#HelloJune

Hooray, first week of June. I am so happy you've arrived. Here are the best parts of this month:

Because I am a Gilmore Girls fan - every June 3rd - it makes me wish Luke & Lorelai did get married. That show always makes me smile. Especially if Paris Gellar is involved.

I digress.

Because I live in Central Florida - I can say that June brings daily 3pm monsoon rain storms, the start of hurricane season and since last month - crazy heat temperatures that are simply not cool. See below.*

Saturday is my brother's birthday. I won't be spending it with him but it's fun to celebrate. 

Exercise has become my newest and favorite addiction. The first thing I do when I get home is working out because I love it. I've been working out for months. This month I joined the #5MileChallenge partnered with both SparkPeople & my other favorite certified personal trainer I discovered last year - JessicaSmithTV. Check it out here! :) Her workouts empower me and make me feel drenched with sweat. But after all - one of my favorite quotes of hers - Sweat is our fat crying. 

June 18th - my hubs & I are celebrating 4 years being married with our favorite: 4 Rivers. This is the bees knees of BBQ here in Central Florida. I promise it will make your day. We cannot wait - this is our favorite place to eat. & this year I get to enjoy one of their incredible cupcakes too. Their Bake Shop - a cupcake is not one to eat alone. 

  

At the end of the month, one of my absolute close friends also celebrates her birthday. I haven't seen her since my wedding but I hope I will see her before I have kids ;) She's one of those friends you know you'll have forever. She is full of encouragement and I was blessed to meet her in college. 

In other news - I didn't get my second job at Target. I was bummed for a few days but honestly it wasn't the right timing. I would've been killing myself mentally to make a few extra $$ . Granted this would be going towards my student loans but this really pushed me to have a chat with my boss about finding my next step within the company. After 5 years (in January) I know that this was what God really had planned for me. It's time to do something different and I am on my way :) 

So far, this month has been insightful. I've been working on my goals, both for weight loss and for investing in my home. My 30 is in 4 months and it's all about being my best version. That's my big goal. <3

As always, thank you for stopping by. - The Robinson's.

Farewells, Family & Fresh Perspective.

10pm on Sunday night seems like a perfect time to update life in the Robinson household. Our life has been all over the place for the past couple of months. I guess I should start back in March, it was the week of my husband's birthday when my grandpa got really sick. He'd had issues here and there but he's a fighter. He fought hard, despite what ailments hit him but he w as tired of being sick and not feeling good. 

One of my last memories I (Jess) have with him was holding his hand after he had just woken up, I had taken a sick day to be with family at the hospital because we weren't sure if this was the end. He was with us a few more days but what my Mom and I had hoped would be a fun day over with family, celebrating Pie Day (3/14) was spent in tears, hugging each other and grieving the loss of my grandfather who had passed away that morning. I was so blessed to go to Ohio to see my family after a decade to honor his legacy. {He was in the Marines so while I am glad to have off for Memorial Day, I am thankful for his & many others who fought for our freedom.}

                                                    

                                               

Besides my husband & my cousin's fiance, this is a collective group shot of all the grand-kids with our Grandma after the funeral. We haven't been together in over a decade and I don't often see them except when it's a funeral, sadly. 

Jumping onward + upward, friends. 

My husband celebrated his last birthday in his twenties the day after my grandfather went to be with Jesus. His parents arrived in town that afternoon but I was able to celebrate the early hours with him in the morning/early afternoon. We had our Wawa coffee, and then spent time at Typhoon Lagoon. Here's us together in front of Magic Kingdom, we essentially live there. 

                                          

A month after this, we celebrated our annual Disney cruise - sailing out of Miami which was a first for us. We went to Castaway Cay which I could live here year round if Disney offered me a spot but I couldn't live without our pups. We also went to Key West which I've never been there and it was fun to enjoy authentic Key Lime Pie in the Keys. 

                                                  

                                   

Consider yourself caught up, friends :) Chris and I are continuing our trek of working out and looking good. My 30th is a few short months away and I want to feel my best for a new chapter beginning. The unofficial summer months of Florida have begun unfortunately due to the everyday killer heat, no breeze and 100 daily temps... A/C is my best friend. 

In a couple weeks we're celebrating our 4th wedding anniversary with a nice dinner out and most likely at the parks that weekend. A couple weeks after this, we get to spend time with my in-love's at Disney for a few days. Summer months are birthday central - my MIL's, both my sister's, one of my good friend's -- so this girl will be gettin her shopping fix :) 

In the effort to not bore you with the details - here's hoping my next update next month will not take as long and be as if not more eventful. As always, thank you for stopping by. 

~ The Robinson's 

Dessange Review//Influenster

Hello. All week I've been meaning to pop back in and not be on my unofficial blogging hiatus. I am working on an update post but it just hasn't been finished. Until then, enjoy this review of a Parisian shampoo/conditioner/hair treatment called Dessange that I kind of fell in love with.

Weird, right? How do you fall in love with your shampoo? 

Well. it happens. & it happened to me.

Enter in Influenster. I received the Dessange Oleo Miracle set of shampoo/conditioner/leave in treatment a month ago. This shampoo works on thick hair, y'all. That's a miracle in itself.

I usually didn't have to do much to style it. Sometimes I used my flat iron to make it look even better. & it did. Each time I used it - I got a swarm of compliments and it made my hair, which kind of resembles DeeDee Pickles with the humidity of FL - but it gave me confidence and made me feel like a model.

What is perfect about this shampoo is that it is premium, it's Parisian but while I received it for FREE - you can find it at Target for $10. Compared to other brands I've used like Tea Tree shampoo, Biolage by Matrix- that's a smaller fraction of the cost.

I used to just buy cheapy shampoo but my husband also loves it and supports this indulgence for me.

Try this out!! :)
                                 

I heart you, Ron Swanson.

It is only Wednesday.

& that means since Parks & Rec officially ended last night - I need to remember some of the best GIF's from this show. Fun fact: The theme song from this show was our processional song at our wedding. One of the many things my hubs & I both like :)

Therefore, it's only right that this is my blog post until Saturday. By then, the craziness will have ended at work & I will share our latest Disney adventure! So, stay tuned :) 

Ron Swanson is the bees knees of logic and yet irony. 

Why we plan our A D V E N T U R E S.

To answer this simply, hubs & I are planners.

 From as early as I can remember, I've been the girl who got really excited for 'Back to School' shopping. & not for the reason of school supplies. I did love getting new stuff but my fave part was picking out a cutesy planner for the year. By the end of my semesters in college, I'd legit have like 3-4 planners. Yeah. #awkward - No one needs that many planners! I'd plan to buy more planners. When I met my husband, I am pretty sure he thought intially this weird obsessive planning streak was NOT attractive. ;)

I've been really happily blessed to do life with the man of mine. Our 1st big adventure - I moved from my hometown after graduating college halfway around the world to Kansas, small town life - for him. No regrets - I'd do it again in a heartbeat!! When we first started dating & had a lot more time on our hands - we could afford to do things on a whim. We could take a night at the carnival after our graduate classes ended. We could walk from our apartment to the snow cone shop at the end of the road at 10pm. We bought a car together. We adopted our two dogs together. We made promises to live our lives together, one adventure at a time. Sometimes it feels like our life gets clogged up, midst the dreams to travel, live at Disney ;), and take all of the cruises we find. It really genuinely feels like that at times.

Because our adventures have kind of transformed into other areas of our life - we have mini adventures of sorts: We're both getting fit/healthy so we can start a family. We make our fast passes so we can enjoy our frequent Disney trips without standing in line for 75 minutes. I coupon/use apps and save money while babysitting here & there so to pay down student loan debt. We live pretty frugally for the purpose of paying down loans faster. We take care of our house, inside and out for the idea of having a sanctuary after work - something to be proud of. To really live on the wild side, I keep Groupon and Target on my fingertips to find more date nights/home decor that we love.

We make our vacation plans well in advance for our own reasons. Sometimes we stay up late talking. Regardless of the adventures we want to have, we'll always be planning first. One day the student loans and the mortgage will be paid off, we'll have a family and we'll be parents making decisions to make sure our kids have adventures of their own. But for right now, I am a planner who loves her adventures.

Thanks for stopping by! ~ The Robinsons, xo.

Blog Name change//Valentine's Day weekend edition.

I am still smiling, y'all from the weekend I had.

These last few days I decided I need to change my blog name. When I first started this blog, I liked the combination but for the past few months - I was reminded that I am doing and enjoying life with my hubs. In case he ever decides to hop onto the blogging train, I want him to feel like he can and has a spot to do this. So going forward (until my domain changes), we're now 'Adventures with The Robinson's.' So I hope you'll continue to join us as we keep posting our life together. :) Who knows, maybe I will convince him to share his Disney news on here for those who may love Disney as much as we do? Time will tell.

Onward & upward... 

That also could be from my delish Hazelnut/Mocha coffee from Wawa before work, which is a rare treat. Yesterday, my hubs started his first day at his new role. I am SO blessed we work for the same university and now we'll have a chance to work a tad closer in the same department ;)

But let me slightly back up. 

Saturday morning, my alarm went off at 5:30am - and I excitedly got up. All my training for the past 9 weeks & it was time for my much anticipated race. Wasn't loving the windy 30 degree weather but I was grateful my parents went with me. :)

  

After the race, I got to meet my beautiful niece. She is a week old already. I kept giving her kisses and talking to her, like how cute her big brother is and how truly gorgeous she is. I can't post pictures as this is privacy standard from her parents. But she is absolutely adorable & for this second time aunt - I will be spoiling her like her brother. :)

Fast forward to Saturday evening. My husband & I treat Valentine's Day as a date night, it's not something we celebrate really. But I got each of us one of the $1 chocolate hearts. & a small cookie cake. This year our date night was one of the restaurants at Epcot - Via Napoli. They make the pizza fresh, all of the servers are from Italy and it overlooks the lake on the World Showcase. :)

The last picture is the brick oven they cook all the pizzas in which are all mouths. I couldn't get a clear picture because this restaurant is always busy with servers/guests running around. But it was fun to eat somewhere different for once. :)

Thank you for stopping by!

Five reasons to celebrate {big} this week!

Hey y'all. I've been feeling chatty all day. Probably because we caved into Tijuana Flats Taco Tuesday after work. But this week has just been FANTASTIC for me. I felt like celebrating with y'all whether you read my page often or if it's the first time. (if this is your 1st time stopping by - WELCOME! I am striving to post more content on here more often - I hope you'll stick around for the ride!} I'd love to know what you are celebrating this week!


#1) My niece arrived on Monday morning. My bro & his wife don't post pictures of their kids on social media. So out of respect for what they want - I just have to say she is GORGEOUS! I cannot wait to meet her. They are still working on a name.

#2) In October 2014 - I got into a minor car accident - the jerk decided to fight the ticket and take us to court. Well, today was that day. 2 1/2 hours of my day. He didn't even show up to court and was found guilty. But regardless - we can move on and it's finally outta our lives.

#3) My weight loss has been really well. Jan 5th - I celebrated workiversary but I also stepped back into working out like a step con five intensity and I am a little over a month in & I feel great! This past weekend I stayed true to NOT ordering Girl Scout cookies & I am SO glad that I didn't. I successfully thwarted 3 separate tables of Girl Scouts while I was out grocery shopping & didn't ever entertain the thought of caving. ONCE. That says alot because I <3 Thin Mints. :)

#4) This Saturday - I am running (most of) my first 5K. I've been training weekly for 9 weeks and I feel great. I feel strong. All my life I convinced myself and believed that I couldn't run - excuses, excuses, excuses - come to find out - i LOVE to run. Granted I just run short distances, sometimes longer if I can push myself but I actually really like it!

#5) Tomorrow i get to have girl time with this one. She is moving soon and we've been really close for over 10 years. This will make my second friend to move out west but I am excited for her and the adventures ahead of her. I am so blessed that she was a bridesmaid on my wedding day. & for FaceTime/IG :)

             

As always, thank you for stopping by & I hope the rest of your week/Valentine's Day is lovely just like each of YOU!

~ Jessica