted my hair and then put a lavender toner on top of that. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, 3 hours and $300 later, I was done. That may sound extravagant to some, but I have some crazy thick, long hair. And it was totally worth it! Check it out!

Even though I loved my hair, it wasn’t exactly what I had asked for. In reality, I wanted an ombre look and I for sure didn’t get that. Lucky for me, I did like the way my hair looked in the end. However, I was incredibly disappointed when all the purple was gone after only 3 washes. I payed so much money! And for what? Not what I asked for and the purple was gone only a couple weeks later. Well, I decided to order Overtone (you’ve probably seen the ads on Facebook). Check out that post in a couple weeks to see how it works.

Claude Monet Water Lilies Project

With school starting soon, I'm looking back on our end-of-year art project from 3rd grade. I decided it would be great to look at Claude Monet and his impressionist paintings.

First, we watched this YouTube video to learn more about Claude Monet.

Then, we watched this YouTube video about impressionism.

Finally, we watched this YouTube video specifically about the water lilies.

For the project, I followed the instructions HERE for the pond part. I let him choose which colors he wanted to use. After all, this is all about impressionism. So I wanted this to be his impression of a pond.

We cut out a large shape from an old cardboard box.
Then, he painted it using a spoon. He had so much swirling the paint around to look like waves and ripples in the water.

We set it to the side for a couple days to let it dry.
Then, we made the water lilies. He cut out lily shapes and I helped him make some pretty lilies. He attached everything to his pond.

And, voila! Here is the finished project!

Travel Shirts

I'm currently dreaming about all the awesome things my son and I are going to do on our 2 week roadtrip. I'm a little nervous because it's going to be just the two of us. Normally, my husband would be joining us, but he just couldn't take that much time off work so I decided to brave it on my own.

So, speaking of traveling, I made some cute shirts for our last trip. We'll be bringing a couple of these with us again so I thought I would show you what I've made!

Some of these, I designed myself in Design Space. I hope these can inspire some travel shirts for you!