Road Trip Style: South Dakota!

Outfit Info:
Dress: Ebay (it came from Australia!)
Shoes: Target
Jacket: Thrifted
Pizza Hair Clip: Tiny Tangerines

On the first night of the trip, we stayed in Watertown, SD.  We didn’t see much of the town, but what we did see was really pretty.  Like this area!  As we were driving off of the highway to get to our hotel, we saw this interesting building.  It turned out that it was an art center, and admission for it was free!  We didn’t have time to check out the inside, but we had a lot of fun taking pictures around the outside.

xoxo,
Alysa

Road Trip Style: 1st Anniversary!

Outfit Info:
Dress: Postlapsaria.com/Keikolynn.com
Shoes: Target
Hairclip: Tiny Tangerines

I really love this dress, but unfortunately I’ve only worn it a handful of times (and when I say that, I mean that this is probably only the second time I’ve actually worn this dress).  I have a nasty habit of wearing only some of my clothes and totally ignoring others.  When I’m putting away clean clothes right after I’ve washed them, I tend to put them all in on the right hand side of my closet.  This way, I always know which clothes I’ve worn the most recently!  This tactic is supposed to help me wear more of my wardrobe, but unfortunately it also helps me to pick favourites when it comes to what I wear.  This dress was allllll the way on the left side of the closet, which meant that it was really about time I wore it!

We took these pictures at a rest stop in South Dakota on our first day of our anniversary road trip!  It was a very windy day, as you might be able to tell from the pictures, but this rest stop was a great place to run around a little and stretch our legs.

xoxo,
Alysa

Lovely Wedding: One Year Later pt 2

So yesterday I shared some of the pictures from my wedding!
Here are a few more from the day:

 

Here are my shoes from the day! My bridesmaids and I all got together beforehand to glitter-ize our shoes.  We all had different styles of shoes, but they were all the same colour of glitter!  It was a really fun night for us to connect, too

On the way down the aisle!  For our decor, we had little tea-light candles that went down the aisle.  I didn’t know this at the time, but my dress went over every single candle on the way down the aisle!  Luckily, I did not catch.. we were going just fast enough for that to not happen.  Andrew was nervous the entire time down the aisle though.

The unveiling!

All of us on stage!  We went with a black theme for the girls dresses, and then each of the girls picked out their own individual dresses.  They ended up looking similar, but that was by some amazing fluke.

Our symbol of unity!  Our little thank you to everyone was a little spruce tree, and we snuck one away so that we could plant it together.  We still have it growing strong on our windowsill in that same pot.  Right after we planted it, it fell over.  It was pretty funny.

Right after, on the way out.

I love this picture because it shows how much joy we were experiencing at the time.  It was right after we got back upstairs and everyone was just so much more laid back

I wanted to do a picture where it looked like the guys were jumping over the ladies.  I think it turned out really well

I also wanted a “High School Musical” inspired picture where everyone was jumping   One of the great things about this picture, and our photographer, was the fact that he wasn’t afraid to lie on the ground to ensure that he got the shot.  This one turned out amazing!

After that, we took a few pictures at Starbucks because I LOOOOVE Starbucks!!

Our photographer, Denley Thiessen, was amazing!  He was really open to all kinds of ideas, and even had a few of his own ideas for pictures as well.

xoxo,
Alysa

Lovely Wedding: One Year Later

I cannot believe it’s been a year since my wedding!  It feels like it just flew by, and in all the best ways.
Since I haven’t really shared too many of my wedding pics with you, I thought today would be the perfect day to do so!

The groom and all his men waiting for the bride to arrive

I love this picture of Andrew so much

It rained pretty much all day long, so lots of umbrellas were used.  This is me arriving at the church

While we waited for it to start, two of my bridesmaids played with the fooseball table they had in our waiting area

I really like this picture! I’ve used it for a few things on this blog, but had to share it again The red background was super fun to take pictures in front of

The mother of the groom pinning the boutonniere onto the groom

My mom doing her thing! We had a pro photographer, but she still needed to take her own pictures

A hug from my sister <3

Before the ceremony we wanted to pray together without seeing each other, and the back stairs of our church was the perfect place to do so. We were able to hold hands and pray, but we didn’t ruin the surprise of the first look.

<3

More pictures tomorrow!

All these pictures were taken by our friend Denley Thiessen!  He did an amazing job and I would recommend him to anyone who ever needs pictures taken.

xoxo,
Alysa

A La Instagram: Oh Stats.

 

1. Red and Gold <3
2. Stats homework
3. My face looks like this pretty much the whole time I do stats homework
4. My reward for not spending all my money at ikea
5. My cutie pie husband <3

Feel free to follow me on Instagram @Alysalovely

Have a great weekend!

xoxo,
Alysa

 

Road Trip Music

There are so many fun things involved with going on a road trip, but I think that my favourite thing has to be making the playlist or mix-tape for the ride!  It’s so fun to be able to put a mix of so many different songs in there, then everybody gets to listen to what they like!  I personally enjoy putting in mostly dance music, or music that’s fun to sing and dance to while in the car.  I also like to have a separate playlist to be used simply as background music for good conversation.

Here’s a playlist I made for a roadtrip:

Play it on Grooveshark!

xoxo,

Alysa

How to: IKEA

I love IKEA!

When I went to my first Ikea, I don’t remember how old I was, but I do remember that I enjoyed it immensely!  What’s not to like, really?  You get to go from “room” to “room” and see how you could decorate your own home with the items that they have there.  It’s so much fun.  Plus, everything comes in such great colours, they have lots of themes with animals and the food there is great!

Before Winnipeg (finally) got Ikea here, it was always such a treat to be able to go to an Ikea in another city.  My parents brought me back my beautiful Audrey print from Ikea a few years back, and I’ve gotten a few little things there as well.  Now that we have Ikea (yay!) it’s so easy to spend way too much money there.  I have found myself going in for one or two things, and walking out with $150 (or more) worth of stuff I don’t need and didn’t anticipate wanting.

How to Shop at Ikea without Buying The Whole Store.

1.  Don’t get a cart.
If you shop with a cart, you’ll add more things to it than you originally planned.  If you’re only holding things in your arms, or in one of Ikea’s yellow bags, you won’t buy as much because you’ll realize how HEAVY it all is!  When you shop there with a cart, it makes it much easier to put everything into it, even the things you weren’t all that excited about.

2.  Try not to stop and look at everything you find interesting.
I have the biggest problem with this one,honestly.  Everything there looks so fun and colourful and pretty, it’s really hard not to stop and give everything a closer look.  I just had to keep reminding myself not to though, and I was able to.

3.  Give yourself a time frame.
I went to Ikea while one of my loads of laundry was being washed.  I knew that I really only had about 45 minutes for the whole thing.  If you give yourself a time  frame for looking around, you will get to what you want as quickly as you can and you’ll miss a lot of the things that would otherwise be distracting/that would possibly want to go home with you.

4.  Reward yourself after!One of the best things about Ikea is the cheap food! So if you are able to stay within your budget and not leave with too many more things than what you came for, reward yourself with a frozen yogurt!  They’re only $1.00 after all

Mission Accomplished:

I went into ikea today to get some knobs for the dresser I’m repainting, and I walked out with the knobs I needed, plus a dish brush for Andrew.  I spent less than $10, including the frozen yogurt

xoxo,
Alysa

Stats Break

Outfit Info:
Dress: Thrifted
Shorts: Modcloth

Well, today it really hit the fan so to speak.  I know that it’s only the second week of school, but it already got real.  My first assignment in this stats course is due Friday at 10pm, but since I’m celebrating my one year anniversary with my husband then, I had to get it done yesterday.

The frustrating thing about statistics is everything .. no, I kid. There are a lot of frustrating things about statistics, but if I had to choose a number one thing about it to be frustrated by, I would say the fact that it’s something that either comes easy to you, or something that you really need to work hard at.  Unfortunately, in my family it seems that the “good at math” gene I should have received from my father has apparently skipped a generation.  I have none of it, though hopefully that means that my children will be amazing at math.  I fall into the category of “has to work really hard at” statistics.

These pictures represent how I look when I’m working on my stats homework, though generally a lot less smiling and a lot more hair pulling.

I have finished my assignment that is due on Friday, and now I get to start on the one due next Wednesday Wish me luck!

xoxo,
Alysa

PS: In better news, I just got a button!  My lovely husband made it for me   I entered a giveaway on the wonderful blog The Trendy Chick, where the prize was ad space and I won!!! Which meant that I needed to have an ad :p

Here it is:

<a href=”http://www.alysalovely.wordpress.com&#8221; target=”_self”><img src=”http://alysalovely.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/alysabutton.jpg&#8221; alt=”Alysalovely” width=”150″ height=”150″ /></a>

Feel free to grab it and share it far and wide

Remember Me

Outfit Info:
Dress: Thrifted
Belt: Pacsun

Today was one of those days where I wanted to get a lot of stuff done, but ended up actually doing almost none of it.  I had a few errands that I had wanted to run, but our fridge decided to break down so I got to hang out here (between the hours of 9 and 12) waiting for the repair person to come.  It is now fixed, but it meant no Ikea trip for me

This weeks prompt in my group is:

How do you want to be remembered?

There were a lot of things I thought about that I might like to be remembered for one day.  I could talk about how I want to be remembered for doing this, for my sense of style, or my writing, or for the kinds of things I made.  But I don’t know if that’s the true answer.

I think that mostly I want to be remembered for being kind.  I want to be remembered for being a person who was kind to others, who was there for them when they needed someone. Who stood up against people who were unkind and when unkind words were said.  I don’t care so much if people remember me as being cool or well-liked, as long as they remember me for being kind <3

xoxo,
Alysa

Retreat Recovery

I feel like I always need to plan an extra day of nothing after getting back from a trip, and this past weekend is no exception!  Unfortunately, I had stats this morning at 8:30am!  I may as well have not been there for how much I actually paid attention.. but they do something called iclicker questions, so I at least will get the credit for those!

Anyway, about the retreat! It was AWESOME!  It was really great to be able to hang out with some of the girls in my group and get to know them. It was awesome to see them worship together, pray together, and just hang out together all weekend away from their regular lives.  Just an amazing weekend of meeting with Jesus!

The speaker was amazing, too She had a lot to say and I think that the students were really able to identify with what she spoke on.  I think that the main thing that I could take home with me at the end of the weekend was the fact that God tells us that we are His MASTERPIECE.  We are all a work of art, we are ALL beautiful.  It’s so easy to forget that!  It’s easy to look in the mirror and focus on the things that we don’t like about ourselves, and I do it all the time.  But God made me, and in His eyes the way I look is perfect and I am His masterpiece.  I just love that!

The other thing, too.. when you are looking at anybody else, they are ALSO His masterpiece.  I have a major problem with comparing myself to others, especially when it comes to the way I look.  I have better x than that person, but they have a nicer y than I do.  It’s not a competition!  They are a masterpiece, I am a masterpiece. There is no need to look at what everyone else is doing because God loves us all and we are all his masterpieces.  You are God’s masterpiece!!

There were other messages that I will remember about this weekend, but I think that was the main one.  And, since I’m still exhausted, I think it’s time for bed :p

I’ll leave you with a picture that shows the kind of “style” I had on the retreat.  I wanted to be super comfortable the whole time, so I wore a lot of hoodies, leggings, scarves and rubber boots!  It was a great weekend

xoxo,
Alysa