San Kelly

Life update!

 

I wanted to make a quick "life update" for you guys on what's been going on with me since 2015 started! :) 

I wrapped up 2014 with some big events: In May, we moved into a new town and bought a new house, in September I got married, I also ran my first three 5k's, went to Disney World with my girlfriends and then Hawaii for Christmas...!! A lot of really exciting big events that kept me from having time for the blog. :O

In between all that I was trying to find a balance with setting up our house, work and personal life... It was hard but I think I've finally gotten into a good rhythm with my routine - I've gotten back into drawing and I've even made some new YouTube videos and started blogging again. I'm really excited about it all!! I've also been trying to make more time for seeing my friends and visiting my favorite cafes! I'll definitely be able to get around more for these fun friend outings because... I bought my first car in February!! I got my dream car: a red mini cooper! Right now I've been calling her "mini-chan". ;) She makes driving so fun!

I've also been going on lots of adventures with my husband with amazing food events (check out the ramen festival picture above - YUM!!) and running races. So far I've ran 5 races and 1 "virtual race" since 2015 has started! I missed out on running the "Color Run 5k" due to having stitches in my leg this month, but I hope to get back on track asap for my upcoming race with my husband in San Francisco: Bay to Breakers!! It will be my longest race so far - a 12k! I hope I do well and have a great time!

I'll also be visiting my girlfriends Katie and Sarah that live in NYC in May which I'm SUPER excited about!! I hope I have lots to share on my blog when I get back from SF and NYC... Until then, I'm going to keep working on drawings, uploading videos and making posts! I hope you guys are doing well and have been enjoying the new updates! <3

We got married this weekend!!

 

Photo by Tim Harman

This past Saturday Chris and I got married!! It was the most magical day ever and everything went so great!

Now that I'm done with wedding planning I'm going to start sharing posts about my bridal shower, some engagement pics, the Disney World bachelorette party... and then I'll blog about our fairy tale themed wedding when I get the official pics from our photographer in!! (Annnnd then finally I'll catch up on some travel/Japan posts and drawing... whew!! It's a lot! lol)

So check back for more wedding posts through out October! <3

 

Drawings and life update

I'm sure those who follow my blog are wondering why I haven't made my Friday Japan updates yet. I wanted to let you all know they are still coming - I just had a few things pop up that have kept me from working on my blog recently. Our friend's father passed away recently and we spent one weekend going to visit for his funeral, and this past week I was snowed/iced in at my mom's. There has been some crazy weather going on in Atlanta lately... What's even more nuts is it's warm this week!! Above is a photo of my mom's backyard and below is my neice and her dog playing outside in the snow.

I chose to stay at my mom's during the ice storm since the news was predicting many homes in Atlanta would lose power and I didn't have a fireplace to keep me warm if that happened. (I wasn't sure where I'd go with my dog to stay warm!!) She lives an hour south of Atlanta, and has two fireplaces and plenty of room for guests - so she invited me to come stay with her and work remotely. Plus, Chris was out of town in California so it would be a nice way to be in company of other's during what would be a long, cold and possibly lonely week for me. How could I say no?!

The power never did go out at her house thankfully, but it was really nice to be together with my family and her husband's family during the wintery weather. I worked remotely while I was there (I'm very busy with moving the company into a new building!), and in the evenings I ate meals with everyone, worked on drawings (I'm experimenting with watercolor right now!) and started re-reading the manga, "Nana", by Ai Yazawa on my kindle. I was so inspired I decided to draw some of my favorite clothing items from the manga that Nana Osaki wears. I remember thinking Nana was so cool when I first read this in college many years ago, but now that I'm older I realize I have more in common with Hachi personality and style-wise. I still admire Nana's cool Vivienne Westwood clothes though!

I also drew some of my favorite items from the new Kate Spade spring collection. It's travel inspired and so cute! My favorite items are the French themed pieces - I really hope to get the bow coat, purse and hat when they go on sale eventually. Gotta save up!

 

So that's why there haven't been posts the past two weeks. I'm hoping to get back on track next week since I have my first day in Kyoto almost ready to share. (It's been hard to decided how to split up the posts!!) My only obstacles in the way of posting right now is finding spare time between work's big moving project, running (I started couch to 5k last month!), reading/relaxing and drawing for the blog. Seems like spare time is hard to come by these days but I promise to post! :) So please stay tuned <3

Have a good weekend everyone!

Summer Adventures and turning 30!

This summer really zoomed by for me - It was so fast I really didn't have a lot of time for blogging or the internet! I wanted to take a second to talk about all the fun summery stuff that happened before I start gushing about fall being here now.

  

 

We had a really mild summer in Atlanta which was dreamy and unexpected. It's normally ridiculously hot from about June till October but we got so much rain that it was really only "hotlanta" for a month or so! Not bad!! 

This made being outside really enjoyable and I ended up celebrating my 30th birthday with outdoor adventures at my mom's lake house which is where the above swimming photo and below video were made! Chris made the video on his new gopro camera that can go underwater - It was so fun to test out and I hope next summer we can make more neat underwater adventure movies!! 

Pool! from Chris Kelly on Vimeo.

I also had a joint birthday party with Chris in July (his birthday is July 2nd, mine is June 7th) and we called it Bows & Beers! It was a themed party around - you guessed it - bows and beers. There was a prize for whoever wore the most bows and the biggest bow! Here is what I wore:

and the prizes I made!

It was a really fun get together and I was so impressed with the effort people put in with their bow-tastic outfits!! I took some photos that night but most of them didn't come out very well due to the lighting. :\! I guess that just means next year we need another fun birthday get together to take pics at! ;)

Turning 30 wasn't the only exciting thing that happened this summer though!

A few highlights:

• Summer mini trips - We visited our friend Dave in Charleston to sight see and relaxed with tasty snacks on the beach. It was so nice to catch up and gave me an excuse to test out my new camera...
• Yes - a neeeeew camera!! I finally got a really nice camera after many years of being indecisive about it, and I'm so glad I waited because its everything I hoped for! I look forward to sharing photos on here now <3

• The Skyview Ferris Wheel - this is a new tourist attraction that was set up in Atlanta and I went to ride it with my family!! It's such a pretty addition to our skyline!

• Starting cutelanta.com - I bought a new website to blog about all things cute in Atlanta and it'll be up and running soon! 
• Animal Crossing - Ahhhh ACNL <3 I still need to blog about this, I'm a big Animal Crossing fan and love playing it on the 3ds! 
• Lots of bike riding - we went to Atlanta Streets Alive twice, biked to lots of dinners and lunches, went on Beltline adventures... it's been great!
• Quit coffee - YES! I finally quit having a daily coffee fix and I feel amazing!! I decided to do this after having caffeine with-drawl migraines while traveling... And I'm so glad I did! Now when I have a cup of coffee it's a treat and really fun rather than a feeling of "refueling". I also feel a lot less stressed which is lovely!

 

I'm sure there were a ton of other adventures that I'm forgetting right now, but it was a really great summer and I enjoyed myself a lot!! 

A little life update + Ni no Kuni!

I'm currently on hiatus from social media sites (twitter, tumblr, facebook, instagram and pinterest - the only way I'll be using these is through direct update when I post on my blog) so I thought I'd take a minute to update my blog and let you guys know what I'm up to!

First of all - Happy new year! A little belated, but worth stating. My 2013 got off to a rough start with my uncle passing away, but I'm going to try to be inspired by his life and our great memories together to make this year an amazing and memorable one.

On that note, I've been taking this month kinda easy... Trying to figure out things with my job since its changed a lot, figuring out my new life goals for the next 6 months, focusing on my health and spending time with my family. It doesn't sound very exciting, but I have been enjoying myself!

In between all of that I started playing Ni no Kuni, the new Studio Ghibli video game!!

I really like it so far - the art work is AMAZING! I wish I could crawl into this world and live there with all the beautiful green landscapes, cute homes and interesting creatures. 

If you like Studio Ghibli and have a PS3, I definitely recommend you get it! Here are some iphone pictures I took during playing:

 

 

Such a good game. Seriously, go get it!! I wish I could have gotten the special "Wizard Edition" that came with a tangible version of the game spell book... but maybe they will end up selling the book indvidually soon. :)

I've also been working starting a podcast with three of my friends here in Atlanta! We are still working out ideas and figuring out recording, but when it is ready I'll definitely link to it here!

Well, that's it for today! Not the most exciting update but I'm sure I'll think of more things as I have time away from Social Media sites. :)