prague, czech republic

prague was an unexpected delight. 

we only had a day to spend there and if we would have done our research, i'm sure we would've stayed a day or ten more. i have nothing but good memories of prague. it was the neatest mid-evil city that had so much history and architecture. no one really knew what it had to offer so we had no expectations, which may have been why we all loved it. the girls spent the morning eating the best french toast we've ever had while the boys had a meeting with some potential proof distributors. afterward we took a tour around the city and learned a lot about it. we were bummed we didn't have time to try more food there, but hopefully we'll go back one day ;)

aw prague, i love you.

zach - emily

i loved shooting this wedding... even though it was a long three day ordeal. they had a dinner friday night, wedding and events all day saturday, and then brunch sunday morning. it was in beautiful mccall and everything about it was perfect. the bride and groom were the sweetest couple and were obviously in love. this is a wedding short i put together and i'm happy with it :) i hope you like it too.
zach & emily from darlene dame on Vimeo.

a little taste of europe

(quality a lot better in HD) these are just a few clips of our europe experience. i wish i would have taken more video, as well as brought a stabilizer.. if you're like my mom and get sick watching home videos, you might want to pass on this. the stops we made in europe were:

amsterdam, holland

vienna, austria

prague, czech republic

berlin, germany

fussen, germany

zeneggen, switzerland

zermatt, switzerland

florence, italy

pisa, italy

milan, italy

rome, italy

sadly, i lost some footage but i'm glad for what i was able to recover. we did all of this in a matter of 2.5 weeks which means we were on the go! planes, trains, and automobile my friends. but mostly trains. my favorite stops were prague, fussen, and all of switzerland. i already updated fussen and i'll hopefully get around to showing the rest :)

hi there

fussen, germany

maybe it's time to update about my summer. starting with my favorite travel spot.

i haven't updated my blog in a little while and was actually contemplating deleting it all together. then today, i hopped on and just couldn't. i was reading my last post and felt bad that i left off on such a negative note. although that week was terrible, and didn't end with roses, i over came it and life just got that much better. it always does.

basically with this blogging thing, i finally had to put my camera down and enjoy the moments i was in instead of trying to capture them. i got caught up in being someone/something i'm not. i wanted to be like other blogs and found myself mimicking them. and obviously, when you're trying to be like others, it's not you. i wanted followers and i wanted to be different and i wanted to somehow make money, but SO WHAT? this blog is for me. i don't journal so this is a great way for me to remember. which is why i can't delete it. i now couldn't give a hoot for who reads this besides myself. sooooo, i'm done ranting about that.

fussen, germany

i would move there in a heart beat.
i have only said that about one other place, midway utah, where i grew up. fussen was everything my personal fairytale would be. it was incredibly beautiful with a picturesque town. to me, this was heaven. i have always loved quaint, clean, beautiful places and this topped everything i could ever imagine. i loved it almost as much as i love tanner.

rotten luck

i've never really had bad luck. i have even had thoughts of how blessed i am that things just always work out. that may sound conceded, but it's true. things have just worked out for me in the past. that is, until this week. i've had more bad things happen to me this last week than in my entire life combined. i don't know what i am cursed with, but i hope it goes away soon. have you ever, forgotten your battery charger and extra battery in mccall before you left to europe? have you ever had your laptop crash with footage from a three day wedding on it? what about leaving a 16 gig memory card in italy with important footage on it? wait, have you lost two burnt DVD's that you meant to give to a client? how about that time you left your hard drive on top of your car only to realize it once you got to your desitantion?????!!?!!! that hard drive was my life. now it's most likely smashed somewhere on the road. i called tanner tonight and had the ultimate melt down. i'm ready to throw in the towel. i've seriously had it. i've always wanted to own my little videography company and now that's it's kind of taking off, every thing that could possibly go wrong, has. i want to sell my camera and say i tried. this won't happen of course. but at this moment all i want to do is shower and shave my armpits that have been neglected. i need sleep. 

on a lighter note, amsterdam, holland was pretty cool.

birthday

 

my birthday started tuesday morning with a deep tissue massage

 

then i got my eyelashes done, followed by shopping, and then dinner with

 the whole dame family

 later tuesday night, tanner told me he needed me to go to the store with him. i told him i couldn't because i had things to do. he insisted i go with him so i got the hint that something was going on. i went with him and as we were driving to the store, he took a few wrong turns and we ended up at the bowling alley. taylor, ana, drew, megan, and loren were all there.

 THEN we went to merritts and joined up with lex and her family to have scones and milkshakes. they're the best!

 wednesday was my actual birthday and this is what the full day looked like. pretty fun huh?

 

i love unexpected cuteness. this was NOT planned

we had my birthday dinner at fiesta guadalajara with the whole family :)

 and they sang to me and brought me a cake

and i got JB's new c.d. which has been listened to non-stop

and the love of my life got me a completely unexpected cruise to the bahamas! we're going in september following a trade show we'll be at in florida. now the only problem is that i'm going to expect him to top this gift every year :) 

we're off to europe in the morning! we will be in germany for a trade show but of course we're spending a little extra time to travel.  i haven't really had time to think about it, but now that it's here i'm very excited!

my last how does she post

this is my last formal "how does she" post. it was fun, but i just have too much on my plate right now. they're looking for another fashion blogger so let me know if you're interested! i'll send you an email with details :)

One day, my husband brought me home a pair of hot pink, Princess Jasmine wannabe work out pants. I questioned them at first, but then I found myself EXCITED to go to the gym just so I could wear them!

This led me to write this post.

Now, I have been hesitant bringing anything up that involves anything to do with the body.. working out, eating healthy, body types, body images.. ect. because we as women tend to have some insecurities. But something snapped inside me as I wore these Jasmine pants. Not only did my self esteem get boosted at the gym, but I wasn't afraid to write a post about working out! I felt like Kevin McCallister from "Home Alone" when he conquered his fear being alone. He yelled "Hey, I'm not afraid anymore! I said, I'm not afraid anymore!" This is what has been going on inside my head.

Basically, I have found that wearing cute, colorful work out clothes has motivated me to get to the gym more often. I think it can for you too.

This is me in a typical outfit I used to wear when I worked out.

This is so blah. I used to think, "why wear something cute if it's just going to get sweaty and stinky?" I don't want to go to the gym looking like this!

 

{shirt: taken from husband, shorts: husband's old soccer shorts}

Here's where the magic happened.

There are clothes made specifically for working out! And they have cute ones! Ding ding!

All of a sudden the gym became fun! I wanted to run, jump, skip, play! I wanted to sing and dance to MC Hammer!

{top: t.j. maxx, pants: adidas (husband) shoes: nike frees}

This outfit is where the color really starts to pull through. I tried Zumba.. loved it. Have you noticed the clothes Zumba people wear? How fun are they?? The more colorful and crazy, the better. I think they are on to something.

 

{top: DownEast (warehouse) Bottoms: Marshalls, Shoes: T.J. Maxx}

I have been told over and over again that what we wear on the outside reflects the way we feel on the inside.

I believe this to be true. Think about it.

 

Finding clothes you feel comfortable in is the most important. You CAN STILL look cute while being comfortable. I'm not telling you to wear only your sports bra and spandex.

 

A big hesitation of mine was spending money on work out clothes. They can get pretty pricey, especially name brand items. You can find awesome deals at Ross, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, even Ebay for nice items. These shorts brand new would cost around $30. I found them at a thrift store for $3. Cool right?

 

{top: T.J. Maxx, Shorts: thrifted, Shoes: Nike Frees}

 

Take this post into consideration using the points of COLOR and CUTE. Don't worry about wearing revealing clothes if you are not comfortable with it. That is not what I'm getting at.

It's like getting all dressed up to go out on a Friday night date, only you're kissing the floor doing push-ups instead of your date.

What motivates you to work out?