Musings on life, parenting, Jesus, and more...

I absolutely love the Airbnb studio apartment I rented for my recent trip to Mazatlan. It was in a quiet neighborhood just a few blocks from the Golden Zone, walking distance from restaurants, the beach, and public transpiration (although I still used Uber most days to get around if it was too far to walk.)  The apartment is hosted by a lovely woman that only speaks Spanish, but her daughter manages the online bookings and speaks English very well. It is gated and secure, and fully equipped with towels, fridge, coffee pot and small kitchenette. If you prefer, you can even have it cleaned for an additional 100 pesos per day (about $5.50 US).  It has a cute outdoor patio space, although in the 90 degree humid heat of August, I spent most of my time in the air conditioning.  The best part is that it cost a fraction of what the hotels in the area charge. Here is a link to the listing: EXCELLENT STUDIO CLOSE TO THE BEACH I imaging the price fluctuates a little but I paid $32 U...

Usually I'm not the type of girl who likes knock offs. I prefer quality over quantity and would rather save up and spend more on name brand items than risk getting a sub-par product. I own a coach purse, I buy Buckle jeans, and my iPhone charging cords are Apple certified.  However, spending hundreds of dollars on name brand perfume just isn't in my budget - at least not right now. Which is why this little perfume store was on my list of places I needed to visit on this quick trip back to Mazatlan. It is located in centro (the downtown area) and the prices are... affordable. You select your perfume from a list provided to you at the counter. They are all in generic containers on the shelf and you can smell any of them that you like.  My favorite right now is Coco  Mademoiselle. Here is what it looks like and costs in the US. At the perfume store in Mazatlan, you select your size and concentration, and they fill a container for you right there.  Although I'm fairly ce...

Some of the things I ❤️ about Mazatlan... 👉🏼 Fresh seafood... this shrimp was probably caught this morning!  👉🏼 Tacos 🌮 (no explanation necessary)  👉🏼 Micheladas 🍻 (beer on ice with limón, spices, and my favorite addition... Clamato) 👉🏼 All if this, plus chips and salsa, for only $7.20 US The restaurant, F.I.S.H., is located in the Golden Zone. The service was excellent and the food and drinks were just what I needed after a long morning of visiting schools and trying to get my temporary residency visa at the local immigration office.  Stay tuned for more reasons why we love Mexico 🇲🇽 

I believe that pictures and videos should be the most important part of your wedding day. Everything else will fade away with time, but photographs allow you to cherish the memories forever and pass preciois heirlooms on to your children. But wedding photography has become so expensive! 10 years ago, we spent $3,000 on our wedding photographer (about 1/3 of our total wedding budget.) Today, packages with well known professional photographers can easily cost upwards of $10,000. And in this digital day and age when everyone has a camera phone, and many of you have professional or prosumer level cameras, it is easy to cut professional photography out of your budget entirely and just rely on well-meaning friends and family to document your most important day. But what if there was another way? Did you know that a huge portion of what you pay for professional wedding photography is attributed to what we in the photo industry call "post-processing"? It's the time us pho...