Summer

This summer has been SO busy, Matt and I have been at home for about 6 days over the past month and a half. It has been a lot of fun but there is also nothing quite like coming back to our home, especially on rainy autumnal days like today. 

These are all Matts iPhone pictures, I love the way he documents life and he was lovely enough to let me steal borrow these beautiful pictures for this post. 

 

Over the summer so far we launched a wedding photography business, I cut 5 inches off my hair which has not happened for yeaaaars. We visited Scotland with friends and I started my dissertation.  We said goodbye to Asel as she returned to Kyrgyzstan. We cycled through France & Italy which was challenging and fun. Did a week of youthwork in Stoke at Soul Survivor. I turned 22, Matt turned 27. Im starting an internship. We camped in hammocks and I visited my best friend in Bristol for the first time since her wedding. We still have another 4 days of camping at Davids Tent and a wedding to photograph in Romania, and then, summer will be over. I'm excited for autumn, although, as always, it feels like summer is going to be gone way too quick. I'm pining for autumn in New York.

You can check out our wedding photography at www.mattandesther.co.uk or Matt and Esther Photography on Facebook

Scotland

Matt and I just spent the most lovely week in the highlands of Scotland, in a town called Glencoe. We camped, which is ALWAYS risky in Scotland; there are midges, wind and rain galore. We went with some good friends, Bethan and Aaron and had a lovely week of fires, swimming in lochs and breathing fresh air. It was truly lovely and reignited my love for beautiful Scotland. We drove through lots of the places we passed en route to our first mountain of three peaks. It's also great to have friends you can happily spend a week in a tent with!

On Friday morning we are heading off on our 'proper' summer holiday. Matt, myself and 6 other friends and going to be cycling from Nice, France to Milan, Italy. It will be my first cycling holiday since I was about 10 years old. I'm a little anxious about all the cycling but so so so excited for the sea, the food, the wine, and the company :):) mhmmmmmm.

Have an awesome week!

90's Hen Party

This weekend Matt and I went to a wedding of a beautiful friend.  I just wanted to share with you the 90's party I put on as part of her Hen weekend.

I have no idea why we chose 90's theme but it was a lot of fun! I was on a tight budget so utilized as many things we had kicking around as I could.
I decided to do a loosely themed games evening. I didn't want the games to overtake the evening but as everyone was from a different area of her life I wanted to help break the ice; I think it was a success. When everyone arrived I split them into three teams (Becca's wedding colours), we then had 3 different tasks to complete to determine the winner. The first was using these plastic cups with blackboard paint and chalk. Everyone was given a cup as they came in and each had a different snippet of a no.1 song from the 90's. They got into their teams and had to guess the songs as quickly as they could- then they were allowed to drink. We then made them do a rendition of one of the songs with extra points for creative dancing!

I made some Nickelodeon straws, a 90's classic.

I had wanted to buy some cassette tapes from the charity shop, i totally assumed they would have loads, but alas, there were none. So I ended up making my own tapes for bunting using an old cardboard box.

Posh Jelly shots with sherbet on top. Im not gonna lie, these were pretty gross. I put bits of fresh mint in them but the flavour made the lime jelly taste really bitter. 

This was a lot of fun to make! All along I wanted to do some kind of photobooth, but this struck me as a more 90's way of doing things. The combination of Spice girls and these no headed funfair things really bought back the 90's for me.

This was by far my favourite activity. It was the final part of the evening and stolen from the 'Crystal Maze' TV show. At the end of the show 6 people would step into a giant crystal. There were silver and a few gold pieces of paper being blown around and you had to try and gather as many gold papers as you could. We recreated this by having everyone squeezed into our bathroom, I stood on the edge of the bath and threw the coloured pieces down with a fan pointed into them. They blew everywhere and it was hilarious. The team with the most blue pieces won. I made them from spray painted cellophane so they would catch the wind brilliantly.

Obviously there were some dance routines.

And some spinning top markers!

I love you Becca and am SO EXCITED to share this next part of the journey with you!