Life Well Lived - Vol 7

Click above ^ to see where this all started.

I have celebrated 28 amazing birthdays.
Yesterday was my 28th birthday. It was a great day filled with family, friends, cards, kind words and thoughtful gestures. I was feeling quite nostalgic and reflective yesterday as I thought back to all my birthdays. I cannot think of a single year when "my day" wasn't made a big deal. And, honestly, it should be! It's a celebration of the day you were born! I have far too many memories to talk about them all...which is awesome. :)


I re-visited Disney World in my teens.
I was a lucky kid. My maternal grandparents lived in Kentucky, but would "migrate" south to Florida during the winter months. Just about every year from birth to 10 or so, we would go visit them in Cocoa Beach, FL for Spring Break. We would stay with them in their condo and spend hours on the beach. This also meant we got to go to Disney World almost every year of my childhood. I told you - LUCKY! After a certain point, my grandparents were no longer able to travel to Florida, so we would visit them in Kentucky...and our trips to Disney stopped. Well, in 2001, my parents decided it would be fun to go back since Frankie was 15 and I was 18. We would be able to see the park in a different way and do things we couldn't as kids. Our trip was planned for October 2001. When the attacks on 9/11 happened, we discussed cancelling the trip out of fear - but my Dad, who travels a LOT for work, convinced us it was really the safest time to travel. So, we went. The airports were quiet. The plane was only half full. And Disney World? Practically deserted. This made for an amazing trip. The Disney employees treated us like royalty. We didn't wait in line for anything. And I got to skip around the Magic Kingdom, at 18 years old, hand in hand with Daisy Duck.



I totally failed at being sneaky.

This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it. While at a Kings of Leon concert, the guys across the isle started talking to us. They had Australian accents (YES!) and were asking us what there was to do around the venue. We gave them a few ideas and went back to watching the concert...and discussing how incredibly good looking one of the guys in the group was. Like, movie star handsome. Like, when he walked past, all the women around him stopped and gawked. So, I decided we HAD TO HAVE a picture to remember him by. We planned it out carefully. I would lean against the railing in front of us and act like I was taking a picture of Brittany and Kim - but really, I'd be taking a picture of the dude. We'd been very quiet in planning our "sneak attack" and it was executed flawlessly...until I got home and uploaded the pictures, only to find that we'd been outsmarted. He totally caught me...and put his hand over his face. FAIL. But we sure did laugh about it! And isn't that what makes Life Well Lived?!