Big News

                                         {Can't find the sources from these images. All from Pinterest}



Nothing is official.
But I may or may not be following the advice from these 3 beautiful images.
I am dying with excitement. :)
And can't wait to share all of the lovely details!

xx Adrienne

A Note on Why I Love Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is ALWAYS a special day for me whether I am single or relationshiped up. This is because one of my favorite people in the world happens to share a birthday with Valentine's Day. This person is my mother. She is everything. So this year being away from Patrick on this special day for couples wasn't so hard on me. We all went out as a family for one of the best meals I've ever had and celebrated my mom. And love. Love for her, love for eachother, and love for our significant others. Even if they are an ocean away. The Brit and my mom are so important to me, so I felt extremely blessed on this day. Below is one of my favorite pictures of the two of the them together. These two together make my heart explode and make me feel like the luckiest girl in the world.



P.S. pictures of Valentine's Day in Paris last year will be up on the blog soon. I wasn't kidding when I said I'm a lucky girl!

P.P.S. The Cups and Saucers I got my mom for her birthday and the Vintage Cocktail Book, both from Anthropologie.

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life"

I love this quote and find it to be very fitting for London. It is one of the greatest cities in the world (the Brit would argue it is THE greatest), and I can't imagine ever tiring of it.

On my last visit over in October, I spent an afternoon walking around London by myself while the Brit was at work. I got off the tube at Piccadilly Circus, marvelled at the Eros statue, then made my way to Trafalgar Square. I was a lone tourist wandering the streets and snapping pictures of anything and everything. I then walked miles through a beautiful park named St. James Park, which is bounded by Buckingham Palace and Horse Guards Parade. At this point, like a true American, I was ready to cab it over to our meeting spot for dinner instead of walking to find a tube station; but in the London spirit, my high heeled boots and I marched to the tube and made our way to Bond Street.

The Brit was pretty proud of me for finding my way to London and around to different sites by myself. I actually quite enjoyed not arguing with anybody about which way to go and where the closest tube stop was ;). I think I could easily quit my job, move over to London, and find endless ways to entertain myself every day!

London: A first visit

These pictures were taken a year ago on my first trip to London, before I bought my DSLR camera. Can you tell?! My first visit was very short, as we were heading off on a trip to Rome, Venice and Paris the next day. The weather was cold and the sky was grey, but I fell in love with London nonetheless on this day. We stayed in the London Hilton Park Lane and had a gorgeous view of London from our room. The next morning when we woke up, snow had blanketed the city! This turned out to be the theme of our trip, as we were also snowed on in Rome, a city that rarely sees snow.

Amsterdam, Part III

These are the final pictures from our trip to Amsterdam. I know there are a lot, but this city was just too pretty to not take a million pictures. On our last day we visted the Anne Frank house, which was the only real structured thing we did on our trip. Most of us learn the story of Anne Frank as kids, so it was really neat to see this story come to life. It is a little eerie to be inside the secret annex, but truly an awesome experience. We did no planning on this trip, just had a couple ideas of what we wanted to do, and guess what? It was my favorite trip to date. Plenty of time to wander the canals, shop "the nine streets", and have fancy midday drinks at the Pulitzer bar. I truly hope everyone gets the opportunity to visit Amsterdam someday!                          

Amsterdam, Part II

One of the absolute best things to do in Amsterdam is rent bicycles for the day and explore the town. On this day, we rented bikes bright and early and started the day off right with some cake and coffee from a local cafe. I was very impressed with all of the food we ate on the trip. I think the meals I had here were some of my favourite of any city I have visted. Once we were finished being gluttons, we visted more lovely outdoor markets. I just loved walking around the markets and seeing all of the unique gifts for sale. After browsing for a few hours, we rode to Brouwerij 't IJ, an authentic brewery inside an old windmill right along the water. This gem was recommended by Liz, from Explore.Dream.Discover, who is an American expat living in Amsterdam (umm, jealous). We really enjoyed the outdoor patio and all of the different beers we tried, and highly recommend a trip if you find youself in this amazing city. After basking in the sun a bit, we ventured on to Rijksmuseum, the Dutch National museum.  It happened to be closed when we went by, but we didn't mind too much because it was still beautiful to see (hello good photo ops)! The beauty of this city is best seen by riding through it, along the canals and even around the outskirts. The bike lanes are the best in the world and the bicycle friendliness makes the whole experience so very enjoyable!

Amsterdam, part I

Before visiting Amsterdam I had really no idea what to expect. I had heard about the Red Light District quite a bit, and to be honest, thought that was what defined Amsterdam. Oh boy, was I wrong! This place is so beautiful and romantic, I couldn't believe my eyes. Our flight was only one hour long from London and the airport was flawless. We stayed at the Hotel Pulitzer,  which is comprised of a block of 25 restored 17th and 18th century canal houses converted into a luxury hotel , and I couldn't say enough good things about our experience. The first night we walked around the city and had our first peek at the RLD. I was a little nervous about this at first, but ended up finding it pretty fascinating. The next day we walked around the city and found different markets, marveled at the architecture, gourged on delicious food and fresh juices, and skipped along the canals.