Monday, December 31, 2012

Meet Tom...He's BRITISH :)



If you've known me for a while then you know I kind of have this crazy love for all things British!
I have a Union Jack footrest in my living room along with a pillow and a serving tray.
Of course my love runs deeper than house accessories.
I also have a thing for British guys, I mean hello who can turn down a 
charming, witty British guy....and then there's the accent.....
I mean stop me if I'm wrong but we all know I'm not! :)

So what's this blog post all about....I mean get to the point Emily.
Well recently I may have found someone who meets all of my British guy qualities.
Tall, handsome, funny, loves his mum, and likes telling jokes.
{yes those are qualities i look for} 

A few weeks ago I eagerly went to check my mail knowing there was a letter in there from him
and behold there was indeed a letter.
So what does this all mean?

long story short
{I HAVE A BRITISH PENPAL}
well......he's turning out to be a bit more than that :-)

His name is Thomas William Francis Wright III...but I just call him Tom, Tom-Tom, Tom-cat, 
The Tominator...Hot Tomale....and other things like devilishly handsome and charming!
He's 22 {my age}.
He's from Liverpool, England.
He's somewhere between 6'3 and 6'4.
He's hilarious.
He's attractive.
He's as sweet as can be.
He likes travel and adventures.
And he's probably reading this blog post right now.

How we met: 
It was on a silly penpal website that neither
 of us thought would lead to a real friendship...
YES we met online....call me crazy but it's really not that uncommon these days,
PLUS how else am I supposed to find a handsome British fella
while living between Arkansas and Texas.

The letters:
So far they are just telling each other a little bit more about ourselves.
There are letter writing rules. It must be handwritten, there must be some sort of doodle {picture} drawn and you have to put a little surprise in the letter, something small that the other person can keep!

{Tom to Emily}
{British penny from 1947}

{Emily to Tom}
{Sparkly glittery cupcake ornament, I sent this fully knowing his dislike for glitter}

SKYPE:
AND get this...Not only are we penpals, but we also have Skates. 
A *skate is a Skype Date.
We've had 3 so far and each one has lasted longer than the one before it.

The first one was an ice breaker, we were both nervous and it ended up being pretty awkward.....although still really good.

The Second skate was almost 2 hours long and we just chatted like old friends it was pretty amazing.
The 3rd skate was over 2 hours long...girly sigh...and at one point i met his wonderful mum for like 10 seconds...we are going to have a more formal meeting later :-)

The 4th Skate was today and it was AMAZING as usual, he even did a magic trick for me hahaha!!! :-D

It's important to see an online friend face to face before getting too attached,
to make sure you know who you're really talking to!
You'll be happy to know that he is in fact a normal scruffy 22 year old British guy!!! :-)

 {Let there be proof!!!}
{Now you know why I get girly sighs.......there's an accent behind that face}
and yes I am wearing a multi-colored plaid shirt....you know you love it!

I wish I could tell you everything we talk about in this 
one blog post but then what would you have to look forward to?
I plan on making Tom a frequent blogging topic ;) I mean do you blame me?
Plus who knows....one day....in the near future....he might come see me in TEXAS :)
Yea....you heard that right, there have been talks about it :-)
hmmmm.....if that doesn't wet your appetite for more I don't know what will...

Isn't this so exciting, I sure think so!
To keep up with this Tom sitch you will have to keep up with this blog :) 
Have I got you completely roped in yet??? Hope so ;)

Hope you're all having a splendid day, I know I am!

-Emily

Vivaldi at St. Chapelle


Vivaldi's Four Seasons at St. Chapelle 

Excerpt from Travel Blog this past Spring 2012
Ah Vivaldi....what a genius he is! So last night basically our whole group went to St. Chapelle which is a Church in Paris where all of the walls are covered with stain glass windows...as you can see below.
We paid 16 euro for one of the best concerts i have ever seen...no really it was amazing..you can listen to some of it in the Youtube clip below. It was so magical to hear that gorgeous music and then to look around at the beautiful stained glass windows and i can only describe it as simply fantastic....see for yourself!!!
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Castle Hunting in the Loire Valley

This is a video of our Castle adventure....when i think of castles i think of ireland and not france....but the Loire Valley proved me wrong....very wrong :) we saw some beautiful castles and at the second one which is Amboise Castle is where Leonardo Da Vinci is buried....awesome right??? yea totally awesome :) also the music in this is from Downton Abbey....and it's beautiful....yet another reason to go watch it!!!!!


-Emily

London Part 2

Here's a post from our trip to London This past spring

LONDON day three,four&five
Day 3 - March 31st
Oxford and Stratford-upon-avon

Saturday morning we all woke up knowing it was going to be a long...but enjoyable day. Looking at the calendar we left at 8 and wouldn't get back to the hotel until around midnight...good thing i wore my walking shoes!
We loaded onto a personal bus and took off towards Oxford! Now the only things i know about Oxford is that there is a University there and a lot of Harry Potter scenes were shot there...and Emma Watson lives there, And I came away knowing a little bit more about the school...which is an impressive institute, and a little bit more about the town itself!

Oxford University!
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After our City tour we had about an hour to wonder around...and of course us girls did some shopping, we all bought Oxford sweatshirts that had the Crew emblem on it, so we can show off back in the states.....yea...After that we headed over to a little place called The Eagle and Child which some of you might know and some of you might not know...Well the Eagle and Child is a pub that had been part of an endowment belonging to University College since the 17th century. It has associations with the Inklings writers' group which included J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. Yea so C.S. Lewis ate here....maybe wrote here....talked to other famous people here....kind of crazy!
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After Lunch we hopped on the bus and headed towards the hometown of Shakespeare!! 
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YES, mid afternoon snack...milkshakes from Moo Moo's which has THE BEST milkshake i think iv'e ever had....it was delish!
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after milkshakes we headed here....the picture above is shakespeare's house where he was born and lived as a child...it was pretty neat to walk through and they had actors throughout the property making things.....interesting haha!!
Later after the house tour we went to dinner and THEN....we went to see the tempest aka a shakespeare play...it was pretty good i mean seeing a shakespeare play in his hometown by the royal shakespeare company.....i mean that's incredible!! Super fun day :)

Day four
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Westminster abbey for church, yes where will and kate were married...sigh..had wedding flashbacks the whole time :)
we then went to lunch at a little pub...little did we know they were filming the new james bond movie right behind it....like james bond....judy dench was apparently in the car shooting a scene...kind of amazing!!! 
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After lunch we went to kensington Palace and walked around :) and later in the day we just kind of got to hang out and rest!

Day 5
So this was our last day and we wanted to see the changing of the guards so....we did haha we went over to Buckingham Palace and stood for about an hour till it started....and you know it's not that interesting but its something you have to do :) i enjoyed the music especially the lional ritchie throwback they played haha!! :)

thanks for reading.
-Emily


Travel Post, London Part 1


LONDON day one&two


This is an excerpt from my blog while traveling in London, England

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Ah London, the city of.....of....well a lot of things! we arrived in London via the Chunnel from Paris yesterday around ten in the morning. We dropped our bags off and began a tour of the city with our tour guides Lauren and Tyler...yes our directors/generals/leaders were our tour guides which is appropriate since they live here when there not with a school group! Now we walk to the british museum, we find an outdoor market we just kind of beebop all over town until it's time to check into our hotel. After checking in we get dressed for the night and then head out for dinner at Pizza Express which ended up being delicious :) 
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After dinner we headed to the West end to see the Musical production of Billy Elliot which was fantastic...I mean it's kind of sad to watch a kid who's like 12 dance so much better than you could ever dream for yourself...he was fantastic...as was the whole show. Simply Amazing!!
We headed back to the hotel and all crashed for the night.

Day2
Wake up and head to St. Paul's Cathedral...you know the one where Princess Diana and Charles were married at....
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Yea, kind of exciting and by kind of i mean i was kind of geeking out the whole time....This cathedral didn't allow pictures inside but i can tell you it's gorgeous, if you ever ever get a chance to go then do it!!!
After St. Pauls we headed over to..........Shakespeare's Globe theater which is pretty neat!
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We had a tour around the Theater and learned lots about it like for instance that it was erected in 1997...i came in thinking it was older than that but it's supposed to look exactly like the old one so it was indeed really neat!
After the Globe we headed to an outdoor market for lunch, i got a meat pie, chicken and peppers and stuff it was pretty good, for a drink we all got this...
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Most of us got an apple cranberry drink which was..so delicious!
Then Finally we headed over to Primark which is a shopping store...Lauren told us before we went that it was cheap chic clothes and that we would probably pee our pants when shopping inside because they have so much cute stuff...and she was right....
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i was incredibly overwhelmed because there was SO MUCH! i ended up getting 2 pairs of shoes, some skinny jeans, a pretty salmon colored floor length skirt, a cream blouse, a ring and a hair accessory all for 48 pounds..which is pretty impressive...now please don't convert that into dollars or i won't feel as good about it! ;)


Anyways that's been London so far, were here till monday so keep a look out for more Blogs to come!

-Emily

To Ski or not to Ski...Travel Post From Switzerland


Here is an excerpt from my blog while studying abroad in Europe Spring 2012

Alright...those of you who know me really well know about my ski "incident" in Breckenridge, sophomore ski trip, super embarrassing...it involved a ski rack.....it involved me crashing into a ski rack and having 100's of people run to my rescue. Once rescued this giant man who pulled me out from under all the ski's asked me if i played football because it was so amazing that i had survived a crash like that...and i said no i don't play football...said this all while my goggles were fogging up because of my tears.....

All of this of course happened while all my best friends were watching....they remind me of it quite frequently...as they should...it keeps me humble.

It is indeed my most embarrassing moment to date...

so that was my first ski experience and after that incident i swore off skiing all together, never again....OH hey guess what were going skiing in the swiss alps....Surely i will be better in the swiss alps......the swiss alps....the mountains of switzerland..............

i mean in my head i was thinking to myself that today was going to be a disaster....maybe a few run's down the bunny hill then off to find somewhere to sit for the afternoon.....but that was not the case....no, no it was NOT....i was actually pretty good at it.....once i learned how to fall and get back up i started going down the bunny hill without falling or anything...it was easy!! 

so naturally i'm a competitive person...even with myself and i thought...you know what, why not try the next one...the next hill...WHY NOT....so i did!!! I went down the blue hill which is the easiest level but still...i made it past ski school...i was so proud...ALSO blue and easy don't really mean anything when your skiing in the swiss alps..we decided that the "blue" level in the alps was equal to the semi experienced level in colorado....this was not a baby hill it was a mountain and i was skiing down it...
I WAS SKIING DOWN A MOUNTAIN

You have no idea how proud i was of myself!! I went with Ali and Dillon, who were both first time skiers and they did really well....we all wiped out quite a few times but honestly is was so fun, i was slightly addicted to it for a while....then i slammed into a snow bank and thought i broke my knee and i was over it...i was done...finished....took my ski's off and walked down to the ski lift which was only a few feet off because i slammed into the snow bank at the bottom of the hill so i did indeed make it down part of the mountain. 

-Emily


Free Travel {Italia}

This is an excerpt from my Travel Blog When we went to Milan Italy

March 1 2012 (wait.....its already march????) 

Ciao, meaning hello in Italian haha Ok, so i'll start at the beginning, this morning we all woke up and went out into europe as children...well we are now adults and let me tell you why.....FIRST of all our train this morning was leaving at 6:15...so we made plans to be ready to be on a metro by 5...well much to our surprise the metro doesn't even open till 5:30 and thats at the first stop....glaciere (which is our stop) is in the middle of the line....so were standing there out on the street at 5 in the morning in Paris.....trying to hail a taxi......we soon learned that waving your hand half heeartedly at the taxi would not make it stop for you....thankfully clay stepped up and got us one.....he was a real nice man and his car was super clean.....these are not typical yellow cabs but like......bmw taxis......so it was nice....we made it to the train station on time thank goodness...got on our train and headed towards zurich switzerland which was our stop where we had to switch trains....we get to zurich and panic sets in again as we did not validate our ticket from zurich to milan....only our tickets from paris to zurich....so we started looking for a validation stand and there was none to be found.....long story short if you get on a train without your ticket being validated then you are looking at a fine....and that was not what we wanted....luckily we had our eurorail passes and that with the ticket was enough...so off to milan right??? wrong....we were supposed to make it all the way to milan on this one train...there were no more scheduled stops....so imagine our confusion as the train stops at a station and they tell everyone to get off and get on another line....this was not the plan so we had to make sure that the other train was headed in the right direction.....we get on it and in fact it was right....we were finally headed to milan....once in milan we find out that the reason our train stopped was because the railway went on STRIKE haha which caused all of the trains to stop and all of the people needing trains to get in a really really long line so that they could get tickets for another time...we needed tickets to get to venice soooo we stood in the line but i had noticed that there were machines that would print your tickets so we went over to one....found out it would do english and ended up purchasing 4 tickets to venice for tomorrow, for only 17 euro each....we were very proud of ourselves....disaster avoided!!! now off to milan....finally..haha we got on the metro which is a lot shakier than the one in paris and found ourselves feeling a little paris homesick haha but we made it to the duomo which was our stop to find the hostel.....we walk around find the hostel (great great hostel) the staff are so kind and its just a really fun place!!! It's called ostello bello :) anyways we get settled and then head out....we go to the duomo and my goodness this is the most spectacular thing....if you think its big on the outside you will flip on the inside......its absolutely amazing!!!! after the duomo we get our first italian gelato....which if i must say is MUY BUENO :) sooooooo good....we got fragola i think which is strawberry and it was.....just sooo good :) after gelato we needed real food...we found a swanky italian restaurant and ate there...i had pasta with meat sauce and it was literally the best thing i have put in my mouth in a few weeks!!!! :) We ended the night watching downton abbey on the terrace of our hostel :) if you haven't watched that show watch it....its so good and were all addicted!!!! :)

SO....it's been crazy...we've had ups and downs but we made the best out of all of it and really ended up enjoying a wonderful day in italia :) Headed to venice tomorrow....will blog soon :)
arrivederci ;)
Emily

Travel Blog {South of France}



{This is an excerpt from my Travel Blog while studying in France}

February 2nd 2012



We are here we are here :) It has been a crazy couple of days...First of all let me tell you about flying...now i am that person who has only flown to 2 places in my life, so flying across the world was a bit nerve-racking....but i survived and actually enjoyed most of it :) Our first flight was hard and easy, it was hard because we had to say our goodbyes and easy because well....a 2 hour flight to atlanta....not bad at all....now atlanta to Paris is a whole other story...we were on the place for close to 10 hours...i mean i'm used to lazing around the house for that long but it's different o a plane....but all in all not too bad :) and the food on the plane....the food was REALLY REALLY delicious haha yes plane food is sort of good, i was impressed :) we had chicken and sweet potatoes and green beans, a little roll with butter, some cheese and a salad....i did not however eat the salad :P yuck!!!! so FINALLY we land in Paris and we are all super exhausted...me and sam go exploring and find a place that sells snacks....that's where we find a nice man who thinks we are the MOST WONDERFUL HUMANS HE HAS EVER MET....he loved us!!! Asked us where we were from so we said texas and his response was "Oh i love texas i love texas women you beautiful women (insert awkward blushing here) oh you know bush?? george bush??? yea oh we love americans especially pretty ones" hahaha he was our favorite :) also it was FREEZING in Paris...i could see my nose breath.........yea...........so then get on the plane and head to Nice, get to Nice still super exhausted....we drop our stuff off at the hotel and go get dinner...i had pizza haha it was marguerite pizza and it was HUGE...we really need to learn how to ask portion sizes haha!!! so then head back to the hotel, me and sam are roomies as usual :) we have a cute little room with two beds a closet a bathroom a small kitchen (that doesn't work) and an awesome view from the balcony :) last night i slept alright...i woke up around 4 in the morning which is really 9 at night back home and my body was like why are you sleeping you crazy....get up....i did not however go anywhere...just layer in bed till i fell asleep again :) then this morning we had breakfast....i ate frosted flakes which are called frosties here....yea yea yea i ate cereal my first morning in france get overrr itttt :) haha after breakfast we met with our tour guide cecilia, she was fantastic...she showed us around the whole city...we went to the ocean and to the new area of town and the old area of town :) It's all soooo pretty!!! :) then we ate lunch....lunch was interesting...it was a plate with like 10 different Nice cuisines on it and i can't say it was wonderful it was interesting to say the least...after lunch they let us loose...YES they let us roam the city alone and we did a fantastic job of it...i mean clearly i'm back at the hotel so it all worked out well :) we went to the top of this hill...took like millions of stairs i almost died (asthma) poor lungs....but finally we made it to the top and had a breathtaking view of Nice which is what you see in the picture above. You could see EVERYTHING and it was just absolutely wonderful!! after than we found a small convenience store and bought some nesseities we left in our luggage....made my first purchase with euros....it went really well!! :) after that we headed to a museum and did the museum thing then we came back to the room to relax for a bit....i have never walked that much in my life and i'm sure of it....we walked for a good 10 hours today at least....anyways we chilled in the room for a while then headed out for dinner on our own, we found a little cuban restaurant and we ate that for dinner...some meat with veggies and banana's and cheese on top...it was strangely good :) also i had fruit and the fruit over here doesn't bother my allergies like the fruit in america....so that was nice :) SO anyways now we are back at the hotel ready to sleep....we have to wake up around 7:00 tomorrow to get ready to leave for cannes :) another walking tour tomorrow then were staying in avignon tomorrow night :) thanks for reading....more to come later!!! :) also mom and dad thanks for giving me the amazing opportunity, it's going to be the most amazing time of my life :) love y'all and i also love anyone else reading this!!!!

à bientôt
Emily :)


Friday, December 28, 2012

Easy Art Tutorial


I have a tutorial for you, to show you how to make 
fantastic art peices for your walls without spending $50+

{See how good it turned out}
I went to hobbslobbs {hobby lobby} today looking for something 'Texasy' to send Tom in my next letter, and i should of known i couldnt just go into hobbslobbs without buying anything else...
I ended up carrying around 3 posters and a foam board for like a solid hour, contemplating how i was going to make it work, and where i was going to put it.
I knew however that i had to have it because it was all 50% off...and i just can't pass that up...
I bought three vertical fashion posters with the image of a painted dress on each poster...the posters themselves are flimsy and look bad if you just hang them directly on the wall, i wanted there to be a little bit of sturdiness behind them, and thats when i passed the foam board...
I got a giant foam board for $5 bucks, make sure your posters will fit on the board to your liking!
Brought all of this home and sat on the wood floor in the living room with scissors, a box cutter and modge podge glue...i started by cutting the poster because there was a white edge at the bottom with words and i didnt want that in the finished product.
Then i layed the poster onto the foam board and traced around it so that it would fit the back of the poster perfectly. I then picked up the box cutters and thought my mother was going to pass out because i was still sitting on her wood floor ;) She grabbed me a scrap of wood from the garage and layed it under the board....good idea so you dont cut the floor or yourself...
then i just cut the board out and covered it in modge podge, finally i layed the poster perfectly squared on the board so no edges were showing, smoothed it out and started on the next one :)
SO SO EASY and it looks so good when your done :)
I put them over my bed and it changed the look of my whole room, i am so in love with them!!!

In the end it was very cheap
3 dress posters = $18.00 all together
1 large foam board = $5.00
Total spent $23.00

Hope this is helpful to you crafty and non crafty people, it really is very easy,
anyone can and should do it :)

-Emily