Christmas Photos

i was debating for awhile if i wanted to get photos taken of kenneth and i for christmas but i'm so so so happy that i did.  i feel like most people that do family photos have a family bigger than 2 people haha. so i felt weird that it was just kenneth and i but i'm so happy we got them taken! it's fun to have more photos besides your wedding photos. and t's a great excuse to get some pictures taken every year and then when we're 80 we can look back and see how our lives have changed and grown. being new to the area i didn't know any photographers and so i creeped on instagram and found jenna alexander. she posted an instagram saying that she was doing these mini sessions. we got in contact and within hours we were down on the beach with her taking last minute photos because she had one opening. jenna was seriously the best! she is so sweet and made us feel so comfortable and is just so down to earth. i feel like i've gotten really lucky with getting professional photos taken. all our photographers have been the best ever and i'm so grateful. i'll always treasure these photos of our first few months here in saint augustine. 

A Little Bit of My Heart

the other day kenneth came home and surprised me with my favorite milkshake, a few red roses and these fun XO balloons. it was so out of the blue and for no reason at all, he just wanted to do it. and days later, i still feel so overwhelmed about how much i love kenneth.

while kenneth and i have only been married for about 8 months, that clearly does not make me any expert on love. but it just amazes me how much love kenneth has to give. i've never been one to want or need materialistic gifts from a significant other. for me, it's the meaning behind it all. kenneth knows me well enough to know that i love sweet treats more than the average human being. he knows that my mom used to be a florist and i grew up with flowers in our house all the time and getting flowers brings back really wonderful memories for me. he knows me well enough that even though i've never mentioned wanting balloons, he saw them and just thought they looked like something i would like. 

the thought just amazes me. it amazes me that another human being cares so much about me and knows so much about me. multiple times throughout the week, kenneth and i will be in bed watching netflix (high five to us because we finished the entire series of friends in one single month... yeah we have lives...) and then i'll get hungry or thirsty and ask kenneth if he will go to the kitchen and make me something because i'm comfy and i don't want to get up and he more than willingly goes and get's me food. this happens all the time and i don't know why but i just think it's the sweetest thing in the entire world. and it constantly amazes me that he just loves me so much and does so many sweet things for me like fulfilling my lazy girl needs haha. 

i know i'm not describing it all right, but i just think it's pretty awesome to have someone who cares so much about you and goes throughout their day thinking, what can i do to put a smile on my wife's face? it's interesting too because i thought i absolutely loved kenneth the day we got married. the amount of love i felt that day, it was unreal. but what is shocking is that i find myself loving kenneth more and more the longer we are married which just makes me wonder what life will be like when we are 80 years old. 

i know most people will read this and think, "oh those newlyweds....it will fade" and yes we are newlywed... but kenneth and i also dated for about 3 years before we got married. and while marriage is different than dating, there are still a lot of similarities. and if we grow to be 80 together and are still holding hands, watching netflix, and laughing endlessly, i will have called it a beautiful and blessed life because i got to share it with kenneth. i'm just grateful i got one of the good ones. 

sorry for all the mush. it's the month to celebrate love though right?

for the record... it's actually really difficult to take pictures with these balloons given beautiful nature and the wind factor. i don't know how all those pinteresty-instagramers make it look so easy

Cumberland Island // Birthday Celebrations

on the morning of my birthday i woke up to breakfast in bed from kenneth. then we got ready (aka, piled on as many layers as possible) and then headed to the ferry port. we took a 30 minute boat ride over to cumberland island (i absolutely love riding on boats so i was just excited about this in itself). when we got off at the island we immediately began exploring on one of the trails.

seriously the island is sooooo beautiful. it's hard to describe and the pictures don't do it justice but it was just so pretty. cumberland island is apart of the national park system as a national seashore. so practically no one lives on the island but you can camp there. we would have camped but it was so so so cold that we decided not to. but i think we will go back this summer and camp.

there's a lot of history with the island and kenneth is such a history nerd that he enjoyed it, while i sort of skipped reading the historical notes and just took pictures haha. so i don't really remember all the history facts so if you're interested you'll just have to wikipedia it haha.

this building was an old mansion that was destroyed from a fire.

we loved exploring the island. it was unreal. we literally felt like we were on a deserted island (cause i guess we kind of were).

the beach was obviously my favorite part. we just hiked along the beach and collected shells (SOOO MANY SHELLS!) i was beyond stoked.

^^ obviously i'm awesome and rocked the whole i'm 23 thing... ha... ha... whoops

there we go! 23 whooo hooo!!

kenneth and i hiked about 12 miles that day without even realizing it. there's tons of people that come to the island and backpack throughout the entire island (we looked like newbies with our backpacks compared to most of the other hikers haha)

cumberland island has some beautiful wild life, my favorite were the wild horses that roam around the entire island. seriously so rad. you can walk up really close to them and they are so calm around you. the island also has alligators, turkey's and armadillo's (seriously, such a random group of animals haha).

we packed a lunch and ate underneath the beautiful canopy.

we then headed back on the ferry and got off right in time to see a beautiful sunset.

seriously, how did i get so lucky to get kenneth as my husband?! he is the best. i've been dying to get out and go on an adventure and this was the best little trip. kenneth and i laughed so much this trip and ate lots of yummy junk food (obviously my favorite 2 things ha). 

when kenneth and i lived in hawaii, we used to drive up to the north shore and watch the sunset as many times as possible. so getting to see the sunset together on my birthday was the best present ever.

i think 23 will be a good year for me! love you kenneth, thanks for the best birthday trip!

^^ oh and we can't forget all the beautiful shell's we found! seriously i was in heaven!