This is how we spent our Valentine’s Day and we wouldn’t have changed a thing! Surrounding ourselves by love is definitely one of our all time favorite places to be! We spent Valentine’s Day walking up to complete strangers in New Orleans, taking their photos, and asking them what their favorite thing about marriage is! It was AMAZING!
As a part of the Amazing Life Together Indiegogo Campaign, we have challenged ourselves to the #100CoupleChallenge. For every $100 raised in the campaign, we will photograph 1 random couple wherever we are! Check out our progress so far, make a donation, and be inspired by the beautiful love that surrounds us always!
Over the past few weeks, we have had the opportunity to be able to introduce you to some AMAZING couples that have held a special place in our hearts for quite some time… These couples have been in our lives since before the days that they even started dating! I am feeling extra grateful this morning knowing that we are surrounded by some pretty AMAZING couples and love stories that we have been able to witness since the very beginning! ;) How special is that?!?
Katie and Travis are no different! ;) We have known Katie and Travis since the very first day they met each other at Bucknell University! I just happened to be lucky enough to be their RA on Smith 2C… the place they called home for their first year at Bucknell! Ahh! So much fun to think about! I am not sure they realized it at that point, but I am pretty sure everyone around them knew pretty quickly eventually they would get married!
Nine years later! And it is officially happening! ;) It is so much fun to see them together now… their love has grown stronger and their friendship exudes happiness in such a special way! (Even more so than those days on 2C… and I am not sure I thought that was possible!)
Katie and Travis, we could not be happier for you two! Seriously, our hearts are so happy seeing you together and being able to capture this AMAZING time in your lives!! Thank you for making us a part of it! It means the world to us!
Yes, that is a smiley face that just happened to appear after Travis finished his beer. If that isn’t a sign of happiness, I am not sure what is?!? ;) We had such a blast exploring some of Katie and Travis’s favorite spots for their Baltimore Engagement Session! Camden Yards, Fell’s Point and Max’s Taphouse! Pretty awesome, right?!
If you follow along our adventures on Instagram (Liz_and_Ryan) then you know we had a lot of fun completing our 21 Random Acts of Kindness last Wednesday. We joined over 500!!! people doing sweet things on July 17th in AMAZING honor of the 21 beautiful people from Montoursville, PA and all of the others who lost their lives on TWA Flight 800. Leading up to Wednesday, we had a list of things we wanted to do in hopes to make that day extra special for people we crossed paths with! We woke up that morning with an extra big smile on our faces knowing the impact we might be able to have! My mom even said this in a blog comment (thanks for reading mom! ;) ) and we couldn’t agree more, “If you wake up with the plan to do 21 acts of kindness the tone for the entire day is positive!”
It is AMAZING how incredible the day can be just by starting it off knowing your goal for the day is to go out of your way to do something special in hopes to make the day brighter for someone else… now multiply that by 21 and the day is pretty much magical! ;) At one point on Wednesday, I was literally skipping down the street with a huge smile on my face. I told Ryan I felt like a little fairy with a wand that was sprinkling joy all over!!! It was so much fun! And actually a really big challenge too.
The challenging part was a little bit disheartening to us… or maybe the better description of it would be eye-opening! There were a few things we did throughout the day with so much excitement… and then we watched from afar to observe how people would act on the receiving end… and for some… they just didn’t act. For some, the reaction was surprise and wow… for others, they were too busy to even notice. We created a hop scotch down the street to encourage people to take time to have fun. We watched about 20 people walk right by the hop scotch and never skip a beat. It was as if they didn’t even see it. They didn’t even take note to the message that said “have fun today.” That was kind of crazy to us… but totally eye-opening! The reality of our busy lives is that we often walk right by acts of kindness that are right in front of us and never take a moment to even recognize it or appreciate it. For those that walked right by the reminder to have fun, they didn’t even take a moment to let the smile appear on their faces!
Ryan and I sat outside on our stoop for about 30 minutes. We were about 18 random acts of kindness in and we were observing people walk right over one of them. We sat in silence and I think our minds were just working in our hearts. We knew this was a lesson for ourselves… a lesson that sometimes we just have to slow down and take it all in. And a lesson that we have a really big responsibility to help spread kindness and happiness around… because honestly, I think we could all use a little more of it in our lives! (Both giving and receiving!)
We got up from our stoop and I decided to go clear some clutter from our closet and give some of our clothing to those who need it more! On the way down to the donation box, I saw a McDonald’s Big Mac Box littered in the middle of the road. I slammed on my breaks and literally stopped the car in the middle of the road. Ryan looked at me like I was crazy and said, “what in the world are you doing?!” Once he saw the trash that I picked up, he knew exactly what I was doing. Saving the Bay, obviously! ;) It was like a no brainer at that point.
21 Random Acts of Kindness in and our hearts have definitely changed! Those beautiful friends, family and neighbors who lost their lives on July 17th, 1996 have touched the lives of so many people. Here on earth or watching down on us as beautiful angels from above, they are making this world a better place! We are so grateful for their hearts and the life lessons they are teaching us along the way!
July 17th, 1996 is one of those dates we will never forget. Every year July 17th comes around and we are immediately flooded with the emotions of that day. Seventeen years later and we can still remember the details like it was yesterday. I remember waking up to the sounds of my mom sobbing as she watched CNN and heard the newscaster say that a group of High School Students from Montoursville, PA were on TWA Flight 800 when it went down. The devastation and sadness that comes over us whenever we hear of heartbreaking tragic news that happens around the world was magnified by 1 million when we saw our small town of Montoursville blasted across the screen of pretty much every major news station knowing that this tragedy was definitely hitting home. Growing up in such a small town, everyone pretty much knows everyone.
July 17th, 1996 was a day that definitely left an impact on our hearts. Through the tragedy, we witnessed our small town come together and become a stronger community. As the clouds formed the shape of an angel in the sky above our high school where people gathered to come together for love and support, we couldn’t help but know everything was going to be okay. There were now 21 additional beautiful angels in the sky who had a special way of making the hugs a little tighter.
There are no answers to the question “why”… in fact, with the most recent controversy magnified by a new documentary, there are still no answers to “how.” But the one answer that we do have is that everything happens for a reason and we have no choice but to honor those 21 beautiful people in a special way! A few weeks ago we received a facebook invite to join a group of over 200 strong in an effort to do 21 Random Acts of Kindness today in honor of those beautiful people who lost their lives 17 years ago. What an AMAZING idea.
Today, we are so excited to be out and about bringing a smile to people’s faces. With each random act of kindness, our hearts will be with each and every one of the 21 and their family and friends. With every smile, we hope we bring a million more to those family and friends as they remember their loved ones today.
Forever in our hearts… that is for sure.
We would LOVE for you to join us by doing a Random Act of Kindness today (or, I mean 21 would be awesome too! ;) !!!) Feel free to download and print these graphics and leave them with your RAK. Let’s spread those smiles today and hopefully help make those hugs a little tighter too!
