Ok, so we quickly realized that if we attempted to blog everything that we need to blog about as its own separate, pretty lil' post...that it would take us roughly the next 67 years, 9 months, 8 days, and 47 seconds to catch up. And, um, that's a long time. So we decided that we would just do a full on recap of the highlights in Justin & Mary world from the past week a la "The Best Week Ever" episodes and see how it goes! So here it is....in REVERSE chronological order.
Y'know...just to keep things spicy.
First off, last night we hit up a lil' soiree bash thrown by the beautiful Lindsey Maurath of Lindsey Maurath Events where the guest of honor was none other than Ms. Grace Ormonde herself. Here's us chillin' with Grace and the insanely talented Traci Romano of Traci Romano Events (who rocked out our wedding!).
And above you'll see us with some of our favorite CT peeps: photographers extraordinaire Bruce Plotkin & Leslie Dumke. And on the right, the stunning and ridiculously amazing florist Katherine Jacob of KDJ Botanica!
Next, moving backwards through time, Justin & I headed down to Gettysburg to meet up with my dad. When I was about 7, my family first visited Gettysburg on a whim and it's become sort of a tradition. Add to that fact that my dad is also a huge civil war buff, and we've now been there approximately 3,726 times. Ballpark.
ooooh rockin out the new 25mm!! boo-yah!
how incredible is this shot that Justin got?! Sheesh, you'd think he did this for a living!
It's pretty safe to say that after 3,726 visits we were running out of things to do, but ever since Justin joined the family we've had a whole new element to keep us entertained. Like.....
Taking ghost pictures!!
Don't I make a pretty rockin' solider? C'mon you know you were thinkin it!
OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
And last, but certainly never least, was the Spread the Love- New England workshop last Wednesday. I'm really not sure where to even begin with this part of the post. Which maybe is why I came up with the whole "hey let's just group em all together in a recap" plan in the first place. Because if I actually had to sit down and think about the kind of people that we were honored to be surrounded by that day...the way that each of them gave their WHOLE hearts in everything we did that day...the way that we learned SO much more from them than we could've ever hoped to teach...well if I had to sit down and think about all of that then I would probably find myself crying those same tears of "how can we seriously be this lucky and who really gets to live a life like this" gratitude that were sent spilling over my cheeks countless times that day.
To all of you who were there: you. amaze. us.
You shared more of yourselves with us than we ever could have earned or deserved. And yet, you shared anyway. You laughed with us (thank you!) and you cried with us (thank you even more!) and gave more than you took. You sought to understand more than you sought to be understood. And you put it out there for the world to see. Time after time. I cannot thank you enough for being there with us as we took this very first step in the long road ahead that is Spread the Love. All I can tell you is that we will never forget that you were there.
Ever.
We got the kindest, most thoughtful notes after this (very long, exhausting) day and I just wanted to end out this best week ever by sharing one of those with you straight from the blog of Ms. Betsy Jo Hany:
"So I said I would post some pictures and details from my day at the Spread the Love Workshop. 'Problem is, I hardly know where to begin. It's like my mind is filled with fragmented adjectives, instead of complete thoughts. Words like: Stunning. Spurred. Move. Prime. Motivating. Inspire. Breathe. See what I mean? They don't really make practical sense; they're not even in the same verb tense. But they sum up how I feel. I am so thankful for the opportunity I had. And I realize now that what I learned has the potential to be life-changing. That part is up to me.
I wish I could give a little slice of how the day went- the inspiring words, the crucial, direct advice on how to remain current, how to 'be the brand', and bring a higher level of service to those around me. How we dug deep into who we are, participated in activities that made us realize our potential, even wrote our own obituaries! (Highly recommended, by the way.) I wish I could explain it all. But the workshop was 7 hours long. And it felt like half that.
We love you guys!
J&M
***Ooh, one more thing! We also want to give HUGE props to Miss Anna Sawin and Miss Kricia Morris for winning the Good Life Challenge!! They will both win a seat to the Spread the Love of their choice!
Life with J&M
