Shindig Weekend

A weekend getaway was much needed, and it was a weekend that I had been looking so forward to for Months. The weekend of Billy Reid's Shindig No. 10 was one for the books!

[photocred:Billy Reid]]

Aaron and I hit the road last Friday, calling our weekend a little early! We made the two hour drive to a place that holds a huge place in my creative heart...Florence, Alabama. 

FIRST STOP: STAY BOLD CUSTOM TATTOOS

I finallyyyyyy started something on my arm that I've wanted to do for so so long. I have been patient, waited it out to see if it was just a "phase" of life. But after nearly a decade of still wanting it, I think its safe to say it wasn't just a phase in life. So I decided to go for it! Here's a little peek at it. Matt Green is AWESOME and I'm so so glad I waited patiently and went to him! His design on my arm far exceeded what I had envisioned and the bright colors are just so incredible. 

SECOND STOP: THE ADAM'S HOUSE

 You guys, these people are my family, maybe not by blood, but truly by the blessing of God!!! It blows my mind that I went into my 20's not having these people in my life. Either way, I am so glad God put them in my life and they will forever be now!! This was Aaron's first time going to Mary Mac and Mr. Gary's house. If you don't know who these people are, let me explain briefly. In 2012 (I think) I got a great job offer in Florence, AL thanks to the work of my BFF, Frances. At the time, I lived in Birmingham. This family welcomed me into their home, no questions asked and let me live with them for as long as I wanted! They are the most welcoming people that I have ever known. When you walk into their home, you immediately feel like its your home and you've known them for your entire life. They are just so genuine and caring! It was soooo good to be at my Home away from Home :)

THIRD STOP: COFFEE WITH THE BESTIE

When France and I worked together, we made it somewhat of a habit to take an late morning walk from work to the local coffee shop, Rivertown. So we set out to do just that. We made a few stops on the way such as to Cotton & Ivy as well as to Mefford's! We met our sweet friend Adrianne for coffee and a sweet snack at (a new to me) Turbo. Mmmmm, y'all. This place was soooooo good and it connects to the oh so beautiful GunRunner Boutique Hotel.

Florence just overflows with Creativity and I feel so refreshed every single time I leave there. The most creative I ever felt was when I lived there. It's crazy how being around other creatives really challenges you!

Spending good quality time with my gal Frances always does this heart of mine good.

FOURTH STOP:

Shoals Theater for the Amazingly talented and beautiful Kacey Musgraves!

Such an amazing night. We cannot wait to see her again in March!!

We spent the rest of the weekend drinking coffee and spending time with the whole Adam's and Ledgewood Clans, showing Aaron around UNA and just getting some good quality time adventuring.  

This whole little weekend getaway was so much fun and I'm so glad we were able to go! 

The streets of downtown Florence are just lined with amazing little shops that have been formed by people with vision, drive and dreams. If you've never been, I highly recommend it! If you ever want to plan a trip to the amazing town of Florence, Please do not hesitate to shoot me an email if you need suggestions or help planning!

XO

[[all images by Brianna, otherwise noted]]

One Year Anniversary

Hi Loves!! Thanks for stopping by again. 

Aaron and I sadly spent our One Year Anniversary 7,584 miles away from each other. It's really not the way you always imagine spending that first big milestone together, however when you marry someone in the military thats just something that becomes part of your life and you make the best of every single situation like this. Missing something like this was not the first time and will definitely not be the last time this happens in our remaining time as a military family. Also during this time was when my precious Meme was coming to the end of her long long battle with cancer. It was a hard time, but my family helped me through it. 

Aaron and I had been looking so forward to celebrating our One Year Anniversary TOGETHER for a loooonnnnggggg time and a vacation was much needed and much MUCH deserved for the both of us! Time together, focusing on us, was what we couldn't wait to do. 

To celebrate we went on a cruise to some breathtaking destinations. My family has always taken cruises for as long as I can remember. We absolutely love them and in all honesty think they are the best way to travel. For our anniversary, we decided to go on the Carnival Dream because of the one stop it was making in Belize! This was my 2nd time on the Dream and I honestly cannot get enough of this ship! It's one of my all time favorites. Here's why... 

I spent the end of December 2015 on this ship. My family and I welcomed in the New Year of 2016 on the Dream. When you go on a New Years Cruise, they give you little pieces of paper for you to write your resolution/wish on. You then put it in a balloon and at midnight they drop them from the atrium ceiling. It's soooooo much fun!! Best way to spend New Years for sure! Anyway, in my balloon that year, I wished that Aaron and I would be engaged by the end of 2016 and sure enough we were! BEST YEAR EVER (Until our wedding year of course!) So to say the Dream holds a special place in my heart is somewhat of an understatement. I LOVE this ship...FOREVER!

 To start out our trip, first, we spent two days eating and exploring all of the historical New Orleans, Louisiana. This was the hubs first time in Nola and I think we did a good job of exploring different types of areas to really give him the true New Orleans feel! Our New Orleans experience will be all in a post itself filled with suggestions and stops that we made that we would one thousand percent recommend. 

Now let's get to this amazing cruise time!! Our first day was spent at Sea. These sea days are incredibly fun. There are a billion different things to fill your day with. We spent the day in the sun, exploring the ship, taking tours of the spa, sipping on tropical drinks and eating soooo much good food. 

PORT ONE: COSTA MAYA, MEXICO

At this port, we spent the day learning to make fresh salsas, delicious guacamole and addicting blue margaritas. We also learned how to Salsa Dance!!! SO MUCH FREAKING FUN! After we salsa'd for a bit, then came the tequila tasting. Obviously, this was Aarons favorite part. We came home with new recipes, new dance moves and two authentic and expensive bottles of Tequila. 

PORT TWO: Mohagany Bay, Roatan Isle in the beautiful ROMANIA

I must go back here as soon as my little tush can. I totally fell in love. The water was breathtaking and the lush green was everything my island heart desires. You all know my love for island life is still flourishing strong over here!! We spent the day on a private island called Little French Key. It was amazing, the beautiful sun was out and we spent most of the day sipping on drinks and playing with exotic animals. You guys, I held and played with a Baby Jaguar!! Life. Complete.... We also played with sweet monkeys and tigers.

PORT THREE: BELIZE

In Belize, we decided we actually want to take an entire trip just to Belize. A lot of these excursions we considered doing took a little bit of time to actually travel to once you got to the port so we didn't want to spend a lot of our day in a bus. So instead, we decided have ourselves a little couples Spa day at the Cloud 9 Spa on the ship! It was soooooooo good and much much needed. We had ourselves a 75 minute Swedish couples massage and then spent some time in the Aroma Steam Room relaxing and really pampering our bodies. So worth spending a day on the ship for! We did take a charter from the boat to the port in Belize and we ate at a little place at the port. I also got my hair braided by the locals! 

PORT FOUR: COZUMEL, MEXICO

I've been to Cozumel a handful of times thanks to my parents and my amazing grandparents who have always taken us on amazing adventures together. I love Cozumel and could never get enough of it. In Cozumel, we had reservations at the incredible Mr. Sanchos!! I will sing this excursions praises foreverrrrrrrr. This was one of the best things I have ever done in Cozumel. We usually do a Jeep tour because we are huge Jeepers but, this time we decided to mix it up and I am so glad we did. We had a private and very large cabana all to ourselves. This place was all inclusive food and drinks for the entire day. We relaxed a lot, walked on the beautiful beach, used the swim up bar at the pool (LOVED), ate authentic Mexican foods and we each had an Aroma Therapy Massage. 

The last day of our cruise was another sea day where we spent a lot of the day watching different contests throughout the ship. We tried our luck at Bingo and the slot machines and have come to the conclusion that we just aren't very lucky people. I could type and type and type about cruising in general, so I have decided to also make this a post on its own as well. So stay tuned for that!! I will tell you all about the details of what its like to live on a ship for a week, the dos and don'ts of packing and much much more!

I hope you've enjoyed a peek into our Anniversary Getaway! As always, thanks so much for reading!

XO

P.S. If you've never been on a cruise, TRY IT! If need help planning or don't know where to start, email me, text me, message me ASAP and I will be more than happy to help you plan yours!

Redirection

Itsy Bitsy Brianna Blog was a gigantic part of my life for seven wonderful years. After dedicating so much time to it, continuing to work full time, planning a wedding and trying to simply do life, I got a tad bit burned out with trying to continue my little space here in the blog world. So without any sort of announcement, I decided to step away from the blog world until I could redirect my entire life. When life throws you crazy curve balls, sometimes it takes a while to regain your footing and to figure out exactly where life is taking you and thats exactly what happened to me. 

2015 to 2017 were years of searching for me. Yes, some HUGE things happened to me between those years. I met the love of my life, got engaged, and married. All incredible things that I tried to document as much as I could. However there were moments in those same years that really took a toll on the direction in my life. I took a job working that was insanely taxing on me mentally and physically. I truly believe everything happens for a reason and although I was miserable in that season of my "career" I did learn a lot about myself and how much I am actually capable of accomplishing on my own. I also learned how much I can tolerate when other people simply abuse your talents and work ethic and completely take you for granted. I also learned that I will never ever find myself in the position of letting another human treat me that way again. This job was horrible, yet a huge lesson and turning point in my life. This was when my blogging life really got put on the back burner and I just couldn't find any drive or energy to continue doing it. 

Through all of that in 2017,  I finally worked up the courage to say I didn't deserve to live life so exhausted from a job and boss that wasn't worth an ounce of my energy, talent and time. I walked away from that environment and took any job I could find just to get away. This led me to many different happy places in life! I learned I have a gigantic love and passion for animals. I always knew I loved them, I just never knew to what extent.  In the past year I have worked and volunteered at a rescue where I really fell in love with capturing animals through my photography. Because of this, I still volunteer my time and talent to the Wags N Whiskers Rescue!!

At the end of 2017, an amazing opening became available working for one of the BEST photographers in the south. It was the same industry I had previously found myself ONE THOUSAND PERCENT miserable in. I was terrified this experience would end up the same as the last one where I was literally pushed to my limit day in and day out and just completely taken advantage of. It was scary. However, thanks to my husband, I realized it was worth the risk and in all honesty, there was no possible way it could be any worse than the previous situation. So, still reluctant, I applied and got an interview. After the interview I knew, this experience in this type of industry would be nothing like my first experience!! Thankfully I got the job and working for Matt has been a huge blessing in my families life. I now look forward to going to work and have that passion for work back that I had previously lost. It feels so good to feel like ME again! I am so so so thankful for the chance Matt took on hiring me and am so thankful for the changes its made in me as a person...I'm sure my husband is thankful too ;)

I say all of this to simply catch you up on life and give you a little bit of an insight to why my blog went on a little bit of a hiatus for almost an entire year. I also have found myself in a place where I am excited to get back to my little space here on the internet!!! I have taken some time to think about my little blog here and the direction I'd like it to go in. I plan on posting at least twice a week and the posts will be focused around my life as an Air Force Wife, Fur Momma and Photographer! 

Thanks for reading and I hope you all are as excited as I am about me finally being back here at Itsy Bitsy Brianna. Stay tuned for more posts soon!! 

XO

A Little Bit of a Catch up!

Hi its been MONTHS since I've blogged which honestly breaks my heart. But wow, life has been insane lately. Let me begin on what all has changed since April! GAH, I'm so embarrassed that the last time I blogged was APRIL! Thats crazy. Time surely just zooms by. 

So here's what has happened...

Summer time was FUN! super busy.

First of all, in MAY, my husband finally encouraged me enough to start my own photography business. If you don't know, I have worked in photography for over TWELVE years! {That will be a blog post all on its own}

Since May, I've had a SHOCKING amount of sessions. Our business seriously took off very quickly and we were very shocked by that. We were not expecting to have the amazing start that we have. I'm super thankful for it and I have loved every single solitary second of it and we pray that it continues to grow like it has from the beginning! 

www.shutterphotography.net

Here are a few photos from a few sessions we've had so far!

Goodness, I could post and post and post more photos! I honestly cannot believe the start we've had. So our business was started due to our love for pets.When we lost our big boy Bailey, we realized we only had ONE good quality (non-iPhone) photo of him. So we realized the HUGE importance of having amazing high quality images of those sweet fur babies that truly become part of our family.

 I absolutely ADORE animals. They are honestly my life. I want to be KNOWN as a PET Photographer! Our website is also geared toward kiddos, (we love toddler aged kiddos...soooo much fun!) But since we started, I've had sessions that are outside of that Pet Portrait and Kiddo genre and we are absolutely fine with that. We've had maternity sessions, newborn sessions,  1 year Cake Smash session and senior sessions! It has been a BLAST and we can't get enough of working hard on our business. 

On top of running our photography business, I also work with animals daily and let me tell you it makes my heart so happy. Dogs are the BEST! They seriously add so much joy to this life it honestly makes me tear up sometimes thinking about it. {I know some people think thats crazy (AKA my mom haha!), but if you know me, you know I just have a very deep passion and love for them.}

So working nearly two full time jobs is  A LOT! So this is basically the reason why I haven't had any extra time for blogging. I will do my best to start doing better!

So since May, Aaron and I have been working non-stop. We also added a new family member to our sweet little fam. Introducing BAYOR GOAT, everyone! 

Baylor was a wee 10 weeks when we got him. He is now 15 weeks old and is growing at a rapid speed. He's going to be tall and lean! We LOVE Poodles and are sooo happy to have a Standard Poodle in our home! We could never replace our Bailey, but it feels complete again having TWO doggies in our home! 

Up next on the Evans' calendar are LOADS of more sessions, especially for the Holidays coming up. We have a fall event we are doing for the Wags N' Whiskers Rescue. The Husband deploys at the beginning of the year (BARF, freakin dread it!) and as far as the remainder of 2017, we have some fun weekend trips planned, a Foo Fighters concert to attend (for Aarons Bday),  some JEEP alterations to save money for, a 1983 Custom Deluxe to restore, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years to FINALLY enjoy together (since the hub was deployed during those holidays last year). And who knows what else Aaron and I will get into! 

So there's a little catchup on our life so far. Have a wonderful Tuesday <3

XO

bB***