Oct 14, 2012

Off the Grid

Madeline Beard Other Adventures Cancun, Mexico, travel, wedding 1 Comment

Written earlier this afternoon…

As I write this, I am sitting at my gate in Cancun waiting to head back to DC. Although I won’t be able to post this until later tonight, I wanted to start writing while all of the memories are still fresh in my brain. The past three days have been unbelievable for a few reasons — first, I got to be a bridesmaid for one of the most unique weddings I have ever seen or heard of. The wedding of my cousin Raleigh to her husband Tom was a traditional Mayan ceremony held on the beach. There were dancers in body paint, a shaman and, perhaps best of all, everyone in attendance got to take part in the ceremony. I could not be more happy for them and I am so grateful I got to be a part of their special day. Once we get the official photos back from the photographer, I’ll try to post a couple on SLB.

Second, my trip to Mexico pushed me as far off the grid (and out of my comfort zone) as possible. Zero cell phone, zero internet, zero communicado with the outside world. Just me and my family and the beach and new friends and moments uninterrupted by all of the background noise that seems to fill up my day-to-day. When I first arrived at the resort, I was a little disappointed I wouldn’t be able to share my experience via Instagrams, tweets and blog posts. I realize now that being able to just enjoy being in the moment was such a gift — I told Raleigh this morning that I don’t remember the last time I had gone this long without checking my Facebook. It was a total social media detox that I didn’t know I needed until it was out of my life. I won’t be falling off the face of the earth again anytime soon, and I am really looking forward to all of the muploading I’ll get to do when I get home, but my trip was made even better when I could just forget about my virtual life for a few days.

That being said, I am really excited to now be able to share all of the pictures I snapped from my trip! In some cases I tried not to risk bringing my camera everywhere with me (I found out the hard way one night that DSLRs + sand don’t mix) but I did get to capture some pretty cool moments:

More photos from the ceremony are on the way, so stay tuned for those. Here are a couple of songs that made up the soundtrack to my trip:

More adventures to come, so happy to be getting back into my blogging routine!

♥

Sep 4, 2012

Summertime in NYC

Madeline Beard Food, Other Adventures Brooklyn, food, New York City, sweets, travel 2 Comments

I did it! After climbing onto a bus in the wee hours of the morning yesterday and sleeping through the entire 4 1/2 hour trip, I finally arrived in New York City! The last 24 hours have been a whirlwind of running around the city, working with a fabulous designer and spending time with two great friends. While this trip is primarily for business (more on that later), just being in the city again has made me reminisce about the last time I visited New York.

As a mini vacation to myself, I came up earlier in the summer to spend a long weekend with a dear old friend, Gracie. I have been meaning to post highlights from the trip since starting SLB and now seems like the perfect opportunity — as shown in the photos below, my NYC vacation ended up turning into a “Tour de Food” around the city. In my opinion, the best vacations are the ones where you get to snack your way through neighborhoods. Luckily, I got to discover some pretty fabulous restaurants and bakeries during my summertime trip and hopefully I will have the chance to revisit a few favorites while I am back.