Life, Love, Soul | Sahin Designs

This collection is a brand new release from Sahin Designs. It's called, Life Love, Soul.

I love this collection. I love the colours, I love the elements, I love the papers. It is so versatile and I can see it being used on many future layouts. 

My goal was to create 2 pages, that I can add to a photo book of our trip. Of course, I want to print them out as well, to add to my scrapbook album. I will print them out as 8x10 size. 

Here is how I used the product: 

I love this selfie of us, and the fact that it has our kids in the background. It was absolutely pouring rain when we arrived. 

Naturally, we had the beach all to ourselves.

And then the sun came out... So relieved to wake up the next morning to clear blue skies. It was extremely windy, but at least it wasn't raining. We got to spend some time on the beach. 

I'm so thankful for the time we spent together on this trip. 

Like I mentioned, I've been working on a photo book of this trip. My plan is to have them printed and give one to each kid for Christmas. So they'll be able to reminisce and look back at pictures of this trip any time. And of course, I hope they'll love looking at it, as much as I loved putting it together.

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I used the following Sahin Designs product: 

https://sahindesigns.com/products/life-love-soul-elements/

https://sahindesigns.com/products/life-love-soul-papers/

https://sahindesigns.com/products/life-love-soul-cards/

Epic Road Trip - Part 4

I completely forgot to add the very last few photos of our summer adventure.

We left Flagstaff and finally began to head north-ish.

Our last destination was Bryce Canyon in Utah. I have to say that our Rocky Mountains are breath-taking. It's what I expect to see, when someone says the word mountains. Our drive from Flagstaff to Bryce Canyon was spectacular. The landscape and the rock formations in this area were so unique. I really enjoyed it, and would love to go back and do the drive again. Maybe spending more time in a few more places. Maybe going when it's not quite so busy. Or quite so hot. 

I had hoped to see Horseshoe Bend, and was delighted that it gave us a smidge of advance notice. Enough to at least signal and get off the highway in time. 

We paid to park, and were told by the attendant, 

IT'S VERY HOT TODAY. 

WEAR A HAT. 

TAKE WATER WITH YOU. 

DON'T LEAVE ANIMALS IN THE CAR. 

I got the distinct feeling, this walk isn't for everyone. We parked and proceeded to make our way to the viewpoint. We were told it was a 45 min walk, return. I had to go back to the car and change out of sandals into runners, the pathway was red sand. 

We wondered whether we had time to get to the viewpoint, before the storm him. [We did] It is something else to hear thunder rumbling across canyons and valleys. We heard a lot of it in these few days. [Vegas, Grand Canyon, here at Horseshoe Bend and Bryce Canyon]

First glimpse approaching the canyon.

And here it is, taken with an iPhone. As best as I can, trying to get the whole image into the photo.

Again, mostly no guard rails here. [She's not as close as she looks]

 But he's obviously more mindful of staying back from the edge.

Heading back up. Yes. Up.
It.
Was.
Hot.

We stopped in Page, AZ, for a water break, then continued on.

We arrived at Bryce Canyon, and checked into our hotel. This was our rustic little cabin. It was exactly the same as I remembered it when I was 13. We quickly made our way to the 'amphitheatre' for the view.

Mason, by this time was giving us one-word answers. He'd had enough together time. He was crabby. So naturally, we told him to walk it off. When he's crabby, there is often an underlying issue, usually it's hunger...

Then we went for dinner. Not a lot to choose from here, but we did end up having a pretty good pizza at Valhalla and were able to sit outside and eat it.

After dinner we headed back to the canyon again, where Madelyn said, and I kid you not... "Why, we already saw it..."

We made our way to Sunset Point, and watched the last of the sun go down.

The stormy sky followed us here too, and we actually had lightening and thunder through the night.

The next morning I got up and walked to Sunrise Point, where the canyon looked once again, altogether different.

Then we began the long drive home.

We drove through this magnificent storm. This is not edited. This is what we drove into...

Spent the night in Idaho Falls, the kids marvelled at the roaming buffalo...

Our plan was to spend one more night on the road, but we ended up driving home from Idaho Falls in one day. We were all looking forward to our own bed, our own bed partners and some privacy...

We made it home safe and sound, and have all the memories of our trip to look back on.

It was such a good time!

Epic Road Trip - Part 3

We decided to drive from Las Vegas to San Francisco in one day. Initially we'd planned to do this in two days, but I stumbled across this place in Vegas, called Tahiti Village Resort and thought it was exactly what we needed for a day of downtime.  I'm not going to lie. The pool and lazy river were major factors in this decision. Because we all know Vegas isn't exactly the kind of place that is super kid friendly...

This was the longest driving leg of the trip. A full day in the car, with limited stops. 

We decided to get an early start [much to the alarm of the kids] we were on the road by 5 am, which was an amazing feat, especially for us. We should have received a reward of some kind.  

And I'm so glad we did... We drove on a 6 lane, one direction freeway for over an hour... By 6 am, the morning rush hour was in full force, by that time, we were finally getting away from the congestion. I'm sure if we'd waited until later to leave, that same drive would have taken us twice as long, crawling along with the morning traffic.  

We watched the temperature climb higher and higher as we got closer to Vegas. I'm not going to lie, I was alarmed... The ole girl [our vehicle] isn't used to temps in the high 40's. Neither is this ole girl for that matter... When you touch the window of the car and nearly burn your fingers.... Well, you know it's hot. There was a light cloud cover, so the temp only got up to 45 degrees Celsius, that's me being sarcastic. I have never been more thankful for cloud cover.  

On paper, the 7 Magic Mountains, wasn't far out of Vegas. But after driving for 8 1/2 hours, in 40+ degree heat, we didn't want to take a chance and stop. Luckily we got a photo on the way by. One photo. Because immediately after I took this picture, a train drove in front of the rocks. 

We arrived in Las Vegas at 2:30. The drive ended up taking less time than we anticipated. It was the only drive that did. All other drives, took longer than expected. We were thrilled to be able to check in early and be greeted with this view out our window.

We wasted no time getting in some well deserved R'nR.

Best margarita ever.

We did end up going down to the strip on our second night.

We woke up our second morning in Vegas to light rain and a thunder storm. We headed east towards the Hoover Dam. It took us about 45 minutes to get there. It was overcast, but it was H O T. 38 degrees Celsius, and super humid. We found a great parking spot, and checked out the dam.  I had done some research regarding dam tours, but we were all so stink'in hot. Our clothes were all sticking to us. We had a look around and headed back to the car air conditioning... No one really interested in hanging around.

We arrived that afternoon in Flagstaff. We found the neatest little pub for dinner. They had games to play while you were waiting for your meal. They also were having a trivia night when we got there. It got busier and busier with people showing up to play. Very cool vibe in Flagstaff. A place I'd definitley like to spend a bit more time in.

The next day was the Grand Canyon tour we'd booked.

It was pretty amazing.

The fact that there are very few places with guard rails, made me extremely nervous. My kids made fun of me a lot because of that. But that's why someone falling over the edge is called an 'accident'. No one goes there with the intent to plunge to their death. Well, mostly no one. Perhaps some do. 

It was beautiful. Photos don't do it justice. It's breathtaking and awesome.