It’s Friday! WAHOOO! Actually it’s ORANGE Friday because the Orioles have their home opener today! That definitely means that the warm weather is coming and it is time to celebrate!! ;) As we celebrate the start to what we hope is an AMAZING weekend for everyone, we want to also celebrate true friendships! ;)
True friends are the ones that will accept you no matter what.
True friends are the ones that will defend your honor.
True friends are the ones that send you boxes of chocolate covered strawberry roses when things get tough.
True friends are the ones that will drop everything and be at your doorstep in moments of need (and with your favorite cupcakes in hand… whoa! ;) AMAZING!).
True friends are the ones that pick up the phone and call you just to say they love you.
True friends are the ones that just know exactly when to send that text message.
True friends are the ones that you laugh with until your cheeks hurt and have happy tears coming out of your eyes.
True friends are the ones that make life worthwhile.
True friends are the ones that love you no matter what.
We are so grateful to have so many true friends. Thank you for always encouraging, always pushing, and always believing.
Cheers to an AMAZING weekend and true friendships.
We’d love to hear what true friendships mean to you! Leave us a comment that starts with “True friends are the ones that ….” Then, go tell those true friends how important they are to you!
With this winter-like spring weather, we find minds wandering to a dream getaway and visualizing ourselves at the AMAZING Life Escape in November! We are so excited to be sitting by that cozy fire place in that beautiful estate in Maine!
Thank you to you all who have expressed so much interest in our AMAZING Life Escapes! Your excitement makes our hearts smile!!! We have received quite a few questions recently and thought it would be helpful to share them with you all, just in case you were wondering the same thing! For those of you who are still making your decision… hopefully these will help!
Don’t delay… we only have 3 spots remaining!!! AND the early bird pricing ends on April 1st!! (Use coupon code EarlyBird for the $400 discount!)
– AMAZING LIFE ESCAPE FAQ –
What in the world inspired you guys to host this?
We are two people who are crazy in love. Seriously in love. Through our experience as wedding photographers, we have recognized a lot about our love! We have realized that the love we share and the love that our couples share is something crazy special! It is something that we often take for granted and very rarely take the time to acknowledge, let alone celebrate! During engagement sessions, we have cherished the opportunity to give our couples an opportunity to escape the everyday craziness of life. (The decisions to be made… even just what to have for dinner, the daily routine of appointments and work activities that are always pulling you in a different direction!) We have recognized that that time… usually just 2 hours for an engagement session is time that we all rarely take to just LOVE on each other!
During 2012, we had this dream of creating an experience where any couple could escape the everyday craziness of life and take some time to celebrate the AMAZINGNESS that surrounds them. We dreamed of a getaway surrounded by new and old friends alike who were excited to invest in their relationship and share an experience that could change their lives! Whether friends coming into the Escape together or becoming friends during the Escape, we are excited to see a community form of AMAZING people who are excited to celebrate this special love and AMAZING life we share.
This is a dream for us and we couldn’t be more excited to share this dream with you!
My marriage isn’t in trouble, why should I attend?
Ohh man. This question really fires us up! Lol. (In the best way possible, of course!) We so often look around and think… I don’t need that. Or, my marriage is pretty good… I don’t need to focus on it. Life is pretty AMAZING, friends! We are the first ones to say that! But the reality is, we could all use a chance to get away and soak that AMAZINGNESS in!
The AMAZING Life Escape is meant to be for any and every couple, who are crazy in love, and recognize that spending some extra time together away from those other “things” in life is so incredibly important! As with date nights and intentional moments we take to just soak this AMAZING life in, we often don’t recognize the power of those moments until afterwards! It is our hope that we can help people recognize that making time for yourselves and relationship is so incredibly IMPORTANT! Yes, this is a crazy fun AMAZINGly beautiful escape that almost feels like a dream (well, it does feel like a dream), but the reality is that we hope it will be a life changing opportunity for people to experience the AMAZING love that is right by their side ALWAYS!… but sometimes it is just disguised under all of the other “things” in life. We all need that AMAZING reminder sometimes!
What will a typical day look like?
We are still working out the final details for the very first Escape! However, we can tell you that it is going to be pretty darn AMAZING! ;) We are super excited about it and quite determined to make this experience like no other!
An example of a typical day might look a little like this: 06:30 AM Sunrise (Optional, but imagine watching the sunrise, a cozy blanket & the love of your life by your side!) 08:00 AM Breakfast in Bed 10:00 AM AMAZING Life Inspiration Session: Discovering Joyful Happiness 12:00 PM Lunch 02:00 PM Yoga/Meditation/Afternoon Tea 03:00 PM Mini Photo Session 05:00 PM Cook Together Cooking Class with a Professional Chef 07:00 PM Cocktail Style Dinner Party 08:00 PM Movie Night (in the in-house movie theatre) complete with popcorn & snacks! 10:00 PM Cozy Fire Place Chat
I am not married, can I still come?
Currently our Escapes are designed for couples! Married or not, it doesn’t matter to us. We just want you to be crazy in love! ;) Our hope is that you will be in a serious relationship so that when you go back home, you will be able to celebrate that special love daily!
Are you marriage counselors?
NO! No, we are definitely not marriage counselors! If your marriage is in trouble or you need some additional support, please contact a professional. We absolutely want to see couples work through their hard times. However, we are not trained professionals to help you through that!
We are AMAZING Life Inspirers. We want to encourage couples to celebrate the AMAZINGNESS that surrounds them. This life is pretty AMAZING, but the AMAZINGNESS is often blurred by the everyday activities we all find ourselves buried under. It is our goal to bring that AMAZINGNESS back to the forefront and make that an everyday priority to be celebrated!
Is this a business expense?
To be honest, we never thought about this until now! AND we are not accountants, so we probably shouldn’t be answering this question. Depending on your profession, we could see how this could potentially be a business expense. However, please contact your accountant to discuss!
We see this as an investment in your relationship more than anything, and we hope you will too! We have recently recognized that we are so quick to jump on a business workshop opportunity or purchase the next new and improved piece of technology, but somehow it is so difficult for us to spend money on ourselves and on our relationships! We find ourselves having to justify any personal expenses we make! As Kid President would say, “This is our LIFE people… “ We hope you will recognize along with us that this as an opportunity to invest in an experience that is potentially life changing! No justification needed.
Ready to join us on the AMAZING Life Escape? Register Here!
Have you ever found yourself working so hard that you felt like you deserved a treat… or maybe you just needed to treat yourself to something extra special to celebrate the day? Sometimes just a piece of chocolate will do the trick… or even an afternoon coffee is just the treat we need. Yesterday was extra special for us and we decided to treat ourselves to an afternoon cupcake! ;)
We have been crazy at work over here getting dream projects off the ground and running (The AMAZING Marriage Project, The AMAZING Life Escapes, and there is one more coming soon that we are super excited to share with you!). We have been plowing through our to do lists, and adding to them just as quickly! It is funny how those “off season” days have become just as full as the “busy season” days! However, we cannot complain! We are loving every minute of them and have realized that we find ourselves so busy because we choose to be. We set our schedule and we have the choice to do anything that we want. How AMAZING is that?
Yesterday, we had an AMAZING call with a bride that had us grinning from ear to ear! We got off the phone and our hearts were so full and encouraged by her and her fiancée’s story and their dream to host a non-traditional wedding. We literally were high fiving her through the phone! She definitely made our hearts smile and reminded us that every single thing that we do is our very own choice. We celebrated that amazingness by taking a break from our to do list to treat ourselves to a cupcake! And yes, that may have been our dinner last night! ;)
Take a moment today to recognize that you do have control of how you spend every minute of everyday. You work really hard and most likely you deserve a treat! ;) Go treat yourself to something special! It will be good for your soul!
With curious minds and hearts bursting with so much love, we boarded a huge bus and made our way to the school. We honestly had no idea what we were going to be doing or what the situation would be like when we arrived, but we trusted in our hearts that we had a lot of love to give and it was going to be put to good use! ;)
On the last day of the What If Conference in the Dominican Republic, a large group of the conference attendees ventured off the road well traveled by tourists and made our way to a school in one of the local villages. As we pulled up to the small school surrounded by barbed wire fences, we were surprised to see kids just hanging out… outside of the fence. The school has about 900 attendees. However, there is only enough classroom space for about 150 (that is my best guess, anyway)! It is small. They have to rotate kids in and out. However, the most surprising and heartbreaking thing for me was, not the fact that the kids are only in school for a portion of the day/week, but many of the kids do not attend the public school at all. Their parents choose not to send them. Sometimes those kids are busy working for their parents and/or they just don’t know any different.
We all gathered around the playground and were welcomed with open arms by the kids and the teachers who performed a little ceremony for us! They knew we were coming and they prepared a whole welcoming event, complete with dancing and prayers. We split off into groups and made our way up into the classrooms to hand out some school supplies that we had all gathered for the kids!
As the school bells rang, the kids jumped out of their seats and ran for the playground! We were all there eager to have some fun. But, there was just one challenge. We did not speak the same language! It was definitely a barrier. As much as I tried to pick up a few phrases here and there, I was not a quick learner! All I wanted to do was hug these kids and tell them how special they are! Without words, we definitely struggled at first.
There were a few What Ifers that spoke Spanish and could quickly communicate with the kids. As we watched them, having no idea what they were saying to each other, we realized something. With huge smiles on their faces, they all seemed to be having fun! They were running around, doing what most kids on a playground do… they play. It didn’t really matter what they were saying… they were having fun!
We definitely like to have fun! So we stopped thinking about the barrier and started doing! We picked up a random Frisbee looking thing (that I am pretty sure is typically used as a base) and started playing catch with two of the sweetest little girls! Before we knew it, a few others joined in and we were soon running around the playground playing tag! With no words spoken or understood, we were having fun! It was in that moment that we realized Fun is a universal language!
This day we spent hanging out with these precious kids from the Dominican Republic was a day we will likely never forget! They taught us so much about love that our hearts were even more full than when we had arrived! Next time we are in a situation where there is any type of barrier… we will likely smile bigger, give a warm embrace, and do something crazy fun… all in honor of those beautiful little kids in the Dominican Republic!
Good morning and happy Friday! We hope you all had an AMAZING week and have some fun plans for the weekend! One of our favorite hobbies is reading. We LOVE reading a good book while snuggling up close under a cozy warm blanket. One of the reasons we love to read is that it inspires creativity in our minds. For the most part, we end up reading books about business, entrepreneurship, life, etc. Ok, Ok, we admit it, Liz does have Fifty Shades of Gray downloaded on the iPad too. :)
A few weeks ago, we were chatting with some close friends and were sharing some ideas we learned from reading. We recommend a few books and and chatted a little while longer about why we loved each one and how it has helped our relationship, lives, or business. And then we thought, wouldn’t it be fun to create a Liz and Ryan Book Club!! At first the idea sounded stupid, until we started reading Richie Norton‘s new book, “The Power of Starting Something Stupid.”
How many times have you had an idea only to have someone else tell you that it was stupid or wouldn’t work out? How many times have you thought, if only I could turn this crazy idea into a business and an AMAZING life? For us this happens all the time! In fact, starting our business was definitely a stupid idea that we had. More recently, starting our AMAZING Marriage Project was definitely another stupid idea. But as Richie shares in his book, “stupid is the new smart.”
We are so excited and honored to be able to kick off the Liz and Ryan Book Club with The Power of Starting Something Stupid. For now, we will just be sharing some of our favorite books and some of the advice we’ve learned from reading them, but who knows, eventually our stupid idea could turn into something as big as Oprah’s Book Club! :)
When we met Richie earlier this month in Punta Cana at the What If Conference, immediately we were inspired. He shared his heart with us and passion for taking what most people often consider stupid ideas and turning them into thriving businesses. Richie shared a few pieces of advice from his book, but the one that stuck with me the most was this, “Will I Regret it When I am Eighty?” This thought has definitely been our motto over the last year. In life, there are so many things we put off because we are afraid. The fears and excuses can be limitless: We don’t have enough time, We don’t have any money, People will say our idea is stupid….
But when we started applying the question “Will I Regret it When I am Eighty” to our lives, those fears and excuses suddenly don’t make a lot of sense anymore. Why wouldn’t we start doing more of what we love and less of what we don’t? Richie calls this The Bezos Test. In The Power of Starting Something Stupid, Richie shares the story of Jeff Bezos. Jeff’s story is often a familiar one that many of us have. It goes a little something like this:
“Jeff had a secure, well-paying job, a job that made him happy. By a societal measure, the guy had it all. Everything, including a wickedly stupid idea.”
Jeff’s stupid idea turned out to become Amazon.com. When he took his stupid idea to his boss at the time, he was told that the idea would be good thing to start for someone that didn’t already have a job, not someone like him. Instead of listening to the advice of his manager, Jeff asked himself, will I regret not pursuing this dream when I am eighty? The answer was yes. So he quit his job, took out a loan from his parents and begin working on his idea that would eventually revolutionize e-commerce and how things are sold on the internet. Can you imagine the internet without Amazon.com?
The next time you have a stupid idea, take the Bezos Test and ask yourself, “Will I regret it when I am eighty?”
This is just one of the many AMAZING pieces of advice that Richie shares in The Power of Starting Something Stupid.
From the moment we picked it up, we were inspired. The book pushes us to “Crush Fear” and make all of our big dreams a reality. Instead of looking at our ideas as stupid, more often then not, our ideas are actually smart ideas.
Another one of my favorite sections in the book is what Richie calls START, the five actions of the new smart. START stands for Serve, Thank, Ask, Receive, Trust. By applying these actions in our lives, jobs, businesses, and ideas, “we create an unyielding foundation for future success.” How awesome is that?
So here is the next part of our stupid idea, we want to know who is interested in being part of our Liz and Ryan Book Club? Have ideas of books we should read? Or have thoughts about how we could make the Book Club more AMAZING? Interested in participating in a live chat to discuss the books in our book club further? We’d love to hear from you, leave a comment below. And because we love hearing from you all so much, we will be giving away a copy of Richie’s book to one lucky person that leaves us a message!
