A few sweet moments from my week, as I remember to be mindful and thankful for the beauty that’s around me!

1. The tree outside our apartment is blooming.

2. Lovely flowers from my favorite guy.

3. Sound waves, they’re cool.

4. Some snail mail from one of my very favorites.

5. You know, doing work.  This binder is seriously AH-MA-ZING.

6. Cowboy thinks my laptop case is the perfect squishiness for napping.

7. Can’t think of Spring without thinking of tulips.

8. A beautiful drive on a sunny day – can’t argue that we live in a beautiful city!

Hope you all have a fabulous Easter.

(Find me on instagram : @bellatheball)

Filed in:Life

One of my favorite things about spring is watching the trees and flowers get all covered in colorful blooms.  We have a huge tree outside our apartment window and it has been so fun to watch it grow little buds and now it’s covered in tiny white flowers (that seem to have survived our early April snow too, hooray!).  Spring is a great time for floral prints too, here are a few of my favorite looks:

Dress: American Eagle, Cardigan: JCrew, Tights: Gap, Heels: Eons old, I don’t even remember – Target maybe?

Sweater: American Eagle, Top: Banana Republic, Dress: Blanco, Belt: H&M, Leggings: Old Navy, Boots: Gift

It’s still not warm enough for flowery dresses all on their own (though on April Fools, it was a balmy 80 degrees and perfect for sundresses – good one, Mother Nature!), not to mention the fact that it gets super chilly in my office and I have to compensate by dressing for cooler weather than the outdoor temperature would indicate.  Despite extra layers that might be necessary, bright colors and springy florals still make me super happy for the new season.

Do you have any fun spring-y plans for this Easter weekend?  We’re planning on working the grill a little extra and giving thanks that we BOTH have three whole days off and nothing to do.  Also – the sunshine is here and I’m going to be catching up on my vitamin-D intake!

Filed in:Style

Every Saturday, I have the honor of serving with a great group of people at Pulse, and this past weekend, we had a staff retreat to the mountains for a little R&R.  Much, much needed!

Some friends of ours were kind enough to let us crash at their beautiful home outside of Divide – I love the feeling of being out in the middle of nowhere.  Especially when it comes to inspiration and rejuvenation.

I’ve never really spent much time photographing a campfire, but I had a lot of fun playing with long exposures (between 4-15 seconds) and there were a ton of resulting photos that I loved. I had a hard time narrowing down which ones to post, but here are a couple favorites.

Those last photos also involved another technique I tried out for the first time – light painting, using the moon as my light source!  It was a little tricky, since you had to move the camera while it was exposing and you were pretty much guessing what would turn out, but I think it yielded great abstract results.  Here’s the fanciest I got (still pretty rough):

Hope you all had a relaxing and inspiring weekend as well!

 

(If you’re interested in seeing more of my photos from our weekend, check out the Pulse blog.)

Filed in:Everyday Adventure | Travel

Isn’t it funny, now that I’m just working full time and no longer in school, “summer break” isn’t really going to look that different from all the other times of year when it comes to all that spare time I never have.  But there’s something about summer that makes you feel like you have all the time in the world – perhaps it’s the extra long days and the way warmer temperatures make days go by more slowly.  In any case, I am loving the additional dose of sunshine and the lack of coat-weather that remind me, Spring is here and Summer is on it’s way!

This hike in Glen Eyrie requires some more planning than perhaps other options around the Springs, but it is totally worth it.  Glen Eyrie is on the Navigator’s property, so they have limited parking, and because it’s private property, you’re required to sign a waiver at the gate.  Keep in mind that if you have people in your group under the age of 18, they have to have a parent sign the waiver for them.

Once you’re through the gate, you head to the small parking area and it’s not too hard to find the trail head.  You’ll probably drive by the castle, where you can make reservations for tea.  I’ve walked around the outside but never been in.  The trail heads down a narrow canyon, and though it’s not a steep hike, you do have to cross a stream several times so a little balance goes a long way.

The main trail ends at this pair of waterfalls, and if you want you can continue up the side (much steeper and more strenuous) to some swimming holes farther up the river, but we opted to turn around.

And what would a hike be without some oogling of the wildflowers?  I really miss the abundance of spring blooms we got in the Midwest, so I will take what I can get here.  Lilacs seem to be in abundance, and those are probably my favorite – so I’ve been willing to do without the proliferation of tulips and daffodils etc.

I’m already starting to make plans for the summer and what new places we want to visit.  We’ll probably end up doing Glen Eyrie again, and this time continuing further along the trail.  Cory has his sights set on scaling a few fourteeners.  So definitely lots of new adventures on the way!  It makes me wish summer would hurry up already.

But for now, I’m going to try to stay in the moment, and enjoy these breezy Spring days – they seem the freshest of the whole year!

Filed in:Everyday Adventure | Travel

Thank you for all your input on this post – I love adding new items to my closet, and dreaming of ways I can wear them (a key to versatility in my opinion, you have to be able to see it working with SEVERAL things you already own!).  And the crowd definitely spoke on this one:

GO BOLD!

So, I did – and it was perfect for date night dinner with Cory; we went to My Big Fat Greek Restaurant for the first time and it was delicious.  We’ll definitely be going back, but probably for special occasions, since it was a little more than we usually spend on your average date (but this was no average date! yeeaaaah!)

I couldn’t find my red headband (perhaps kitten stashed it away?) so I went with red lips instead! You’ll have to trust me, as we only took two photos: one had horrible lighting, and in the other, I was acting as queen of the bizarre facial expressions.  So here we have better light sans awkward face (and head – is that more awkward?).  Seriously, this is why I do landscape photography!

Skirt: Asos // Dress (worn as top): Target // Shoes: Zara

Filed in:Style
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