Category Archives: Everyday Adventures

Signing off as a Dennihy

5th January 2015

After nearly two months, a lot of paperwork and ~~several~~ far too many naps, I’ve recovered from getting married, changed my name (as far as the federal government is concerned) and I can officially call myself a White. It’s been a whirlwind of two months and we’ve loved just about every second of the journey.

Everyone tells you that your wedding day will be the best day of your life. Our entire wedding week surpassed every expectation and filled that claim for more. Everyone also shares endless advice. I couldn’t love that tradition more, especially one particular coworker who kept me sane the week of by sharing a new story daily (thanks Adam).

I’m sure I could blog and share photos for hours, but to tribute all of the advice and stories shared, it felt best to break down down the day with our favorite shared words of wisdom.

Five pieces of wedding advice worth sharing

1. Get plenty of sleep the night before

First, this didn’t happen whatsoever. Though after staying out with friends until 3:00 AM on our wedding day, I wish it did. So did the five hours I spent napping on the couch on Sunday.

Living close to the wedding venue (and having in-laws who also live within a few miles) I was fortunate enough to have the girls stay at Patrick and I’s little home on wedding eve. When we planned it this way, I thought to myself “Fantastic. My own bed? I’ll sleep like a baby!”

No such thing. After about 1:00 in the afternoon the nausea set in and didn’t subside until after the ceremony. Having the cops come to your door at 2:00 AM after a neighbor backed into your bridesmaid’s car didn’t help either. Yes. That happened. But survive we did – and thankfully no one was hurt.

2. Every hour, step back for a full minute and just take it all in

This did happen. From the moment we joined hands at the alter, to soaking up our loved ones all together on the dance floor at Johnny’s Hideaway at 3:00 AM, this was hands down the best advice we were given.

Per the advice of our planner, we opted to forgo cocktail hour, choosing to have plated hors d’oeuvres brought to a room in the offices of the reception venue. It may have only been 15 minutes or so, but just taking a few minutes to soak in what was happening, just the two of us, was so special.

3. Dance … and then dance some more

We may not have had the chance to speak to every one of our guests (if we didn’t speak to you 1:1, know we love you just as much), but we did make the most of the dance floor.

P is NOT a public dancer. Pretty early on in our dating days, I made him a compromise that he only had to dance with me for one song at every wedding we attended (which meant a LOT of girlfriend dance days) … if he would agree to dance every dance should we ever get married. Welp, that paid off. Maybe I had a hunch 😉

4. Don’t leave for your honeymoon the next day

I don’t know how people make it to the airport 12 hours later. See the five hour Sunday nap comment above. That combined with a going away brunch for our out of town guests allowed us to recover and savor every second with family and friends.

5. It will go by in the blink of an eye

So that’s not quite advice, but I don’t think I really understood what anyone meant until we experienced this ourselves. Our entire wedding week literally flashed before our eyes and from what I hear, the years and then decades will continue to do the same. And in this case, we look forward to soaking it all in, one moment at a time.

A most sincere thank you to our incredible vendors who made our day come to life.

London Calling

19th August 2014

As I write this post, I’m finally regaining control over the jet lag beast after a whirlwind week in London, and what a little adventure it was. My first time out of the country (passport stamp to prove it) with six days of listening to those lovely British accents and heck of a lot of tourist moments to prove it.

When I found out there was a chance I would be heading across the pond for business, I purposely kept my excitement level at about a two all the way up until the point I crossed through international security on Thursday evening – from there, all bets were off.

I traveled with two of my favorite coworkers, making the journey that much more exciting. We started the trip with a stop at Ecco for a drink – a Long Live the Queen seemed appropriate enough.

Side note – how sparkling are the floors of the new international terminal at Hartsfield? Maybe I’m the only one who is dazzled by them every time I’m flown out of that are.

We landed around 7 AM London time, so I was beyond grateful to our hotel for the early check in around 9:30 AM. Bags dropped and we headed off to find food – sleep later. After lunch, we wandered over to Tower Bridge and Tower of London. In honor of World War I, there is currently a poppy installation that is absolutely breathtaking. I had caught a glimpse earlier in the week through US media, but was more drawn to Duchess Kate’s coat that time around, so it was such a pleasant surprise to see the grand scale and painstaking detail in person.

The next few days continued with more adventures, which seemed to also conveniently align with either champagne or sunshine. Rather than give you a play by play, here are the highlights broken into three categories.

1. Activities that included a glass of champagne

First up, a champagne tour of the London eye.

Second, a stop at Harrod’s.

Finally, not a champagne stop, but this adorable little owl drink at Night Jar – a fantastic speakeasy.

2. Tourist stops I wasn’t afraid to obnoxiously photograph (which was everything)

During the month of August when the Queen is away, Buckingham Palace offers tours inside. I would highly recommend it.

I couldn’t resist a double decker bus begging me to share with the home state.

3. Morning run routes that allowed me to see more of the city (and look like a sweaty, lost tourist)

Run club over Tower Bridge – at a balmy 6:00 AM.

While the 40 kid line kept me from an actual photo of platform 9 3/4, I couldn’t resist making a trip to Kings Cross.

While the week has been packed with work as well (hello sixteen hour days), I was so thankful to get to spend some time making the most of this incredibly gracious, welcoming and charming city. My next international adventure will be to Belize in just a few short months with a slightly different travel agenda and companion (hello honeymoon) and I cannot wait.

Until then, I’ll be dreaming of those delightful British accents and tiny tea pots.

#YouBetterBelize It: Planning a Honeymoon in Belize

8th August 2014

If I had to pick the most stressful element of planning this entire wedding thus far, it would have to be hands down, honeymoon planning. Those 300 hand calligraphed envelopes have nothing on the honeymoon monster. So let me tell you, booking flights this week was a huge weight off of our shoulders. Belize, here we come.

With the world as our oyster, our planning pretty much went like this for about three months:

Strategy number one: pull up Google Maps, choose a country, Google weather in that country, then look at flights on Kayak.

Strategy number two: hire a travel agent. While this certainly helped rule out a few destinations, it certainly didn’t cure my indecisiveness.

Strategy number three: go back to the always reliable Rory Gilmore pro/con list. Here was ours:

We are spending two weeks, so somewhere we could travel every few days, though not live out of a suitcase
Stay within budget, so we can travel comfortably, maybe even splurge here and there (if you know us, this will likely mean dinner where we spend more than $30 ;))
Beach. Has to have a beach
Make that a beach with activities – P gets bored quickly
Not spend days on planes, trains and automobiles getting there
No big resort accommodations. We are drawn to little local places, boutiques hotels and the like for the charm and personal feel

After this, we seemed to have narrowed things down a bit:

Rules out Peru. Too much hiking for this trip
Sadly, this is how New Zealand and that dream of Bora Bora died
Europe, we’ll see you someday, but too cool temperatures in November kinda kill the beach vibe
Most small islands, out, not enough adventure variety
Bali, though still SO high on the list, lost due to its 38 hour travel. Yuck
Hawaii came SO close, but then we did some more homework and stumbled upon BELIZE

We booked flights (and our first destination) this week and could not be more thrilled. We’re planning to spilt our trip with one part jungle, two parts islands.

The jungle is booked. First up, we’ll be heading to Caves Brach where we are staying in a freaking treehouse. Please note, I believe I’ve used the adjective ‘freaking’ every time I describe the treehouse.