Every night I make time for a little “me time” before bed. I make some tea and put on a podcast like Goop to start to unwind for the night. I’ve loved slowing down and being more intentional with enjoying the little things like washing my face at night instead of rushing rushing rushing. When you experience burnout, you quickly create habits that make you slow down and enjoy the little things. I love to use my new spa headband that I bought in bulk a few months ago to give to my bridesmaids. It was the most popular item in their boxes to ask them to officially be my bridesmaids and those boxes were full of higher-end goodies too! I like to wash my face with a makeup remover like this balm, and then use an acne wash, before using a basic skin cleaner like this one to clean my face. All of this to say, those spa headbands have been a lifesaver!
Once my face is really clean; my makeup is off, exfoliated, and clean, I sit at my vanity and apply retinol. I used to use retinol twice a week but now I use it nightly because before it was for preventative reasons but now my skin really needs it for the benefits! Next is the ELEMIS Superfood Midnight Facial. I’ve been a big fan of ELEMIS in the last few years and the night cream leaves my skin looking smoother and brighter. You know when you see people online with the perfect glowing skin and you wonder how their foreheads can look shiny in a good way? It’s because they use a good night cream and this one gives me hydrated skin that is just glowing when I wake up in the morning. It took using a night cream to understand how important they are in your evening skincare routine and I think I will cry a little tear when I run out of this one!
If I’m honest I have to tell you I still read fairy tales and I like them best of all.
Audrey Hepburn
I am bundled up and enjoying the first snow day in years! With all of the snow and ice this week it’s nice to be able to stay home during this snowstorm and be able to enjoy it from home. It took me a few days to get ready for the new year, but I have finally settled into a routine.
Saltburn
Buccaneers
Real Housewives of Miami
I got a Blendjet for Christmas and it makes my mornings so much easier! I like to prep my smoothie at night and put it in the fridge so I can just grab and go in the morning. My one issue is that it doesn’t blend frozen fruit but I don’t mind prepping a smoothie with frozen fruit at night because by morning it’s melted enough to blend together.
One excited purchase I’m excited about is I signed up for the gym last weekend and I’ve been really committed to it. Picked up these black leggings with gold buttons from Zara and I’m so excited to style these! One great thing about January is the after Christmas sales! We picked up a few ornaments for our tree next year.
Last weekend I did a big grocery trip to set myself up for success this week. I’m back to eating healthy and that means meal prepping! I’ve been eating a salad for lunch and packing pretzelcrips, peppers with hummus. Instead of counting calories, I’m focusing more on healthy meals and healthy snacks during the day so I don’t eat junk food when I’m starving at the end of the day. For dinner, I made taco salads and rice bowls with protein this week and we enjoyed a nice pork tenderloin in the crockpot on Monday. I love using the crockpot but I always forget about it!
Starting to swap out my Christmas decor for hearts and pink!
Finally sitting down and working on my posts about our London trip. It’s nice to go through photos and write about our trip, I’m already planning our next trip back!
One of my favorite things about five-star hotels is the breakfast. For the first time since we got to London, we slept late and then dressed to head down to breakfast. Our only concrete plan for the day was our engagement dinner in the evening so we spent the day as tourists.
We walked through St. James Park to meet up with our friends to say a final goodbye to our friends who were flying back home that afternoon. Jacob had been to London a few years ago and fell in love with Pimms so we got a pitcher to share. St. James Park has a cafe with quick-service food and cocktails. When we ordered Pimms cups for four people, the girl who worked there asked if we would like to order a pitcher instead and Jacob’s eyes lit up when he found out he could order one!
I learned that every park has a little cafe or two and often sell Pimms so we made a deal that if we see one we have to order a Pimms because it’s a drink that is hard to find in the States and is very delicious! From there we made our way to the London Eye to view the city from up high. London weather is very bizarre because it was sunny one minute and then started to rain while we were in line to get on the London Eye. It’s definitely a touristy thing to do but you have to do it at least once.
Jacob chose our hotel because it was in walking distance to Buckingham Palace so we made our way there next! We took the long way to see as much of London as we could.
At this time we were weeks away from the Coronation so streets were starting to get blocked off for the preparations.
We made our way back to the hotel to get ready for our engagement dinner at Petrus, a Gordon Ramsey, Michelin star restaurant. It is a fixed menu that was delicious and a wonderful experience!
Over the last few years, I have been really committed to my skincare, morning and night. Funny how they say it only takes 21 days to make something a habit because that is a true statement when it comes to my skincare routine. Now without much thought, I grab for my skincare products in the morning and can’t go to bed without a few minutes at my vanity to use serums and my night cream.
On our recent weekend trip to New York City, I packed my skincare necessities knowing I wasn’t going to have the time to do a longer skincare routine while on vacation. I still had to pack my night cream and my PUR The Complexion Authority 4-in-1 Cloud Cream for the morning. This cream is unlike anything I ever used before because it starts off with a gel consistency making it easy to apply to your face and neck. Within moments, it transforms to a serum-type consistency and is quickly absorbed by the skin. My face is immediately hydrated and my face looks more plump which is nice during the cold, dryer months of winter. By the time I get my foundation out, my skin is dry enough to apply my foundation without it getting greasy like moisturizers can often be under makeup. I’ve been loving the no-makeup look so with a little bit of my Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter Foundation, the two products easily blend together to cover up any imperfections with enough coverage without looking like I have makeup on.
This cream feels like one of my higher-end products, especially with the high-quality ingredients but is very budget-friendly and can be found at our favorite stores, Target or Ulta. I loved being in our hotel suite in New York City because we would order room service and I would enjoy my second cup of coffee while getting ready in the morning. If only every morning could start off that peaceful!
Day 5 was a day that involved almost every method of transportation to make happen! This was a surprise day that Jacob had planned for us. I had no idea where we were going and the plan was just to follow along to see where we ended up. We had to take a train to Paddington Station to take a train on Great Western Railway, the UK version of Amtrak. We had such great luck our whole time with public transportation until our first train was delayed. Poor Jacob was freaking out the whole time because we were missing our connecting train to get where we needed to go. Finally, after the delay, we got to Paddington Station and took a later train on the Great Western Railway to get where we needed to go. We were supposed to meet up with some friends who would join us on our adventure. They took our original train to the secret destination and we planned to meet up with them when we finally arrived.
Truthfully, I loved every minute of being on the train that took us further out of the city and into the country. I learned later that Jacob was trying to squeeze in a day of going to Bath for a day but we just didn’t have the time. Once again, we had to transfer trains and it took us another hour further out of London making me even more confused where we were going. We then met up with our friends and a private driver picked us up from the train station to take us to our destination. Sounds fancy but there are no Ubers or taxis in the small country town so Jacob arranged for a driver months in advance. A short drive and we arrived at Stourhead…
As a group, we started to tour the grounds and when we turned a corner, we came to the Temple of Apollo. Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books and movies that Jacob and I watched together early on in our relationship. I thought the surprise was that he took me to a filming location of the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie.
However, when we walked around the Temple of Apollo I saw the doors open with a table covered in white tablecloth. A bucket of champagne on ice and red rose petals on the table. The breath literally left my body and I knew what was happening but I could not believe it. Jacob then got on one knee and asked the question I had been wanting to say yes to for a very long time…
Our friends joined us on this day trip because our friend Bekah is a professional photographer so Jacob had paid her ahead of time to capture the moment. I immediately started to cry tears of joy and could barely hear the words Jacob was saying as he was asking me to marry him because I was so overcome with emotions. We had talked about marriage for a long time and the pandemic pushed our timeline back. We decided to wait for the world to open back up to make our engagement and wedding special.
A BIG thank you to the staff at Stourhead for making our special day even more special. Jacob had been exchanging emails with them for months leading up to this day and the staff went above and beyond to make sure every detail was perfect. We had a guide walk around the estate with us to let us into blocked-off areas to take photos and keep other guests on the other side of lawn to make sure we could have the estate to ourselves.
The Stourhead team wrote us a lovely card congratulating us on our engagement!
To make our day more special, Jacob ordered a reprint of the 1894 edition of Pride and Prejudice to gift me to celebrate our special day. I’ve been collecting Jane Austen books for more than a decade now and I am so happy to add this one to our collection.
After we walked around the grounds of the Stourhead National Trust, we met up with our driver to go back to the train station. A few hours later, we got to Paddington Station and this time we could actually walk around it. I was in awe of the public transportation in England and it is so easy to navigate. Couldn’t leave without saying hello to Paddington Bear!
It had been a long day so the four of us went to dinner at Wagamama and I learned that Jacob had planned ahead to schedule our engagement celebration dinner for the next night knowing we would be a lot to fit into one day. The day started off with train delays, pouring rain midday and I wouldn’t change a thing! I’m so happy we got to experience this day with our friends and we are engaged!
Jacob had one last surprise for us planned. We had checked out of our hotel that morning and left our luggage at the front desk. What I didn’t know is that he had booked us a suite at the Royal Horseguards Hotel right on the River Thames.
Our alarms went off very early that Monday morning because we had tickets to the Harry Potter Studios. Even though it is called the Harry Potter Studios London, it is not in London. Luckily, there are many ways to get there from London such as a bus, train, or Uber. We took an Uber from our hotel so we didn’t have to worry about travel logistics, but you can learn more about transportation to the Studios here.
When you first walk in, it’s just as magical as you think it is going to be. They invested so much time and energy to make every part of the lobby magical. We got there early to eat at the Studios before we started the official tour. We got tickets for the Afternoon Tea and I highly recommend splurging and getting the champagne add-on! The Afternoon Tea is set up next to the food court and designed to feel like you are at a little restaurant in Hogsmeade. No detail is overlooked from the food to the cauldron of sugar cubes! I found it to be worth the money and we left very full!
After tea, we then went through the doors to start the tour. I won’t give too much away but you start off in the Great Hall set and I was blown away by how big and magical it felt the minute we walked through the doors. The Hall had movie props set up and it really felt like we were at Hogwarts. The floors are the original stone from the first movie and were chosen so the stone would naturally age over time as they continued to film.
The Tour is designed so that you can walk through the rooms of sets and props at your own pace. There are areas with demonstrations to learn how they created magic in the films like the letters through the mail slot in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Halfway through the tour, there is a quick-service cafe to grab lunch and some butterbeer! The cafe patio lets out to the back lot where you can walk through 4 Privet Drive. There are also great photo opportunities in front of the Knight Bus and the Greenhouse sets before heading back inside for the second half of the studio tour. There really is so much to look at and it could take you days to see everything!
There is a great gift shop at the Hogwarts Express that has one-of-a-kind merchandise I haven’t seen before!
Walk through Diagon Alley that looks just like the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios. I seriously could not tell the difference between the two! The last stop is Ollivanders before you walk into a very large multi-room gift shop!
After the tour, we headed back to the food hall to grab dinner before taking an Uber back to our hotel. We found it hard to go back to our hotel and leave the magic behind!
Blonde Rosie Blog 