You may have read (or…at least partially read) my long recap of our recent Tulum vacation. In it, I mentioned that I wanted to do a separate post with food and drink photos so that my recap wouldn’t get even longer than it already was. So, here I am with said post.
Now that my 46th birthday has come and gone, it’s time to post about the gifts I received. I am very lucky to have gotten a plethora of fun stuff from loved ones! This first photo shows most of the gifts from my parents, minus a couple things that arrived late:
Long post ahead!
On May 29 we headed to Tulum, located in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, for a wonderful weeklong vacation. We had such a truly fabulous time! We took a three-hour flight from Dulles to Cancun, then got picked up at the airport by a driver that our hotel had arranged for us. The drive to our accommodations, Mezzanine Hotel in Tulum, took about an hour and forty-five minutes with a little traffic. So, not a terribly long trip to get to this:
My 46th birthday was yesterday, and I had a really nice, low-key celebration. I’ve never been big on birthday celebrations; all I wanted was to treat myself and chill. And that’s exactly what I did.
Hello, June! My birthday month! I’m actually posting this from a beach vacation…it’s so hot and humid out that I don’t mind sitting in the air conditioned room to write.
I emptied a fair amount of products last month, and had a couple items to declutter:
When I hopped on Facebook recently, an ad appeared in my feed for a new Pokémon x Colourpop collection. I didn’t even pay attention to the launch date and went straight to Colourpop.com to check the collection out and buy some items. Turns out my timing was absolutely perfect and the collection must have just launched, because many of the products had sold out just a few hours after I placed my order! I don’t say this often, but thank you, Facebook (lol).
I ordered four items from the twelve-piece collection. You can order the full collection set for $159, though it’s currently sold out. I imagine they’ll restock, since much of this collection seemed to fly off the shelves like a Pokémon running away from an encounter in the wild.
1. Youth to the People Gifts: this Friday Five is 100% comprised of brand gifts I’ve received over the last couple months! We’ll start with this lovely package from one of my favorite skin care brands. YTTP sent me a large bottle of the Superfood Antioxidant Cleanser, Superberry Hydrate + Glow Dream Mask, Superfood Air-Whip Moisture Cream, and the new Superfood Skin Drip. I’ve tried and loved the first three products before and am excited to try Skin Drip!
Happy May! I’m so excited that the weather finally feels more consistently springy, though we’ve already experienced a couple of hot, summery days. I’m looking forward to being able to do more weekend hikes!
In April, I emptied a bunch of beauty products—a couple of which were gifted and a couple of which were free gifts with purchases:
Happy final day of the Spring Sephora Savings Event! I’ve completed my purchases and filmed a haul video that you can watch below. Note: today (April 15, 2024) is the final day to receive a discount on your in-store or online purchases, so make sure you take advantage while you can. Use code YAYSAVE at checkout for online orders.
1. 2024 Eclipse at Totality: early this week, John and I traveled to St. Louis (where I grew up) to view the April 8th total solar eclipse with my parents and his dad, who flew in from out of town. We weren’t able to go there for the 2017 eclipse and did not want to miss this one. So this Friday Five is all about the total eclipse!
On Monday morning, we packed up a picnic lunch and drove to Mount Vernon, Illinois, located in the path of totality. There was a lot of traffic on the road, but getting to see the total eclipse was absolutely worth the effort. I bought this inexpensive solar filter from B&H, but it did not work out well for me. I know basically nothing about photography and followed some online advice on how to photograph an eclipse, but most of my eclipse photos aren’t worth sharing. However, here’s one of the photos I took during totality that I just think is pretty:
