blogging community – Say Yes to Happy

Mattie, from Northwest Native, has been an awesome blogging friend of mine, so friendly and real. She and I started our first link up together, called “Tell Me About It,” that we host at the beginning of each month. Our next one is October 2nd where you tell us your favorite thing about your state! I’m super excited to move to Seattle next month and finally get to meet Mattie in person!

Today she’s sharing some items on her bucket list with you all:

My bucket list is mostly travel and experiences. I am getting married on October 10th and our goal is to save up for a down payment and buy a house as soon as we can. We also hope to have kids one day. But none of these things are part of my bucket list, especially since when I was in high school and part of college I decided I would never be married or have kids. But then Michael came around and changed my mind. So because of that, I don’t feel like those should be bucket list items for me.

Visit all fifty states. So far I’ve been to Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Maryland, Virginia, Hawaii, and Washington D.C. (not a state, I know, but it’s included in this for me). Only nine states and D.C. That’s just sad. Reading blogs has really increased my wanderlust. Everyone talking about their cities and the great things there makes me desperate to travel! (Oh yeah, I’m not counting states where I’ve just been in the airport.) Currently Denver is near the top of the list of places to visit. I’m also desperate to visit Austin, NOLA, and Savannah. First I need to visit my friend in Madison as soon as I can (she’s been to see me twice, and the wedding will be three times!). And Michael’s cousin is getting married in Minneapolis next summer and since he and his fiancee are coming to our wedding, I think we should try and go to theirs!

This is from Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park in Montana. Michael and I went on a road trip to Montana and stayed in a tiny cabin with no wifi thirty minutes from Glacier. I love exploring different parts of the country!

Swim with dolphins. I’ve wanted to do this since I was a little girl. However, I took an animal law class my senior year of college (probably my favorite class of all time) and it’s made me really think about things like this. I only want to do this if I know it’s humane. Michael and I went to Mexico in March courtesy of the company I work for, and there was a place where we could’ve done this. But I looked into it and it turns out the place there is run horribly and is not very humane, so I couldn’t support that.

Run a 10K. I just decided on this one. I’ve run one 5K. The longest I’ve ever run is the equivalent of a 10K. The day after Michael and I did our 5K in March, we decided we’d try to tackle a five mile run, which would’ve been our longest ever. But at the five mile mark we weren’t dying, so Michael said, “Let’s just go until we hit an hour.” And then when we hit an hour we were so close to 6.2 (aka a 10K) that we just pushed through to that. Since then, the longest I’ve run is probably four miles. My standard run on a good day is a 5K (3.1 miles).

Go ziplining. I’m afraid of heights, but I think I would love ziplining, especially if it was in a super scenic location. I’ve been places where they had ziplining (Mexico multiple times) but just haven’t done it!

Wonders of the World. Apparently there are tons of lists of various Wonders of the World, but there are some that I absolutely want to see some day (though I wouldn’t mind seeing all of them!). Stonehenge, the Great Wall, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Empire State Building, the Panama Canal (my grandpa worked in the Canal Zone so my mom lived there for seven years), the Grand Canyon, the Great Barrier Reef (I was so close yet so far away when I was in Australia–sigh)… There are a ton more listed on the Wikipedia page, but I was getting tired of typing (and thought maybe you guys were getting tired of reading!). There are definitely more I want to see.

In my mind, the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in Sydney are wonders of the world. I was lucky enough to study abroad in the Sydney area for a semester and my friends and I did the bridge climb (like my childhood idols, Mary Kate and Ashley).

Exploring my own backyard. Oregon and Washington have a ton to offer that I’ve yet to see. Crater Lake has been on my list for years. I also want to travel to Bend, Oregon because it sounds like an awesome city. I’d like to go to Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens (I’ve been to St. Helens, but I was really young on a school field trip so I don’t remember it much!). I’d also like to go to Vancouver, BC (I can’t believe I haven’t done this yet) and go back to Victoria, BC (I went when I was twelve and it was beautiful).

There’s a ton of other international travel I’d like to do, but I don’t want to ramble for days. What are some of the things on your bucket list?

Thanks again to Julie for asking me to guest post!

I love that Mattie mentioned that Mary Kate and Ashley were her childhood idols because they were mine too! Hah. I, like Mattie have such a case of wanderlust and want to travel to SO many places both near and far! Thanks again for your post today Mattie!

Katie has been such a supportive blogging friend (and soon to be real life friend once we are both up in Seattle together!) I’m so glad she agreed to guest blog today. She and I like a lot of the same things so it’s so fun to follow her blog and see what she’s up to.

Hi everyone! I’m Katie from over at Better Off Benedict. I usually blog about our adventures (ok, maybe not as adventurous as Julie over here), married life, my deals and finds, projects, kitties, and of course football! I’m a huge lover of all things pink, weddings, coffee (duh, a true pacific northwest girl), and girly books. Just last month I started co-hosting a link up called Bookworm Wednesday where we review all of the books that we have read over the past month.

I started my blog back in February so in some ways I’m still a baby blogger. For a few months before that I bad been reading a ton of blogs and felt like the blogging world could be so much fun. I also felt like it was absolutely terrifying. Who would want to read what I was writing? And what would I even write about? I knew seriously absolutely nothing about blogging. I started looking into it and thought… hmmm I think I could come up with a few posts. It all just sort of spiraled from there. I had no idea how supportive other bloggers would be. I have made all sorts of friendships in the blog world and have even had contact with some of my very favorite big time bloggers. Everyone is so great; so don’t be afraid to start blogging! It is so much fun.

My husband makes fun of me (in a joking way, of course) for all of the friends that I have made in the blog world. I think it is amazing! It is like an entirely different group of friends who you know so much about from their blog! These relationships are some that I have truly grown to value in my life. It took a while, but I even started sharing my blog on social media for all of my friends to see. It is something that I’m now proud of instead of embarrassed about. I love the blog world!

I’m also really looking forward to keeping track of all the things we do in our married life! It will be so fun to see each of our successes and adventures written out for us to look back on. I have learned so much since I started blogging and it definitely keeps me plenty busy. Sometimes I even have trouble keeping up with all of my favorite blogs. My motto is that if a blog post is going to stress me out then I shouldn’t write it. After all, blogging is supposed to be fun! I hope you will pop over to my blog and say hello!